the big ONE.

hard to believe, but little pringle is one year old. it has been a crazy wonderful year. and of course the big question was, to have a party or not? we all know he ain't going to remember any of it, nor will he understand what is happening, but we will. so we had a party.

the beginnings of a banner

we wanted to keep it small and simple, but i am me and simple is NOT in my dna. simple design, yes. simple projects, nope. my brain went into overdrive figuring out exactly how to transform our building's blah blah blah community room into the perfect spot for a first birthday party.

the community room. oy vey.

i painted some lovely banners, the mister created gads and gads of strings with colorful squares, we sewed some monster party favors, and we made paper stars and paper chains. we happily, the end result was dreamy.

the mister and his helper making wall coverings.

yummy.

the food corner.

i love this wall, sigh.

and then there was the cake. naturally i consulted the internet, but what i found was ridiculously intimidating. there are some seriously overachieving parents out there!!! i am not, nor have i ever been, known for my baking, so trying to make a dump truck sculpture with cake was definitely beyond my skill level. but i still wanted it to be special. i had it in my head that i would make the entire thing from scratch...cake AND frosting. of course, my kitchen is not equipped with any type of electrified mixer and apparently these gadgets make the process a whole lot easier. right. oh well. i decided to make a "trial" cake for our little family-of-three celebration that we had on the little guy's actual birthday. the cake was bright green. delicious, but seriously crumbly. the frosting took three tries. the final version was chocolately goodness, but hard. of course, pringle was delighted with the result. in fact, he got upset when we took it away. 

numero uno.

even though it was yummy, the mister and i decided that the cake for the party needed some improvements. enter betty crocker. in the end i made a four-layer cake, with blue and green layers. and white frosting with orange decorations. the design was simple, simple, simple, and it turned out sooooooooooooo pretty. so so pretty. i kept opening the fridge to look at it, because i was so surprised that it turned out so glorious. and the taste..well, betty crocker did a fabulous job, so the cake was scrumptious. and did i mention it was pretty? it was.

i adore this cake. it makes me giddy.

staring down the cake.

monster party favors!!

all in all, it was a delightful party. and pringle had super much fun.

the birthday boy.