John's First Birthday Party!

We have the book "On the Night You Were Born" memorized.  It's such a sweet story about the grander and the merriment of the miraculous night that a child is brought into this world.  It reminds me so much of the way we like to celebrate things- with excitement and a lot of people included in just that.  So I thought it would be the perfect theme for John's first birthday party.

We decorated the house with stars and moons and ladybugs and polar bears and we had a cake made that stole the show.  It featured all of the favorite characters from the book and had the words from the last page, "Heaven blew every trumpet and played every horn on the wonderful, magical night you were born" written on it.  We also had a "smash" cake for John that looked like the book and had the words from the first page written on it.  And there were cupcakes with ladybugs and ducks.  And of course, there were a lot of pictures of John scattered about.

Friends and family came from near and far to celebrate our sweet John-John.  It was a wonderful celebration.  He liked walking around the party holding onto peoples hands, playing with some of his buddies in the yard (after the rain stopped) but wasn't so sure about everyone staring at him, blowing horns and singing in his face.  :)  We'll give him a couple years.  :)

After cake, each person got a balloon and released them together to make a wish.  We released balloons when we found out that we were going to have a boy, so we thought we'd care on the theme.

It was a fun party that lasted well into the evening, hours after John was already tucked snuggly into his bed.  I hope someday he looks back at the pictures and feels all the love that everyone was giving him that day.  He is so loved.