It's PARTY time!!!

I debated James' 1st birthday party for a long time...

How many guests?  A meal or dessert?  Time to have it?  Theme or no theme?  And of course all on a budget!!

I am 100% sure I drove my husband nuts with how many times I changed my mind...although he is probably getting pretty used to it by now!  

So the final decision...an open house at our home from 2-4pm with dessert only and a Thomas theme...and the guest list finally had to stop at 75!!  Since people are more important to us than anything I opted for more people and less of a party!  And the People made the party AMAZING!!!  We also asked for no gifts (if they couldn't celebrate without a gift we asked them to consider his college fund).  Of course, he still got gifts and very generous donations to his college fund!

The morning of the party I baked 100 cupcakes, 48 brownie cupcakes, and 48 chocolate chip cookies!  It was a little stressful toward the end, but completely worth it and completely worth the money we saved by doing the baking myself!

Every month I take James' photo in my Grams' chair so all of the monthly photos were displayed for all to see how much he has changed!

Grandpa and Mimi got his this tricycle...I love the way he is looking at Daddy here! 

James had some of HIS friends over too!  He and Declan had lots of fun with the outside toys once the party thinned out!  Leah (Declan's Mama) and I grew up across the street from eachother.  We are 6 months apart and our boys are 4 months apart!  We hope they will be lifelong friends too!

 

 

We didn't get hardly enough photos of the day!  James had tons more family and friends over to visit and celebrate his birthday!!  The final guest count was 55!

Thank you all for love, support and generosity to our precious baby TODDLER!!!!

Our little family

We had our family photos taken by our new family photographer, Abby!!  Check out her facebook page here!

 

We will forever cherish these photos!  Thank you Abby!

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY JAMES!

Happy Birthday to our sweet, joyful, social, energetic little boy!!  We are so blessed to be your parents!!

Every month I have taken James' photo in this rocker that used to belong to my Grams.  I love seeing how much he grows each month.  Here is James at 1 month and 1 year...what a difference!! He has blossomed into such an amazing little boy!

 

I wanted to have some simple traditions for birthdays to make the day special for him, but not break the bank!  We started off the morning with Mama singing Happy Birthday to wake him up!!  Then in order to get out of his room he had to break through the streamers.  This year could be pretty, but next year and for years to come I'm sure the crepe paper is going to get much more intense and crazy looking!  He was much more excited about the balloons and only walked through the streamers to get one of the balloons that had popped!

James' birthday fell on a Tuesday this year so Mama and Daddy had to work.  James took cupcakes to all his friends at daycare!  They let him do a smash cupcake...since Mama wasn't at all interested in cleaning up the mess and they insisted it had to be done!  On Monday daycare had a "Last Blast" celebration to end the summer...which I'm going to pretend was a birthday party with all his friends!!!!


Once we got home it was time to CELEBRATE!!!!  Grandma and Grandpa Toole came over with dinner!!  Praise God for my mother-in-law!!  She is a Godsend!!  This is when they gave James his present (we asked for no gifts at his upcoming birthday party so they came early).  James LOVES his wagon!  Every time he sees it he points to it and wants to go for a ride! 

 

At 6:12pm James was officially 1 year old and got his birthday spankings!!!

After dinner we went for ice cream at a local coffee house!  James got to sample all of our ice cream choices as he made his rounds!  He mostly like playing in Grandma's cup!

We opted not to get James a gift for his first birthday, but instead spend it together!  To be honest I haven't bought him a single gift since he was born...I may have bought little things as he needed them, but we're letting all his amazing grandparents, aunts and uncles do the spoiling for now! 

We did make a special purchase in honor of his first birthday!  This birthday plate will become a tradition in our family for many years to come! I am obsessed with plates and birthdays so this was really kinda for Mama!

 

All in all I would have to say it was a GREAT 1st Birthday for Jamers!!  We made the day special for him without making it all about gifts and money.  We want to instill in him that people are far more important than anything we can buy...I know this will one day be a battle, but it's one that's worth picking.

Thank you all for your love and support to our little family for James' first year!  We love you all!