Evan's first birthday party--Part 2

I had planned to do most of the decorating, food prep, and pick up the cake and some helium balloons during Evan's morning nap prior to his party.  However, this is where things deviated from my plan.  Evan didn't want to take a nap!  John had first tried to put him down to no avail, so then I went up and tried to nurse him to sleep, and that didn't even work.  I sat up in his room with him for about an hour, before finally calling the nap off, at which time it was about 10 minutes before the party started, and Evan needed changed into his party outfit and I needed to finish decorating!

Luckily my family (and good friend Kiera who had come all the way from Nebraska for Evan's party) helped get the decorations up while I was with Evan and, even as guests started to arrive, they helped me get the food set out.  John picked up the cake and we forewent the balloons.  So, while the party was ready to start, I was really worried that my unrested baby boy would not enjoy his first party at all and be super cranky.  Mostly because I wasn't sure how he'd handle all the people around, especially without having napped.

Let the party begin...


The first hour of the party was mostly for the adults to snack, and for us to feed Evan his solid food lunch.  He was a little cranky at first, but after getting some lunch Evan did miraculously well for the rest of the party!  After we all ate some food, Evan got to open presents.  He seemed to really enjoy it, and even liked the audience.  At one point, he made a "ha ha" laugh sound that he does sometimes (usually he's probably copying one of us laughing) and that made the whole room laugh at him, to which he did it again and then was again followed by a roomful of laughter.  He was definitely the star of the show.  During presents, I sat behind Evan helping him open the gifts and read the cards.  At one point he squatted down in front of me, facing everyone else, and I suddenly could tell there was something funny going on with the laughter that erupted.  Little Evan decided it was time for a number two, and by the strained look on his face everyone at his party knew it (sorry no photo of that)!

So we took a diaper change break, and then finished presents a few moments later.  After presents we did cake.  This was the moment I had been waiting for, as well as all of his cousins.  Tae, in particular, kept chanting for Evan to really smash it.  I had no idea how much of a mess he'd make, and so we laid out a disposable party table cloth on the floor below his highchair just in case.

As I carried his cake to him, everyone sang "Happy Birthday", but before it got to his tray the lit "1" candle blew out.  So we lit it again once it was on the highchair tray so that John and I could blow it out for him, and almost immediately Evan was reaching for the cake.  He carefully drug his finger through the frosting and tasted it.  And then went back for more.  He seemed to do it so gently though.  I have seen some babies who almost face plant in the cake, but Evan was being really quite clean.

 

(We managed to get a party hat on him for a split second before he got mad about it...long enough for one picture at least!)

It wasn't until he got into the colored frosting (from the butterfly on top of the cake) that things got messier.  At one point, his cousin Donovan got a little too close and Evan flicked some of the frosting onto Donovan's face.

Once Evan got through some frosting he tried a bit of cake (it was chocolate, even though I had ordered white), but I don't think he cared for it too much.  In fact, he seemed to act full after awhile and thus was nearly ready to push the cake off the tray, but I was unwilling to see it completely destroyed (it looked too yummy for that to happen!).  Thus, we concluded the cake smash portion of the party, bid all of the guests farewell (sending them with a lollipop butterfly), and got Evan immediately into the tub for a quick bath to wash him off.  After all of that, Evan went down very easily for a nap, and slept for a good two hours.

 

While things didn't start out as I had hoped, everything really turned out better than I could have hoped for.  And it went so fast!  I ended up leaving up some of the party decorations for a few days just to linger in the moment longer, as I couldn't believe the day that I had been planning for and dreaming of had come and gone so quickly.  At least I still had a few weeks more to bask in the fact that Evan wasn't quite one yet, but the real birthday is now coming up very soon (as in tomorrow!!!)!

**Thanks to Jessica for taking all these wonderful photos of Evan's party!