Maggie’s First Birthday Party

Throughout most of Maggie’s first year of life, I had this nagging feeling that Maggie’s first birthday party was supposed to be a huge deal: lots of friends, lots of decorations, lots of fuss. I had seen gorgeous pictures of other friends’ parties for their children, and I had started feeling the weight of making that happen for Maggie’s big day at the end of February.

But, once Christmas came and went, I was feeling a little fatigue and began picturing the logistics of a large party. After considering everything and weighing my guilt (which I decided to work on in the Year 2013), we made an executive decision to have a very small party with just immediate family, and we all couldn’t be happier! Maggie especially… it was a fun afternoon of new toys, yummy BBQ, and delicious cake and desserts!

My original theme was to do a Monkey party (with a Pinterest board of inspiration and all!), but I ended up doing only a banner of bananas plus a table full of pictures and other monkey items. We also had banana pudding (thanks to JD’s mom) and Monkey Bread.

Best of all, we had a special cake made from an old college friend, Alex, from Sweet Betweens. Maggie had her own banana cake, made especially for her sensitive baby stomach! Alex was awesome and did everything to accommodate our requests. And, Maggie LOVED her cake. When presented with her very own cake, she delicately picked at it, but ate quite a bit over about a half an hour! She enjoyed being somewhat clean with her eating, but we could tell she loved eating. It was so sweet, since we haven’t really given her much sugar at all since she started eating solid food.

Overall, it was a wonderful day filled with our loving family around our favorite girl. I’m so glad I didn’t let the crazy expectations of a big first birthday party get in the way of the fun.