I, of course had been cruising Pinterest since before Z was even born looking for ideas. But simple was the name of the game, and the focus was on great food (the Hubs made delicious fish tacos) and the most important birthday element: cake!
I love cake. Love it. And I love to bake it, especially for birthdays. I made two cakes, one for Z as her smash cake, and one for the rest of us to enjoy. In true form since having Z a year ago, I half-assed the cakes. I usually bake cakes from scratch, but this time, I doctored up white cake box mix and made scratch buttercream frosting, but only because I already had the ingredients, it's pretty easy, and Publix buttercream ain't free. Plus, as good as Publix buttercream is (y'all know I love it!), mine is actually better. Just sayin'. I also had fun creating the yellow ombre look, and I think it turned out pretty great.
Z loves balloons, so naturally I had envisioned tons of yellow and aqua balloons. But since I drive a VW Rabbit with a carseat taking up half the backseat, I knew there was a limit to my balloon dreams. Z and I hauled our cookies down to the party store where the girl filled our balloons (including a super awesome giant mylar "1" balloon), I somehow got them into my car on the windiest day of the year while holding a squirmy one-year-old, and wouldn't ya know, more than half of them were deflated 24 hours later. Boo.
But someone didn't seem to mind. (She's still playing with the balloons a week and a half later!) I ended up tying them to the chandelier, which looked pretty cute. Win!
The last part of the decor (and my favorite part) was Z's tutu. I found a super easy tutorial and was able to create cuteness during an episode of Teen Mom 2 (oh, you know you watch it, too!). With a t-shirt and leggings we already had and a coupon for Joann for the tulle, her birthday outfit cost less than $20! Not bad, if I do say so myself. I had been eyeing some adorable birthday outfits on Etsy for triple that.
Cake time!! We weren't quite sure how Z would react to her very first cake. Would she face plant, would she make a huge mess, or would the cake scare the shit out of her, sending her into tears? I knew that no matter which scenario went down, it would make for great pics!
I just wasn't expecting her to be so...confused.
Even after a little taste...
the Hubs had to help her out. I don't know if I thought it would be instinct (I mean, isn't a great love of cake written on the DNA?), or what, but I just wasn't expecting her to be so mellow about the whole thing.
Once she got going, she had a ball, and even enjoyed a few fistfuls of deliciousness.
It wasn't the epic mess we had expected, but she had so much fun pulverizing her cake.
After a quick bath, it was time for presents. Since Christmas wasn't that long ago, we asked the grandparents to please give Baby Tuna books instead of toys. Maybe it's the teacher in me, but you can never have too many books. Z loves loves loves her books and "reads" and chews them constantly, and now she has so many new ones to enjoy.
Although there were a few things that didn't quite materialize, the day was absolutely perfect. I'm still shocked that a whole year has gone by, and i'm already looking for ideas for birthday number two!
And thank you to all of you for the sweet birthday wishes for Zoey!
**Please do not pin any photos of Zoey. Thank you!**
It was delicious! I loved the look of the decor, but my favorite was the tutu! Very professional and suited Z to a T!!
ReplyDeleteWell done and best of all, Z had lots of fun! So did the grandparents. Great photos, too!