The Party! Part Four

The After party.  Here's a few pictures of us with Chase after the big party was over.  Catching our breath.  Tired as could be!

He really wanted my camera and just hated when I told him no!

About 10 minutes from being in dream land!

The Party! Part Three

This post is all about our guests and gifts!

We had a small little party for Chase even though it seemed like a ton of people to me.  This is only like the second time I've had this many people over to my house and I think it broke the capacity record so needless to say, I was overwhelmed!  It was hard being the mommy and a host and the official photographer.  I didn't do the best job taking pictures of all our guests like I had originally planned, but maybe I can do that better some other year!  Guests, please send me cute pictures of yourselves with Chase if you have them to jennweezdrew@gmail.com.

I did get pictures of Walter and his parents.  Isn't he just the most photogenic baby ever?  Walt, I can't wait til it's your turn in 5 1/2 months!

Here's are a few of the pictures I could get of the cousins.  Parker is a pro at birthday parties now.  He knows the order of parties and he was always one step ahead of me.  Food! Toys! Cake! Presents! Play! He kept me on schedule!  I love these pictures of Gray because since he is 50 weeks older than Chase, I can always imagine what Chase will be doing next year.  Is that a fork in your hand??  What???  Amazing!

Present time!  Here is where I think any control of the party I had remaining went totally out the window!  Chase paid attention through the first present and then he spent the rest of the time pushing the box of the first present around the room.  Here are some highlights (I don't think these are in any particular order).

I think as Auburn parents we have failed since he has a State jersey before an Auburn one! :)

These two pictures pretty much sum up the chaos!

I love this picture because whenever I looked over at Chase during present time, he always had a big smile on his face.  He had a BALL!

Then Chase got a wagon from Nini and Papa.  We of course had to torture Weez (because she hadn't been through enough this week).

Then folks took turns riding with the birthday boy!

The boy is loved!

The Party! Part Two

This post is all about my favorite part of first birthday parties - the birthday boy eating the CAKE!  First I was a little amazed by the fact that he kept his party hat on the whole time.  I was totally not expecting that at all! 

He loved the cake which I fully expected since he loves all baked goods - cookies, crackers, Sister Schubert rolls, pancakes, etc.  He started out a little slow on the icing.  I think he was just more curious about what this thing was in front of him.  Once he gave it a few licks though, he started going for it a little more.  He really started to love it though when he broke through the icing and got to the good part - the cake!  I think by the end of it, he probably ate about 75% of the cake.  We were surprised by how clean his face was at the end.  He gets FAR messier just eating cereal and sweet pototoes!

This licking of his hands is a relatively new thing he's doing now.  It makes me laugh everytime I see it!

Yay!  That was yummy!

The Party! Part One

Chase's birthday party was so much fun!  In many ways, it reminded me of my wedding day.  I spent months and months planning for it but as soon as the moment arrives you lose all control and you just go with the flow; I had a lot of fun, but I had no real recollection of any conversations I had because it seemed like I was just floating throughout the day in someone else's body; at some point during both days I frantically said to my mom "we have nothing to cut the cake!"; and I was too busy to eat anything all day except for cake (which also happened to be made by the daughter of my wedding cake lady!).  But with all of that said, I left the days with some fun memories and great pictures!

Because I have lots of pictures, I'm breaking this up into several different posts.  The remainder of this post will be about the party theme and decorations.

The party theme was Monkeys and Polka Dots with a blue and brown color theme.  I figured I could only get away with a polka dot party when Chase was really young!

Here's a picture of the invitations (with the confidential information omitted).

This is my craft project I had been working on all month!  I love the way it turned out.  I think I'm going to keep it in Chase's room for a little while.

Here's the main party table.  Our menu was sliders, chips, and fruit kabobs.  If you ever want to hear a long, uninteresting story, let us tell you about the search for the slider buns that we drove all over town for!

This was another craft project I started on a week before the party.  This one took no time compared to the big birthday banner.  I love how this one turned out too!