James' Birthday and Party

For James' actual birthday on September 16th, James woke up and we opened some presents and cards that he had received in the mail. My dad was able to visit for a little while in the morning before going to work later and we had a yummy birthday breakfast with James. After James' morning nap, Uncle Joe and Aunt Ernie came by with a variety of delicious food for lunch. Aunt Ernie was sure to get James some noodles because in Filipino culture eating long noodles on your birthday is kind of like a birthday wish for a long life. Later in the day, Brenden, my dad, my mom, James and I all went to James' favorite restaurant for dinner- Gorditas. James is a HUGE fan of Mexican food. Lastly we went to my parents' for some cake and cookies. Obviously, in my family we celebrate with food. Also, Brenden was in class all day and my parents were both working so we decided to save most of the celebration for the weekend.

Family picture! This is basically how James is most of the time.

At the end of James' birthday week, we threw him a big dinosaur birthday party. I figured this will probably be one of the only years James will not have many preferences regarding how his birthday is celebrated so I decided to pick a theme I wanted to work with to put the party together. I'm pretty sure James loves dinosaurs anyway so it's all good.

I originally was going to have his party at the park near our home but with the threat of thunderstorms and the swarms of mosquitoes we decided to move his party indoors. Since I knew there would be some kids there and we were no longer having it at the park, I decided it would be a good idea to make the house a little more exciting for the children. The decision to do something a "little more exciting" quickly escalated as I found tons and tons of ideas online for dinosaur-themed parties. My mom and I got a bit carried away. We wrangled in a few more helpers along the way but I definitely couldn't have done it without my mom. Thank you to everyone who helped make the party a successful, fun event! It was a blast!

Decorations:  We put dinosaur footprints leading up to the front door for the arriving guests and had birthday signs with balloons outside. My mom wrapped some orange streamers and greenery on some plain wreaths she had and hotglued a few plastic dinosaurs to it. We set up a little dinosaur scene on the desk shelf in the front room. Pinterest-inspired streamer vines hung against the back wall of the dining room where the cakes were displayed. We found a fun customization banner kit at Walmart to make our "Sweet Baby James" sign. 

Food: This party had a lot of sweets! We had chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate rocks and dinosaur chocolates and gummies. We had chocolate "1" lollipops. We had pudding and oreo cups-- the classic "dirt" cups but instead of gummy worms we used dinosaur gummies for some dinosaur digs. We had dinosaur shaped cookies and cookies with dinosaur footprints. We had a homemade two-tiered cake with Italian cream cake on one layer and an almond cake on the other. We also had a chocolate dinosaur cake for James' cake smash. We had fruit, salad, veggies, egg rolls, pancit, hot dogs, and chicken salad sandwiches. 

Activities: We had a few kids at the party and I wanted them to have something fun to do too while the adults visited. My dad built a bean bag toss and I painted a gigantic T-Rex and sewed T-bone steak bean bags for a fun "Feed the T-Rex" game. We also had a cute dinosaur piñata which actually didn't suffer too much at the hands of the kids and could potentially be used again. (Maybe for Reuben's 31st birthday party??) In lieu of presents I asked all the guests to write a birthday message and decorate a page for me to include in James' birthday scrapbook. It turned out really well and saved me a lot of time on scrapbooking! We had little gift boxes for kids to take home that had some more candy including dinosaur eggs (jelly beans), a little container of bubbles with a dinosaur on it, and a foam dinosaur sticker. We also had some fun dinosaur masks.  

Of course, we wouldn't have a party if we had no one to celebrate with! Here's a couple collages of some of our friends who came to celebrate with James. A lot of these pictures will be used in their scrapbook pages with their birthday messages to James. 

Here's James with his attempted cake smash. At this point in the party he was already getting pretty tired and he wasn't very interested in smashing into the cake. He dipped his finger in and tried some frosting but when everyone laughed, he must have gotten super self-conscious and didn't want anything else to do with that cake. 

Gariby grandparents with James wearing his birthday crown for about two seconds

James with his McQuay grandparents who were super awesome and drove all the way down from Spring for the party.

At the end of the party with both sets of grandparents, you can obviously tell James is done for the day. 

It was so fun to celebrate James' first year of life with family and friends. I still can't believe my little baby boy is one year old!