Cam's First Birthday

This weekend was our son's first birthday. It's so hard to believe we have a one-year-old now! It really was the fastest year of my entire life! Now I know what my parents mean when they tell me that time goes by too quickly with your kids.

I can't wait to see how he develops, who he becomes, and (almost hesitantly) what kinds of questions he asks us. :)

Above you can see a month-by-month picture banner for Cam's first year of life. I will eventually write a DIY post about how I made it, but I'll have to figure out how to do that since the grandparents and aunts and uncles all claimed them to take home after the party so I'm banner-less right now. Hah.

We decided to not go with a strict theme, but to be able to incorporate balloons and lots of red, yellow, and blue colors! We bought pails, books and bubbles for the kids (which were a BIG hit) from the dollar section at Target. Just so you moms out there know, you don't have to buy the biggest and most expensive things for your party.

Nor do you have to buy everything. Those cupcake stands you see? $3.50 each at Kroger on clearance! Yup! I made all of the food at the party (with the exception of some strawberries a family friend made). All of it was from scratch, except some frozen meatballs. C'mon now, I have a toddler. I don't have that kind of time.

I have to admit that most of my food ideas came from Annie's Eats. She has such great ideas and I was so excited to be able to incorporate all of them into the party. All we knew was that we wanted to entertain and tend to Cam 100% of the time so we did all finger-food. I am SO grateful that we chose to go that route and it was SUCH an easy clean-up, too.

Before the party, my mother, mother-in-law and Cam's aunts all helped to get the party food warmed up and ready to go while they let me get ready. The birthday boy slept almost the first hour of his party so I woke him up to come see everyone. Most people hadn't seen him since he was born. Many since he was only a few months old. I think he was a little shocked at first, but he didn't seem to mind the crowd.

The above picture is one of my favorites from the party. Aunt Rachael always brags about her (obviously) gorgeous nephew and she just LOVED on him during the party!

Uncle Shawn came, too and he had a lot of fun with Cam. Shawn, I know you're going to have so much "fun" with him when he's older and you can teach him to shoot nerf balls at mommy. :/

After going to a few birthday parties, showers, and other gatherings in the past few years, I've learned one lesson: open presents FAST. I just know it can be daunting. After watching Camden open a few presents, I decided to put the camera down and help open gifts. He had so many it took quite a while so I'm glad I did that. We absolutely loved everyting he got and we definitely won't be needing toys any time soon.

Grandma Jones was a HUGE help and I was so grateful to have her in the kitchen with me the night before frosting his cake (twice) and dozens upon dozens of cupcakes.

After presents, it was getting to that crucial 2-hour point, so we decided to go do cake.

We sang happy birthday and then Cam got to dig in...

"Is this all really for me?"

He did great with his smash cake, even getting some on my brand-new shirt. :)

He had such a great birthday and we couldn't have been happier with the outcome!

Now usually I'm not one to give advice (haha yeah right), but this is one crucial piece I would suggest for any mom: Put your child in their swimmy diaper and swim suit to eat their smash cake. It was so easy to just plop him right down in the kiddie pool. I'm so glad he was born in the summer time so we are able to do that!

We cannot thank everyone enough for coming, helping, celebrating, and visiting Cam on his first birthday! I know there are a few people we missed, but it was such a great time and we can't wait for #2! (Birthday that is...)