baby z's first birthday

is everyone (you know, the 4 people that read this blog, haha) tired of hearing about my son yet?  i promise, at some point i will post about other stuff.  but until then, i wanted to post about z's first birthday party.  i had been thinking about what to do for awhile, and since his birthday is in july, and it's usually nice in seattle at that time, and since we have a deck and a backyard now, i wanted to have a nice backyard bbq or something, with a kiddie pool.  i wasn't quite sure what kind of decorations to use, or a theme.  at first i was thinking airplanes, or the very hungry caterpillar, or the zoo, but z isn't really into anything that much to make it the theme of his birthday.  after talking with a few people who said the first birthday is really for the parents anyway (hehe), i decided to do a lil man theme, since we always called him our grumpy man, especially when he was smaller.  so, after looking at some inspiration online i decided on a lil man mustache bash.  so, luckily my sister in law was here early and helped me make all the decorations, and the rest of my in laws helped me bake and set up everything.  hubs and i came to the conclusion that having a bbq for 40 or so people would be too much work, and we wanted to be able to just enjoy the guests, and our baby boy rather than grilling the whole time.  so, we ordered some pizzas, made some salad and snacks, i baked cupcakes and made strawberry buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache frosting, made some cookies, and some mustache brownies.  we set all the food out, hung up the decorations, and enjoyed the party.  no games or anything, and i didn't end up getting a kiddie pool, maybe we'll do that next year when all the babies are a little older.  but it was fun seeing our wonderful friends and family.  z had his first cupcake.  we put him in his high chair, took his shirt off (we left his bow tie on like a gentleman), and let him dig in.  at first he didn't really know what to do, he kind of dipped his finger into the frosting and tasted it.  then i helped him take a few bites.  after that he did dig into the cupcake, but only took a few bites.  i think he just liked mushing it up and playing with it.  afterwards i opened his presents while he played with the tissue paper and bags.  overall, it was a great first birthday party, the weather was amazing, and we were surrounded by the people that we care about.  i just want to thank everyone for coming, and for the gifts for z!  we love you all!

happy 1st birthday banner surrounded by some tissue paper flowers, pics of z and mustaches

the monthly photos i did of z with his giant bear, hank

some more pics of mr z

cupcakes!

some food

favor bags

grab a 'stache and join the bash!

mustache brownies

on his new tricycle

oh, and just for fun, here is a collage of the monthly pictures of z and his bear, minus month one since we didn't have the bear until z was 2 months old: