A Celebration.

E turned one last week, and we decided to celebrate. Really celebrate. Troy and I aren’t typically very good about birthdays and major events, usually lumping them together as an excuse for one of our trips (it may be one of those unfortunate results of all the moving growing up…), so the entire process of planning E’s special day was extra fun for us.  (And potentially a little selfish?  We’ve missed attending and hosting enough celebrations this year that I was ready to make up for it all with E’s birthday!) The guest list was quite small – E, Troy, my mom and I plus a whole slew of Skype dates with family members around the world – but the joy was big.

We turned it into an all day affair, starting with a present before dad left for work and a girls’ pancake breakfast.  I ran a few last minute errands in the morning –how could we forget eggs for her cake smash cake??  – and my mom and I got to work decorating and baking.  Since our flat is small and the gifts were wrapped last week already (I’m finally on board – online shopping is AMAZING!), it, thankfully, didn’t require too much work.  Troy arrived back home early afternoon carrying a pink, sprinkled, Hummingbird Bakery birthday cake for the “big kids,” and the celebrations officially began.

E pranced around the living room in a tutu, Skyping with grandparents and great-grandparents in far away lands and exhausting herself enough to require a quick cat nap before the party could go on.  Once the (sad-looking) home-made cupcake cake was cooled and iced, we woke the sleeping angel and gave her no choice but to keep the celebration going with a much anticipated cake smash.

It was…slow.  Our proper little lady found it completely unacceptable to dive into a cake and cover herself with crumby stickiness.   It took lots of warming up to the idea and a little help from Dad, but eventually we got all of those shivers and giggles we knew she could generate.  I’m not sure the cake ever did make it to the “smashed” stage, but after one mouth full of frosting, I felt for the girl…that’s. a. lot. of. sugar.

We took a short break from the festivities to rinse off (warning: documenting first birthdays seems to get dads quite excited!) and de-cake the coffee table.  Then, it was finally time for the presents!  The day ended with our sweet love joyfully surrounded by generous gifts from family and friends.  And tearing her away from all of those new toys in the evenings has proven to make bedtime a whole new challenge…

It has been an incredible year, and we look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with our baby girl!