Henry's 1st Birthday

We celebrated Henry's 1st birthday over the weekend with a farm-themed party at our home. A farm-themed party was the way to go for us, as I already had a lot of stuff for decoration already on hand. I was unsure of how Henry would react to having so many people in our home ALL paying attention to him. Sometimes he can get overwhelmed by a lot of noise and new faces. He did great with it this time around! Our home isn't exactly set up for big crowds so we knew it would be a little cramped with all of the guests and us but everybody crammed in our little living room and watched as Henry went at his wrapping paper with some degree of gusto. We felt so blessed to have so many people there that mean so much to us. It was a perfect afternoon. I'm sharing the highlight reel of his party photographs.
As you can see above, he felt more comfortable using a utensil to attack his cake than his little hands. I had a hunch that he would be one of those reserved babies that sits and side-eyes their cake, not quite sure how to handle it. And I was right! We dipped his finger in the frosting a few times, letting him taste it, to see if it would get something started but it didn't really. So we handed the kid a fork and he decided to give it another go. He never really got into it too much so I saved it and it sits in our fridge right now looking a lot like the top picture. I just couldn't let good cream cheese frosting go to waste!

I'm usually stressed out to the 9th degree anytime I'm in charge of making a single dish for a holiday, as something always takes longer than I thought it would. Whether its our oven not regulating its temperature or me forgetting an integral ingredient, something usually goes awry. Anyways, I worked really, really hard on getting organized for this party because I wanted to enjoy the whole day and stress would have ruined that. And it worked! Big thanks go out to my mother-in-law, Karen for making the cutout sugar cookies for me so they were all ready for me to frost (I always end up crying when I attempt sugar cookie cutouts.. this is a story for another time!). Thanks to my dad for saving me a ton of time by making his famously delicious deviled eggs. Also, a BIG thanks to my sis-in-law, Em for being my personal assistant all weekend long. Whether it was juicing 24 lemons and 20 limes by hand so I could make real lemonade and cherry limeade (delicious!), or keeping Henry busy while I spent hours in the kitchen baking the cakes and making the pie pops, she was such a tremendous help to me. I've told her thank you a million times already, but, Emily, THANK YOU!!

I still can't believe I just attended our son's 1st birthday party. I feel so tremendously blessed that I'm the one he calls "mama". The past year was my happiest yet and I know Chris feels the same way. Mama & Daddy love you so much, Hen. Thanks for being our everything.