My little Montgomery bear is quickly approaching the big 2 year old birthday and I thought it would be fitting to share pictures and memories from his first birthday since I didn't have this blog at that time. I loved planning this birthday and probably started when he was only 4 months old! Haha! Ben thought I was crazy and that I went a little overboard. How many times does your baby have a first birthday? ONE and I wanted to make it super special! I know what you're thinking.. first birthday parties are more for the mom than the baby, because he won't remember it. Well, I found a way that could at least help him be able to look back one day and see how awesome his first party was. I hired a photographer!
As soon as I typed that last sentence, I realized how ridiculous that sounds.. but in my defense, our photographer is a friend and we go to church with her and her family. She's awesome at what she does and has done almost all of Montgomery's pictures for us, so why wouldn't I ask her to permanently capture our boy's big day?! She was able to come to the party early and capture how everything was set up before guests started to arrive. I am extremely thankful that I asked her to come (and I'm pretty sure Ben agrees with me now) because our whole family was able to enjoy the party and focus on Montgomery, not worry about taking pictures. Plus, we have professional quality pictures of our son's first birthday!
Our photographer's Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kassie-Crain-Photography/167877853260919
Here are a few images from M's 12 month shoot:
All copyright Kassie Crain Photography
We went with a Sock Monkey theme for several reasons. First, it was so uncommon (at the time)! Second, I find a lot of the current themed party supplies kind of tacky and loud. Thirdly, I was (and still am) addicted to Pinterest and wanted to make a lot of the decorations myself. There was a very limited supply of sock monkey themed decorations so I really did have to do a lot of it from scratch. Thankfully, I was able to find a super cute invitation on Etsy.com and several cute cake ideas from Pinterest.
How cute is this? I love this invitation! I found it at
this shop: https://www.etsy.com/people/thelovelyapple
Since I wanted this day to be a big bash, we decided to have the party at my aunt's party supply store. The store, Hullabaloos, has a great rental room that is painted in fun, kid friendly colors and is much larger than our old apartment.
I knew I wanted to share Montgomery's monthly pictures that Ben and I had taken at home to show how many changes took place each month. I decided to make a banner out of all of them and match it with the banner my mom had made for M's baby shower. I also wanted to make a highchair banner. Because Montgomery is such a long name, I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it personalized. Even with that in mind, it still ended up being too long, so we just hung it above the chair!
I spent most of my time making signage for the food table. I think it turned out really cute and the signs added something extra. I also liked the idea of using mason jars (for the adults and older kids) with red and white paper straws. I bought individual juice containers for the younger kiddos. Instead of coming up with party favors, I found cute chevron bags and encouraged people to fill them up with the candy and goodies to take home.
The signs we used were:
Monkey Vines for twizzlers
Tree Branches for chocolate covered pretzel sticks
Montgomery's Kisses for Hershey kisses
Gummi Bears
Goldfish
Root Beer Barrels
Banana Puddin'
The fabulous cake was done by Bushel and a Peck Bakery. A link her to Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/BushelAndAPeckBakery
The rest of the space:
My mom purchased an embroidery machine a few months before Montgomery's birthday. I love personalized EVERYTHING and think appliquéd baby/toddler clothing is adorable, so of course M had to have a sock monkey shirt to match his party.
He loved seeing the room for the first time (actually, I think he probably loved seeing all those presents)! Like I said before, I loved planning this party and had fun doing it. I'll also add that money was tight (last year of grad school) and I did this all on a budget. I simply started planning early enough and buying little things here and there so that I wouldn't spend a fortune all at one time. I also made a good use of my resources. My mom loves to craft like me and has a Cricut machine and an embroidery machine, so I had access to both of those. She also wanted to help me plan and helped pay for the cake. My aunt owns a party store and also caters, so why wouldn't I ask for her help? My mother-in-law also helped with food. I also researched DIY projects on Pinterest AND browsed Etsy for ideas. I purchased clipart sock monkeys from Etsy for about $4 and made my own food signs, toddler table sign, and water bottle labels. There was no need for me to spend $$$ on things that I could make myself. The items that cost the most money were the cake (worth it!), photographer (worth it!), and small sock monkeys for each table ($5 a piece).
Here are pictures from the actual party:
The last few pictures were during the most precious moment of the day! Most everyone had left the party and we were trying to get a good family shot with M smiling. He was COVERED in cake and quite messy. During the shot, he decided to attack my head and give me a kiss! He was laughing the whole time and acted like he knew he was getting cake all over his momma. Sweetest moment ever. :)
