I can't believe that my baby is 1 year old... where does the time go!??? Honestly! I have been planning and preparing for this party for a few months now and I am glad I did! There were so many cute details and good food! I better get all the Special THANKS out there right now because I couldn't have done this party without all the help I received! Thanks Aunt Bri and Kylee!! You girls always help me so much and I don't know what I would do without you. I love you!! Thanks to my Mom and Mother-in-Law for bringing so much food and tables and chairs and EVERYTHING. Thank you Kim for decorating William's smash cake. It was perfect!! Thanks to my man for letting me go a little crazy on everything and for helping out with all the grilling, setting up, and watching the baby while we do it all! Thank you to everyone who showed up and brought gifts!! You are all seriously the BEST!
My Best Friends:
Without further adieu... the Birthday BOY!!! MY Sock Monkey!! :)
I made him lots of decorations for the festivities. Here is his Sock Monkey wreath. I found this online and copied a blog (that I have failed to find the link to since I did this so long ago.... whoops). And thanks to Aunt Colleen for the PERFECT Sock Monkey to complete the wreath. He is holding a sign that says "William".
I wish I could take credit for this adorable sign... but alas I can not. I found this on Etsy. And how adorable is it??? Added the perfect touch to our party.
The girls and I put this together for everyone to see how much William has changed over the last year. We did one picture from the day he was born and one picture for every month until his 12 month pictures. We put little sock monkeys and the month on each picture. Everyone loved to see all his pictures!
We also made these center pieces for the tables. I bought some tall red cups, filled them with rocks, and used skewer sticks to tie the balloons to. I had to search every Target in the area to find matching baby Sock Monkeys for this. But it was worth it.
Here is his gift table... he is not spoiled at all!! ;) Again- thank you to everyone who brought him a gift. He is SO loved!!
Here is the smash cake. My sister-in-law Kim is SUPER talented at decorating cakes. So she was nice enough to drive down from Idaho to join us at the party and to decorate Will's cake. I think it turned out just perfect!!
Here are the cupcakes that we made as well! I saw these on Pinterest (of course!! I see EVERYTHING on Pinterest). How stinkin' cute are they!? I know they are not sock monkey... but they were still super cute and soooo yummy. I did NOT follow the recipe from Pinterest... we made our own cupcakes and I used my Sister-in-Laws recipe for the chocolate frosting. We just borrowed the instructions for decorating them on Pinterest. One word of advice if you ever want to make these for a party or gathering: Make them the night BEFORE. That way the vanilla wafers are soft. They were SOOOO much better the day after the party, cause we made them the morning of the party. I wish I would have known that!
He was so excited to see his cake and he was all smiles while everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. He really likes being the center of attention :)
He knew to dig right in!! He seriously ate tons of his cake. I should have stopped him sooner because he had a tummy ache that night. I just felt bad spoiling his fun. Look at how much he enjoyed that cake!
We had a big BBQ that included:
Hot Dogs & Hamburgers from Snyder's in Salt Lake (The BEST!!)
Lots of Salads, Jello, Fruit, Chips and Lemon Water that the family all brought (Thanks Guys!!)
For Dessert we had:
Monkey Cupcakes (Shown Above)
Tres Leches Cake (that I made. I found a recipe online and it is to DIE for)
Strawberry Dream Cake (found on AllRecipes.com)
Banana Flavored Creamies
Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas (from Target)
Here are my favorite 12 month pictures of him (We went to the University Mall again. I really like that place).
He is the best baby I could ever ask for. He is so sweet, smart and fun! Thanks again to everyone who helped out and attended William's First Birthday! Love you Will!! Happy Birthday!!!
