I can't believe it has been 4, almost 5 months since my last post but even more so that my baby is ONE! It has been a stressful, frustrating, joyful, and incredible year. Our daily life is a constant change...maybe one day we will have a routine but for now it is about hanging on and going with the flow.
Let's take his first Birthday for example: 2 weeks before, Caegan became sick with croup followed by ear infections that oozed from his eyes up until his birthday. Of course baby was not to be outdone, big brother had to also require a doctor visit for a mysterious rash. We all ended up relatively healthy by the day of the party but it helped remind us to keep things more simple.
I may have started out planning this "incredible" 1st Birthday Bash and then decided to pull it back and just make it about this absolute blessing that has been placed in our lives.
Before the song "Baby Shark" became popular it was our go-to song to help settle a very upset infant. Even now he can be screaming in the car seat and as soon as we start playing the video he stops and smiles...until it is over. So it was a given that we should make it the theme.
Since we are in Missouri and the weather is...mmm...temperamental at best, we decided to have an indoor party inviting only our families.
Most of the cousins were able to join in on the fun. The older kids could play with balloons and games in the basement and the younger kids had the ocean on the main floor. We had an old inflatable pool and turned it into a ball pit with blue and white balls we bought off Amazon.
You can almost create anything with some balloons and streamers. Of course after they are decorations the kids can get creative in coming up with their own games...or using them to add to their ball pit. My sister was a big help with that because between exhaustion and the cake I probably would have forgot.
While looking for sand buckets in the clearance section at Wal-Mart we found sharks from Shark Week...Bonus! They were only $1 for the small ones (we gave as goodies) and $2 for the large one in the "ocean".
We finally found a couple sand buckets but they were huge. I found that some of our smaller bowls fit perfectly on the rims to help give the appearance of it being filled without the waste. In those we had coral (Cheetos) and fish bait (Goldfish) The older boys enjoyed spearing grapes onto wooden skewers to create a bouquet of seaweed surrounded by driftwood (pretzels).
I use to love decorating cakes but hated making the icing. This time we decided to buy a tub of buttercream from Sam's Club. This is not for the faint of heart, it is 32 LBS of buttercream that I have to use up in the next 3 months. I do have a few things coming up that will help put a dent into it.
I must admit while I make like decorating cakes, I am not patient and am very frugal. Believe me, Pinterest gave me tons of ideas but when it came down to it I didn't want to make up a bunch of different icings, use a ton of bags/decorator tips, or work with fondant that most people will just set to the side to throw away. So I try to go simple...
With the exception that especially for the first birthdays I try my best at 3D smash cakes. The base is a standard double layer cake covered in blue tinted icing, using a Leaf tip to create the seaweed and a Grass tip for the coral.
Baby Shark was its own conundrum to be figured out. He was made out of 1/2 of the Wilton's sphere cake pan. I just tilted the cooked cake so it was at an angle to make the flat edge/start of the curve tilt in the air a bit for his nose and the other end would become his tail. I had some leftover batter that I cooked in a square pan and then cut triangles for the back, side, and tail fins. By the time I started on his face it was close to midnight and I was exhausted...again I lack the patience. So I did a quick go of it and went to bed...it bothered me so bad that I got up at 4am and redid his mouth to be at least a little better.
Here are a few other pictures from a great day with family.
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Amazon:
Mommy Shark Shirt
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