sort of … it really wasn’t a bonanza, but still a party nonetheless. a small-ish party with our parents, siblings and a some friends; actually, about 22 people, which filled up our little living room pretty good. we didn’t want to do anything big and crazy for the little guy since he wouldn’t really understand what was going on anyway. his first birthday is on Thursday, but we’ll be going up north ice fishing (about 6 hours north of here) so we figured an early birthday soirée would do the trick. first my parents and my dad’s mother arrived, the little man was excited to see them. then my in-laws, then my sister and her boyfriend, my brother-in-law and his wife, etc etc. as each guest arrived i could see the look on the little guy’s face like, what are you doing here too? you’re never all here at the same time, what the heck? he would squeal and chatter with excitement upon seeing the faces of his favourite people. however, as afternoon progressed he had a few minor meltdowns, likely due to the fact that we woke him up in the morning rather than letting him wake himself (in order to squeeze a nap in before the party started). we sat down to open his gifts with him but after maybe 2, he wasn’t really interested. he would pull the tissue paper out of the gift bags but had no desire to open any wrapped gifts! haha he just continued to play with his toys, so i opened them up for him 🙂

after the gifts were done we decided it was time to give him a birthday cupcake! this would be his first time having a cupcake so we thought it would be pretty fun for him, well it wasn’t as we anticipated it to be. he doesn’t really like having things stuck to his hands so upon squishing the cupcake (with a little help from mom), he looked at his hand with a disgusted face but then put it up to his mouth and gobbled up a few remnants of cupcake. this went on for about 5 minutes (with my hubby recording the whole thing and people taking pics). he kept looking at everyone like, why are you all watching me? why is this thing sticking to my hands? waaahhh! we all chuckled and said how funny this will be down the road when we tell him his first birthday cupcake experience was a flop, lol.

the cupcakes, however, were fantastic! if i do say so myself. my hubby  helped me stay up late Saturday night making them and then we got up early Sunday morning to put the icing on. i needed his help because i decided i wanted to make camoflague cupcakes for the little guy. yup, camo. green and white and light brown and dark brown. very time consuming but well worth the end result! with hubby being a hunter, as well as my father and father-in-law, it only seemed fitting. we used piping bags and mixed up separate bowls to add the colours to the cake batter and then each took two to squeeze them into the cake pan. then pretty much did the same thing with the icing (but just 3 colours) and squeezed it all into my icing dispenser thingy – that’s the technical term for it – so that we could make the icing match. voilá! i don’t know how often i’ll make these, as they took alot more effort and much more time than even the little mini hamburger cupcakes i made a few years ago for a friend’s 30th bday (which were a huge hit too). those were more like a little assembly line (with one worker, me)

overall, it was a nice get together for our little man, but i definitely understand why people choose to go outside their homes to have children’s parties. we only had 2 other kids at our house and that was plenty for me. we were all pooped once everyone left, and after cleaning up the  mess and rearranging the dining room & living room back to their usual tidy-ish states, we were even more tired. hubby and the little man went down to the basement to snooze while i finished tidying up even more. although i was exhausted, having a clean house makes me feel better. especially the kitchen, when it’s clean i just feel like, ahhh.

we’re going to try giving our son another cupcake, but on his actual birthday, and without the audience. we’ll see how he does. we might get the same results as yesterday, but who knows. either way it’ll make for some good pics!