What to Expect When You're NOT Expecting: Grayson Turns 1

I am now a mom to a 1 year old boy. No longer an infant...he's now creeping on to that toddler phase. So hard to believe!

I have been a bad, bad blogger over the past year. I just checked and I only posted 21 times in Grayson's 1st year of life. And most of those were just picture posts, nothing really too them. My goal is to be better in year 2. I want to do a better job of chronicling this whole crazy ride of motherhood.

I have so many posts in my head, things I want to share and say. I'll try my best to get those out over the coming weeks. For now, here's some info on the big, bad b'day party.

Theme: Cookie Monster

Who was invited: All the family in the area, plus the babysitter (cause she's family too since she's here every Friday night). There were 26 people packed into my house.Thankfully it was a nice day and we could use the deck too.

Menu: Kept things simple with sandwiches (chicken salad, ham salad and tomato/basil/mozarella), pasta salada, fruit salad, spinach dip, bags of chips. Everything was bought from the store so I just had to set it all out and worry about presentation.

The Cake(s): I decided to go with cupcakes and found a great recipe here. They were easy...just time consuming. I dyed the frosting with blue food coloring, cause I wanted his face to be as blue as possible when he was all done. I displayed the cupcakes on this stand from William.s S.onoma.

I also got a cookie cake from Mrs. Fi.elds which was a huge hit. And it was still in theme...which was nice.

The decorations: I found stuff online and at our party city, all with this theme. Couldn't find anything that was solely cookie monster, so had to settle for the whole sesame street gang.

The goodie bags: Everyone went home with a bag with some chips ahoy cookies, as well as a thank you note from Grayson and a pic from his 1 year pic.ture people shoot the day before.

Since his b'day was on a Sunday, he also had goodie bags for all his little friends in the church nursery. Inside were some of his favorite things, mum-mums, apple crisps and a bibster.

The loot: Man did the little man score some seriously good stuff for his b'day! I was thinking half of it would be stuff he'd never play with, but it's all great stuff. Some of his goodies were:

A Mickey Mouse Ride-On Plane (this thing is seriously cool - and is so far his fav)
a V-tech learning walker (helpful since he's just now doing the 1st step thing)
a Dump Truck (fun since his daddy is in the construction industry)
A Tot-Rod motorized car (really cool cause parents can control it until the kiddo is old enough to)
An Activity Table

Advice: Thanks to Katie for the advice that she'd heard about not stressing if the birthday boy needs to nap. He actually missed half the party as he napped upstairs despite all the noise. We finally woke him up towards the end when it was time for cake and presents. It would've just been mean and not fun for anyone if he was up and grouchy. The 1st bday is about the only one that the guest of honor can sleep through without it being rude. So my advice - let the honoree nap and miss everything except the cake and presents. Cause that's all that really matters for the photo opps.

Here are some pics of the big event, plus his formal shots from pic.ture people: