We celebrated his birthday by inviting the immediate and extended families of Brandon and myself, as well as a friend of Cole's from preschool.
Due to unforseen circumstances, I didn't get any photos of the party beyond the cupcakes that I assembled (purchased uniced from Freeport Bakery in lemon cake flavor) and the tables before guests arrived.
I really would have liked more photos but ah well -- roll with the punches.
I was inspired by Martha Stewart's website for the cupcakes. We had a very casual BBQ style party.
I ordered un-iced cupcakes from our go to bakery -- Freeport Bakery. You can find past decorated party cakes in the reviews page (tab on top under blog banner). I then iced them with store bought icing -- some vanilla, some lemon.
I cut banana laffy taffys into halves to represent a pat of butter. I took a heck of a while putting two types of lemon flavored jelly beans on top to represent corn kernels. Finally, I sprinkled some edible black glitter flakes over the top to look like pepper.
And pretty cute cupcakes were born! These took forever to assemble. If I had to do it again, I'd pay someone for it, plan to make them the night before, or have a second or third person on hand to help with assembly.
We used a car canopy that we've owned for a few years to create a shaded area in our backyard. We used tables we purchased at Costco for entertaining and rented chairs from a local company.
For decor, I kept things very simple. Using mason jars gifted from my mother, I cut sprigs of geraniums from the front flower bed (no shortage of blooms there) and just placed one at each table. Simple, sweet. We had buds on the rosebushes.
For entertainment, we had squirt guns for the older children and the playroom opened for the kids. The adults all had large groups of known family to spend time catching up with so no entertainment was necessary there.
I would love to attempt hosting another get together in the future. Perhaps more of a potluck next time though.
Bonus picture: my little trowel wielding one year old.
