Eli’s beach themed first birthday party…

Well let me tell you, I was soooo worried about the weather holding out for Eli’s party because it was supposed to be outside for his beach theme of course! Our place isn’t very big and the thought of 40 people crammed in here like sardines bummed me out. With the help of my sister, Aaron and I hustled to get all the party gear out and set up and what did I see to the west? An ominous black sky rolling in . But, God is good. The black clouds came by to say hi, wish Eli a happy birthday, and went on their merry way leaving us a good 10 degrees cooler in the process . We were so sweaty hot just setting stuff up at 11am, but after the clouds came and went, it was so much cooler since it stayed overcast for a little bit (I thought about grabbing a sweater briefly, don’t hit me!). Then when the guests started to arrive at 1pm, the sun was shining again. I’m so thankful we were blessed with awesome whether because places south of us got hit BAD and a lot of people are still without power . Thank you Jesus, muuuah, love you.

So you all saw his birthday “outfit” from my post yesterday. It turned out to be a good call to leave him scantily clad since it was so toasty out. I made the diaper cover using this tutorial from Dana on her blog “Made”. The bow tie, I just wung, and for the hat I found a party hat printable that I traced onto cardstock, mod podged the matching fabric onto it and cut up a craft boa for the trim. Overall a super simple outfit to make.

I hand painted a few beach themed signs just for kicks (and because I wasn’t going to pay for pictures that I would use for one day. I figured for 25 cents each for half a card board, I couldn’t go wrong)

Sorry for the crappy photo. Pictures were the LAST thing on my mind and it didn’t occur to me to take them until after everyone left. The full sign said “warning, no lifeguard on duty” I stuck it behind the crab baby pool below

Pool was just drained but I wanted you guys to see how cute this thing is. It has a shade canopy for my fair skinned child . There was another bigger pool (also already drained in this pic, doh!) which you can see behind it, flipped over.

My aunt Cary took a lot of great pics and uploaded them onto my computer (or so we thought) but apparently it was only on “view” mode and not actually “imported” so I don’t have them at this time. You just get my crappy, oh-I-forgot-to-take-a-pic-of-this-and-must-do-it-now-after-the-fact photos .

Jac and her mom made this super awesome beach cake. I tried to describe what I wanted and didn’t actually give them a pic to go off of and it’s like they hopped into my head and made it EXACTY how I wanted! Gah!! Love, love, loved it. Jac’s mom’s cakes are YUMM-O! See what I mean:

Cake for the adults

I ended up making a sugar free, all natural cake for Eli (even though I’m doing a crappy job not always eating whole foods, I still work hard to make sure he does). I couldn’t really tell if he was into it or not. He of course loved the blueberries I used to decorate it but kind of gave up interest once we got to the center. He did eat it when I offered him bites but wouldn’t dig in himself. Oh well. Grandma enjoyed sneaking bites of her forbidden adult beach cake though. (I’m gonna give you a knuckle sammich!)

Here’s his little “smash” cake:

ha ha, that’s a gummy fish there but he of course wasn’t allowed to eat it. Such a mean mom.

He zoned in on the blueberries (I’m no dummy, that’s why they’re there)

Mom 1 and mom 2.

Couldn’t help ourselves.

Can’t let any of these blueberries go to waste…

I just love this pic of my big guy!

The loot. Was he ever spoiled!

Parker!!!

He got his own water table from his buddy Leslie. Parker let us use his for the party. Thanks buddy!

His yummy new surf board from Parker’s grandma

Nice pic with the grandmas (That’s Parker’s grandma)

Grandpa Don and great Grandparents Ken & Jerri

I decorated little “favor” sand buckets with Eli’s buddies names on them along with little beach designs like an octopus, turtle, fish etc. using rub on decals. But of cooooourse I didn’t take any pictures of the completed product :/ You can see a little bit of them in the “loot” photo in the bottom right hand corner with the balloons attached to them (scroll up 6 photos.) I’m blaming auntie Stephie on the lack of photos because she was in charge of that task and *cough*droppedtheball*cough*.

Overall I felt it was a success and went to bed thoroughly exhausted!

Ok, time for this momma to get to bed. Na night.

-Linds