Hunter's 1st Birthday Party

Finally blogging about the partay!

After Hunter's cousin Brandon turned 1 I knew we had to get into full party planning mode and pick a theme. 6 months isn't too early! We decided to do a monkey theme because Hunter sleeps with a stuffed monkey every night and we would take it everywhere with us if we knew we would be getting near his bedtime. Soooo monkey theme = monkey cake.

I decided we needed a practice run because I knew we didn't want to be figuring this out the night before his party. I referred to Smitten Kitchen's website for a monkey cake tutorial. I baked two nine inch pans of cake and then took a knife and freehanded a smaller circle cutout so he could have a smash cake. I then iced it all over with chocolate icing.


Then I showed the picture to Korey of what it needed to look like and he did the face outline and filled it in with the cream colored icing which I made by mixing a little bit of chocolate icing in with vanilla icing. The ears were supposed to be cupcakes but that didn't work so we took nilla wafers (ok Korey did) and stuck them into the cake on either side and then he squirted chocolate icing on top. And then some cream icing to make it look like ears.

Then we let Hunter practice smashing the cake because of course we wanted a good performance for his party and practice makes perfect right? Wrong. Let these next couple of pics show that Hunter did smash a cake it just wasn't during his birthday party. :(

Here one of us is holding him back because it's like he innately knows what to do. He was born with the ability to smash a cake...just not in public.

And it's smashed! And enjoyed! I assured myself that since we made a fabulous practice cake and Hunter smashed it so well that we would just have a better time at the party.

Enter the night before his party. Korey's mom came in so we all went to my mom's house, ate pizza, and did the party preparations. We had to make at least two dozen cupcakes plus his smash cake. What was I thinking? I think I only cried once during the whole night.

Korey is icing the cupcakes...the master is at work. Of course I don't have pics of the three batches of cake batter I made for the cupcakes and the cake and the two batches of icing I made. I was exhausted!

Finally, it was Saturday which was party day. Here is Hunter and his cousin Brandon hanging out waiting for the guests.

The Hunter is 1 banner got hung outside the two tents in the backyard. It was hot people, really hot.

And my awesome dollar store find, a blow up monkey got taped up, too.

We had a pool party and my sister and her hubby brought over there awesome Target-purchased pool with the drink holders. These made for great sippy cup holders for parched infant swimmers.

The cupcakes! And the cupcake toppers made by Korey. I think he put them on Etsy if anyone is interested.

And here's monkey smash cake #2 with my baby's precious smile.

Hahaha. He didn't want to smash it. We tried helping him but he just wouldn't have it. Oh well.

Of course what should every one year old get for his first bday? A new car! Thanks Aunt Kristin and Uncle Coco.

I guess I didn't get pics of the rest of the party people playing in the big pool. I'm sure someone did. After we swam we moved the party inside and opened presents.

Hunter enjoyed his gifts!

The last pic of the day...we put Hunter and Brandon in the bathtub together. However, Hunter would not cooperate. We're not sure if he had ant bites that bothered him when they mixed with the water or what. Just a long day for him.

Thanks to everyone for helping with his party and Happy Birthday to my baby. We love you Hunter!