Beckett's first birthday party

It's been a very busy last few weeks. Between B's birthday and party, a weekend spent painting our downstairs bathroom, and Thanksgiving travels, it's been crazy, so I'm trying to finally catch up on some posts.

We celebrated B's first birthday on Sunday the 11th with a big bash and lots of friends and food. Check out this spread:

We went with a monster theme but didn't take it too far. We started with some Rice Krispie treat pops (this is the best Rice Krispie treat recipe you will ever try, and I cannot recommend the Flour cookbook enough).

A few guys didn't want to stay on their sticks, so they served as toppings for the plain Rice Krispie treats (I didn't make them all into pops.).

I made a yellow layer cake with real buttercream frosting for the main cake (both recipes from America's Test Kitchen). The design was based on this cake.

B's mini cake and the cupcakes were made from the midnight chocolate cake recipe from the Flour cookbook, covered in the same buttercream frosting.

 

The menu was finished off with oatmeal cookies, edamame hummus and pita chips, and a fabulous Chex mix variation made with the pretzel crunch from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook (another big winner). I pinned so many more monster ideas and barely even got to scratch the surface, so there may be another monster party in B's future. ;)

 

We used orange, blue, and green for the colors throughout, and the front of the table was decorated with the back side of the banner I made for the basement playroom.

B wore the monster onesie I made him, with the monster on the front and the "big "1" on the back. (FYI, if you're interested in making this onesie yourself, I made a template for the monster design, which you can download here.)

B began by mixing and mingling with all of our friends, especially his little friends.

Then, it was finally time to bring out the cake. We actually did a trial run the previous weekend when my parents were in town because they wanted to celebrate with him. That time, he showed practically no interest in the cupcake, and unfortunately, it turned out basically the same way this time.

After some initial hesitation, he sampled the icing, which I guess was just too sweet, and then turned his nose up at the (decidedly delicious) cupcake after just a bite or two, so I didn't really get the cake smash picture I was hoping for. After several minutes, we eventually just gave him a banana, which he happily devoured.

The birthday boy cleaned up on presents but mostly just liked playing with the tissue paper.

Our friends are so sweet and generous and gave B some great new things, including lots of new books (his favorite), a fabulous fox backpack, a fun ball-popping machine, a toy boat for the bathtub, a ducky stuffed animal, and lots more.

More than anything, we were just so thankful to have so many wonderful friends who wanted to help us and B celebrate a wonderful first year.

All in all, it was a wonderful first birthday party. Happy birthday, Beckett!

And the leaves came tumbling down

One of the things I really love about living in St. Louis is our great fall and the beautiful changing of the leaves. Back in Texas, you get very little color, and most trees stay green year-round. But in St. Louis, you get stuff like this (the magnolia in our front yard):

And this (the maple in our yard):

 And this (a beautiful tree we passed on a walk a few weeks ago):

And you get lots of piles of leaves for your little one to play in:

Of course, the trade-off you get with beautiful leaves is that once that fall off (and they do, often far too quickly), you get sad, bare trees for the rest of the fall and winter. That same magnolia I showed above went from this:

To this basically overnight after a particularly bad storm knocked off most of the leaves:

I'm so glad I squeezed in a few pictures first. I can also take solace knowing that in the spring, this magnolia is covered with the most beautiful pink blooms. Until then, maybe we'll leave a few leaves on the ground for B to enjoy.

 

Happy fall!