A Little Monkey Birthday Party, Part 1

So Little Man is getting spoiled this year (but honestly, when is he not spoiled?! ;) and is getting two birthday parties this year for his big number one.

The first was here with a few friends and the next will be in a few weeks at my parent’s house to celebrate with family. I sent out a super cute (if I do say so myself) invitation that I put together in Photoshop after trying my very hardest to get a decent photo of the cute, yet very wiggly boy

(It looks really blank because I took out that personal information stuff so that creepy people won’t stalk us. Just in case you were wondering… )

And yesterday we had our little party at the park. Since I start planning things like this months in advance, pretty much all of the decorations were all ready to go, I just spent the whole week making the food. I really did spend all week on the food. I know that sounds a little ridiculous. But I’m a pastry chef. I have a reputation to uphold, you know. But I did have fun getting ready for the party, so don’t you worry!

It was forecasted to be a perfect day, but just as I was finishing the set up, it started to sprinkle. And I wanted to shake my fist at the sky and curse any and all rainclouds in existence (I didn’t actually do this, but I so wanted to), but it ended up being just a little sprinkle and then the sun came out and it was a perfect afternoon with maybe a little too much wind, but I was very grateful the weather turned out nice for us. Because my table turned out so cute!
We had pasta salad, fruit salad, chips and salsa…
Pigs-in-a-blanket…which, to my surprise, was probably the most popular non-dessert food ;)
And for dessert, oreo truffles, cookies, and cupcakes!
I had so much fun making these cute monkey themed cookies – I think they turned out really well! My favorites were the squares with the letter ‘n’ and the vines :)
I found a really yummy lemonade recipe through pinterest that turned out soooo good. It’s basically sprite, pineapple juice and country time lemonade powder. Tasty.
And we had M&M’s for our favors – in those baby food jars that I’ve been saving for who-knows-how-long…glad to finally be rid of them! Hee hee

We had the party at a park so the kids could play at the playground and we spread out some blankets and ate food and chatted. Nathan enjoyed grabbing at the food on Mom and Dad’s plates. That fork he’s holding? He held on to that thing for about 90% of the time. I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least one set of scratches on my leg and he almost poked John’s eye out. Too fun. A spoon would have been safer…
Then when he got a little tired, he would relax on his Mommy-Recliner.
He really enjoyed eating the pasta from the pasta salad and managed to snag quite a bit from our plates!

Then we opened some presents!
Sorry his hat keeps hiding his face…we were facing the sun, you know ;)
Note the ever present fork…
He got a pretty good haul! ;)

Thanks to everyone who was able to join us to celebrate Nathan’s big day!