Grey's 1st Birthday

The days leading up to Grey's birthday were quite emotional for me. It feels like only yesterday that I was desperately praying to God for this little bean to be safe while I carried him in my belly. I can't believe that I now have a toddler who is walking around and continuously bringing so much joy to our lives.
I've learned a lot about myself since becoming a mother. The journey here hasn't been easy, but it's been worth it. A friend of mine attended the party with her son and he's the age that Jolie would have been at this point. I felt a little lump in my throat as I saw him in comparison to Grey, imagining my daughter running around too. When it's all said and done, I'm grateful to have received another chance at motherhood and its been a Blessing.
Enough with the mushy stuff though, let's get to the fun part - the party:

I'd originally planned for the party to be in the same park where we hung out with friends a little while back. The weather seemed to be unpredictable for the weekend so I moved the location at the last minute. Of course it then turned out to be a perfect day and I regretted it. Despite planning everything in advance, things went crazy that day. We started extremely late and I felt horrible as guests arrived and we were still setting up. Everyone even started pitching in to help. This wasn't the way that I planned it, but everyone was so understanding and helpful. Then it turned out that we had nowhere to heat up the food so my mom ended up having to go back home to use the oven. I was so frustrated. Parties are my thing and I just couldn't understand why everything was going so haywire after such careful planning. Eventually I just had to check myself and relax. This was a day to celebrate the birth of my child and he didn't care about anything that I was stressing over. As far as he was concerned, he had space to walk around and all his favorite people were hanging out him. The dessert table though...that was perfect! Except the fact that my husband left the Publix box on the table, but I didn't notice since I was so busy running around.

For the theme, I went with Little Sailor Boy with pintables customized by Hostess With The Mostess. I love edible favors, so I kept it simple by purchasing cookies from BJ's that I put into favor bags that I purchased from Walmart. I then taped on cut outs from my pintables to tie it in with the theme.

I'd originally planned on baking everything myself but opted for store bought cupcakes to save time. I taped toothpicks to the back of the cutouts to use them as cupcake toppers.
Once I got out of my own head, I was able to have fun with my baby on his big day.

I got to catch up with friends that I hadn't seen in a while the bigger kids played musical chairs, ran around outside and threw rocks in the lake.

Finally, we all gathered around to sing happy birthday and Grey got his first taste of cake - he wasn't a fan!

What started off rocky ended well - Grey had a blast! He danced, he ate, he played, he got tons of presents - he loved it. I'm so grateful to everyone who came, those that helped blow up balloons, etc. Thank you!
As for me, this was one of my many lessons once again teaching me that things can't always be perfect so I need to relax ((sigh)). I'm working on it!
Thank you again to those who came out to my boys special day!

love, Jin
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