I’m delayed in posting about Sam’s birthday party, but I’ve finally gathered the pictures from the day and have a few minutes to remember how our boy turned one year.
I struggled with how to celebrate his first birthday. On one hand, I felt like I owed it to him to throw a big party with all of our friends. Since his birthday is in November, it would have to be indoors and having a big party would mean renting a party space. In the end, it seemed like more of a party for us – as in we would invite our friends and Clare and her little friends would play in the party space while Sam watched. Now Sam likes to watch big kids play, but having a party that seemed all about his parents and big sister didn’t seem quite right to celebrate our boy. So I went back to the drawing board to think about what Sam actually likes. His favorite things in the world are to go out for hikes and to go swimming. So that’s what we did – I had a hike planned with swimming as our back-up in the event of bad weather. I also decided to only invite the people who Sam really knows and loves – that is his small group of friends. This was hard for me to not invite our friends, and the people who love Sammy, but I wanted to make it so that Sam intimately knew and loved each smiling face he saw that day. As he gets older his circle of friends will grow, as he meets and remembers the larger group that we are fortunate to call our extended family and friends, but for now, for a one-year-old, we kept it sized accordingly.
It was lovely. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful hike in Tryon Creek Park. The clouds even parted for some glimpses of blue sky, and with the sun streaming through golden leaves it seemed like the park itself was celebrating Sam. Our group hiked, laughing and talking, with the dogs bounding along and Sammy babbling, singing and woofing to his hearts content.
I had asked Clare what she wanted to do for Sam’s birthday and she told me that she wanted to make Sam a birthday cake. So we enlisted the help of Auntie Carrie, who had recently taking a cake decorating class, and spent Saturday baking and decorating the cake. It was wild… flour was spilled, sugar was sampled, food coloring was splattered, and we finally just gave Clare her own bowl of frosting to eat so she would stop eating the iced cake. But the finished cake was made from pure love.
Decorations from Crafty Aunt Pat!
Sammy liked his first cake. He hadn’t had chocolate before and kept eating bites and then shaking a little bit with the sweetness.
Then it was time for presents – which Sam heartily enjoyed. Then, after presents, it was nap time for our precious little guy. At the end of a day of celebration and enjoyment I felt remarkably calm and relaxed. It was a perfect way to celebrate our Sam, active and busy but also with a feeling of peace, love and contentment that is the signature of our little guy.
