Happy birthday, Baby G!

Baby G celebrated her one year birthday last weekend on February 11th with many of her friends and family members! Our party theme was Yo Gabba Gabba (one of our household favorites) and the birthday girl wore a pink onesie with a pink tutu and a pair of ADORABLE white/green/pink argyle leg warmers (with a tiny pink bow on them, OMGsoflippin'cute!)

Baby G posing with Uncle J in aforementioned cute outfit!

I spent many of the last few months dreaming about how this party would go because in another life I was a Hollywood party planner for the stars. I had all of these AH-MAZING ideas of things to do for her party but as the time drew closer and Pinterest failed me on a couple of "so simple a caveman could do it" projects, I realized I was in a bit over my head and drastically cut down on the amount of things I planned to do.

So, instead of the fruit kabobs (pointy wooden sticks of fruit for children??? WTF was I thinking??), the matching family Yo Gabba Gabba T-shirts (G was going to be Foofa, I was going to be Toodee, and hubby was going to be Muno), the make-your-own snowglobes for craft time (epic fail on the part of the hot glue gun and other materials), and the home-made tutu for Baby G to wear (tulle, you suck so hard!)... I just dipped some awesome Muno pretzels, made funfetti cupcakes with almond buttercream frosting from scratch, and hand-sewed a huge Yo Gabba Gabba banner!

Muno! He's tall and friendly... and sweet and salty!

Deeeeee-licious home-made Funfetti cupcakes! The secret ingredient is love!

From L-R: DJ Lance, Brobee, Foofa, Toodee, Plex, Muno, then repeat!

Yeah, that banner took a long time to make because, as usual, I overestimated my skill level and underestimated production time, but it turned out GREAT and Baby G really seems to love it! It's totally getting a special permanent residence in her bedroom until she's old enough to drag a step stool up from the downstairs and get it down herself! Ha!

My hubby also customized some Yo Gabba Gabba balloons with the characters' faces!

Muno's picture was taken later, but he was there, too! Boring birthday balloon will fill in for him.

Baby G already has a TON of toys in our increasingly-tiny house, so we asked people to get her board books in lieu of toys if they wished to bring something for her. Her dad and I went down to the local toy store and "registered" for her party by putting all of the books we liked/found interesting in a big green bucket. That way, people could go to the store, see what we wanted, and buy from a local establishment! It worked really well and we will, likely, continue this tradition. It's a fun twist on the "I'll circle everything I want out of this catalog and leave it somewhere conspicuous" method of present mongering.

Baby G got MANY MANY amazing new books and her dad and I are happy to have something a little different to read over and over and over again.

Oooo.... is this for ME??? I'll go put it on the HUGE pile!

So many toys, you guys... So many!

I learned a lot of things from planning and implementing this party for Baby G. I learned that I need to tone down the whole "biting off more than I can chew" excitement surrounding her parties to maintain my sanity and ensure Baby G has an easy-going mama come party time. I learned things on Pinterest often times appear MUCH EASIER than they actually are. I blame Martha Stewart... somehow. I learned that Baby G is the greatest little hostess anyone could as for as she flitted here and there and visited nearly everyone (at least twice) through the entire party. I learned that our house probably can't fit that many people if some of those people are under the age of 10. Future parties will probably be held in a larger venue so the kiddos can run around more effectively. I also learned that birthday parties are a total blast and even moreso when they're for your kids.

This parenting thing is super rad!

Happy birthday, Baby G! Mama's gonna start planning the next one...