A Simple First Birthday Party

I haven't shared with you yet the full post on the boys' first birthday party, so I figured I should post about it....two months after their actual birthday! Ha! The whole thing was pretty simple, and truthfully didn't take a ton of planning, though I pinned my little heart out and pretended like i was going to have all kinds of time for this super elaborate birthday party. AS IF!I did get the balloons ordered well ahead of time, just to feel like I was accomplishing SOMETHING, but rest assured everything else was done last-minute, which means you can totally make this happen if you're in a pinch!I made the tassels for the big white balloons with tissue paper I already had at home. The gold one was from Christmas a few years ago, but you'd never know it now!As far as a table with goodies for the guests, we kept it simple and used a few things we already had, like vases and containers, some evergreen clippings from outside and an old frame and easel. I used my Cricut Explore One to cut out the "Celebrate our wild ones" artwork. The trees were also from Walmart and I found them in the wedding decor aisle!The paper bags and washi tape were used to hold a little takeaway gift for the guests - some DIY trail mix for the road!I also made a WiFi sign for the guests to login if they so chose, and it kept from anyone feeling like they were bothering us by asking. Sometimes just having that kind of info available to people makes life a little simpler, and we ended up keeping it framed in the house!Despite our kitchen being far from finished (we still didn't have countertops at this point, only the butcher block on the island), I'm so glad we chose to have their birthday party at home with our family and friends. It really was such a special day, and we did have more food other than the trail mix, and I did make them each a little cake, and I even decorated their high chairs with their names... but we were so focused on enjoying the party that we actually didn't take many pictures! I ended up taking all of these the morning after the party!I managed to get some pictures of the boys the morning after, also. And yes... I dressed them in the same outfits they had on the night before to take these! And there you have it. Super simple, not very Pinterest-worthy by today's standards, and absolutely the perfect day for our boys! The hardest part was getting their pictures taken with these balloons all around them!To give you an idea of what the decor cost, minus ALL of the food, the decor and trail mix cost around $100.Truthfully, that number is bigger than I had anticipated, but those gold balloons were SO darn expensive, and because I had no choice but to go to Party City, they cost way more than some of the ones you can get if you order them online, like on Amazon. Then you can just pay for the helium.And there you have it! Now tell me: do you throw your kids elaborate parties, or do you keep it simple? I hope we can keep it this simple for all of their birthdays, because it was a really fun afternoon for us and for them! The most important thing, at the end of it all, was the company there celebrating them with us.Until next time!