Joshua's first birthday

Whew, a year has come and gone! Joshua is ONE!

I started party planning back in August, I think, with this Pinterest board. I hope you can see that...let me know if you have trouble with the link.

First, a theme: rockets! How fun for a little guy, right? I thought so. And hey, I get to pick, since he's not telling me what he wants just yet ;)

I figured I'd make a rocket cake, stick with red and blue as theme colors, and maybe go with some galactic symbols here and there: stars, planets, aliens? Big brainstorm time.

In my planning, I also wrote a poem for his birthday invitation, which looked like this, thanks to some conveniently free clip art included in Publisher:

 Ta-da! Now we're rolling.
So, now for some pictures of the day.

 We gave Joshua his first-ever balloons to play with. Closely supervised, of course.

 I made star-shaped sugar cookie cutouts for the take-home gift for our guests.

The rocket cake was made out of a 9"x11" sheet cake (funfetti, of course). I trimmed the cake into the body of the rocket, and then used the scraps to form the wings on the sides of the rocket. The jets were yellow cake cupcakes in foil cups, frosted with red and orange frosting to look fiery.  I used a regular vanilla buttercream recipe for the frosting, tinting it with Wilton's gel paste food coloring as needed. Please note that it matches the rocket on the invitation; I was so happy with how it turned out!

 The rest of the yellow cake cupcakes, one of which was reserved for the birthday boy, were frosted in the same white vanilla buttercream, and sprinkled with blue sugar. Those are Hershey's kisses in the background, and one of our blue table runners from our wedding reception underneath.

 Joshua holds onto a willing hand to walk around the house and visit guests. So sweet. Also, he was pretty much permanently attached to that balloon.

 First cake ever. Clearly, a big hit.

 I kept the menu simple, with fresh fruit (thank you, Grandma Burr), a little veggie tray, crackers and cheese, and the desserts, of course. In the corner of the photo, you can see my star banner that I made! I wish I had a better photo of that, but forgot to take a good picture. We also decorated with pictures of Joshua from each month of his life, hung on a white cotton string with clothespins. There was also a banner of blue and silvery-blue triangles that we used at my baby shower for Joshua just over a year ago.

 Yes. The cake was satisfactory.

 A worn out birthday boy and two happy parents, celebrating one whole year! Also, more of that star banner I mentioned.

Happy birthday, big guy! We love you so much.