The BIG Birthday.

Last Thursday, we celebrated Colin's 1st birthday with a party that filled the house and brought together all our friends and family once again to love on our little man. After the house was cleaned and the pizzas made, we were ready to bring on the people and enjoy great company and lots of laughs in honour of Colin.

In keeping with my recent pinterest theme, I did find the cake that I made for this occasion there as well. Although it didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, it did taste delicious. Here is the original inspiration. And here is my interpretation...

If someone can figure out how to sprinkle the sides of a cake with SO many sprinkles, please do leave me a comment and enlighten me. For the life of me, short of turning the cake on its side, I could not figure out how to accomplish this. I didn't want to turn the cake on its side either due to the fact that it is 3 layers and I didn't want to chance one of the layers sliding and jeopardizing the cake so I opted instead to just sprinkle the hell out of the top. Another issue I had with the cake is that the swiss buttercream icing recipe that accompanys the cake did not work for me AT ALL. It calls for 3.5 cups of butter so I assumed it would be delicious, however once all the instructions were followed and the ingredients were in my Electrolux mixer, the icing just never set up. After 45 minutes of beating, I abandoned ship and opted for a classic royal icing instead that did the trick just as well.

For Colin's birthday present, Jason and I decided to get him a play table. The kid loves to stand and play and therefore we wanted to get him a table to stand at and use his toys, cars and trucks. So the morning of his birthday, we brought the table up from downstairs, selected a few of his favorite toys, and Colin got to work right away.

After dinner, we all gathered around and sang Colin his first ever Happy Birthday before serving up the cake. I think he might be the only child in history that picked up a piece of his cake, brought it to his mouth, and promptly threw it on the floor, ie. why there is no picture of him eating cake :).

After everyone else had cake, it was time for presents and boy did we have help opening up all the beautifully awesome gifts that Colin was blessed with.


After the party, when all the paper and boxes were cleared away, the table was filled up nicely with super cool toys for our little guy to gradually explore and get to know.

And of course, no 1 year olds birthday party would be complete without a keg.


For the 7 little people who attended the party, I wanted to put together a goody bag with something Pinterest inspried as well. Although I couldn't quite make what I set out to, I was able to again, make a variation of the original idea. This was what I wanted to make originally, but couldn't find the letter silicone molds anywhere in the city. That is the problem with coming up with your idea on a Monday, and needing the product finished for Thursday. Whoops! I will keep the idea in the back pocket, order the letter molds from an online store and make them for another party. For this party, I found a square mold and made these instead...

Kinda cool still, I guess?

All in all, I think Colin's 1st birthday was a complete success! Thank you for everyone who came and celebrated the day with us. We and especially COLIN are so lucky to have each and every one of you in our lives. If there is one thing Colin will never doubt is how LOVED he truly is. That boy is blessed beyond belief. As we enter into year two now, I can only imagine how much he is going to grow and change until we all congregate again to celebrate him and his 2nd birthday. What a year it will be!