Ties and Tutus First Birthday Party

Obviously, if you follow me on Facebook, we had a bit of a celebration around here this past weekend..

{banners by me}

{straws, straw toppers}

{cups}

{bowtie banner}

{cake toppers by me}

{blueberry cupcake recipe, banana cupcake recipe, cream cheese frosting recipe}

(I have made the blueberry cake recipe many times as the regular 9x13 version and people seem to love it!  The six-inch smash cake is blueberry, and I used the remaining batter for cupcakes, which gave me exactly a dozen.  Since I used frosting, I omitted the cinnamon sugar/blueberry topping and added more blueberries to the batter.)

{tutu}

As for the party itself, it went...well, okay.  I think it was a long day for the birthday babies (though they pretty much stuck to their routine, and napped well earlier in the day), and in addition, Caden was teething.  I thought Brooklyn was teething, too, (glassy eyed, rosy cheeked, kinda fussy), but she recovered and was back to herself by the next day, so I don't know what was going on.  There was a lot of family in town (thanks for coming, everyone!), a lot of attention and a LOT of gifts...

(I think we were about halfway through opening presents at this point...)

(One of my favorite pictures from their party.)

They made it through the first four-ish presents okay, but then it just kind of devolved into Tyson and I opening their presents.

Look!  I got a puzzle!

Most sentimental gift: my grandma gave Brooklyn a doll that had been my great grandmas, (Brooklyn's great-great grandma), complete with a swimsuit that my great-grandma crocheted when she was a girl.  It's over 100 years old!  My grandma crocheted a (new) blanket to wrap her in, too.

Then it was time for cake...

Things had already gone downhill during the middle of present-opening, when Caden decided to pull (an already fussy) Brooklyn's hair (thanks, bro!).  We took out the cake to sing and things got slightly better.  

(It looks like Brooklyn is digging in but, honestly, she could have cared less about the cake.)

Caden got pretty into it...

(cake coma)

...but I think he was more excited about using a fork and a spoon than anything.  They really didn't care about their cake that much.  I tried to make food that they like (blueberries! bananas!  cream cheese!) but they weren't all that into it.  They had a doctor's appointment complete with shots on Monday, so I gave them each a leftover cupcake as a special treat at snacktime.  They both refused to eat it (Caden actually cried), and ended up eating real, WHOLE blueberries as fast as I could put them on their trays.  Well then.  I guess I'm not going to argue with that.  (Though, seriously, are you my children?!?)

At least Caden made an attempt at the cake on party day, though.  This is Brooklyn's chair during cake time:

*crickets*

Oh well.  The party was cute, I think people had fun, (except for maybe the honorees...), and now the whole ordeal is over.  All these new toys are the shizz over here this week, and we're back to some semblance of normal.  Except that the new normal involves Tyson and I being the parents of two one-year olds.  WHAT???