Birthdays!

My girl is officially a one-year-old!! Still cannot wrap my head around this. Where does time go. We wanted to celebrate her birthday with med school friends and kids, and because of traveling/scheduling, the only day we could really throw the party was on my birthday! Haha. So basically it was my dream birthday - host a party! I kind of love throwing parties - all my friends can attest that if I don't have some sort of event to look forward to I get a little stir crazy ;). We put on a murder mystery party last Halloween (so much work but SO fun!), and then for Easter we did a big brunch complete with real bunnies and piñatas and all that jazz (see more here). For Lydia's birthday party I just wanted to keep it simple - I mean she won't remember it anyway - so we did a low key pineapple "pool" party bbq (with a kiddie pool, haha)! Michael grilled burgers and I just bought all the rest of the food to keep it simple. Then we opened a few presents and had a smash cake and just talked and basically that was the evening! 

***Lame confession: if there isn't some sort of activity or game at the party I'm throwing I get really worried. What will people do? Will people be bored? Will people actually TALK to each other like they're supposed to? Hahaha. Irrational I know, but I just want people to have fun and for some reason that correlates with "activity" in my mind. Well I'm happy to report that "just talking" worked out great ;). 

We started my birthday off with an embarrassing last minute breakfast at McDonalds, and then Lydia and I set up the backyard for the party! Michael joined us after class for lunch at...

Firehouse! We go here every birthday because they give you a free sandwich if you just show your ID! None of that signing up and emailing bologna :). 

Then... we splurged because #birthday.

Once we got home we went into official party mode! Picking up balloons, chopping burger toppings, decorating - so fun.

Do you like our hodge podge chairs? This is what it looks like when you pull every possible potential seating item from your house ;).

Had to keep the glasses on the plates so they didn't blow away.

Leis for all! We did a fun little game where you couldn't say "one" or "first" or else you got your lei taken away. Whoever collected the most got a mini ping pong set! Haha.

I bought this smash cake from Harmon's for $10 and was super impressed with how cute it was! Hooray for cheap and functional. It took Lydia a few minutes to really get into the cake ha, she just sat their politely taking tiiiiny licks with one finger for a while. We finally enlisted the help of some bigger kids to show her how it was done :).

Thanks to all who came and celebrated with us! The perfect way to kick off this new school year. Med School Year 2 - let's do this!