First, thank you for all the comments yesterday! I love hearing from so many of you and know Maxwell will get a kick out of reading them someday too.

Second, how about a birthday party?! To celebrate Maxwell’s birthday, we just had some of our immediate family over for lunch on Sunday…that didn’t stop me from doing a little decorating though!  🙂  My baby boy is only going to turn 1 once so I wanted to make it special, festive and fun for all!

Like all 1 year olds, Maxwell loves balloons.  He also loves his friend Little Al (seen in our monthly photo shoots).  So, when I saw this invitation…

it all just fell into place.  Lots of balloons and lots of happy colors!

I ordered the Happy Birthday banner off of Etsy, made the centerpieces with candy and cardstock, and blew up all the balloons myself with a helium tank from Party City.  easy!

I also made banners out of all of his monthly photos to display on our mantels.  I think everyone loved getting to compare all the photos side by side and see how much he’s grown in a year!

The brick mantel had my favorite individual photo from each month and the living room mantel had all the Little Al photo favorites.

Maxwell loved having the fam in “his house” and getting to play with (almost) everyone. We missed Aunt Mess and Holland and Keath, Jen, Delaney and Nate.

Maxwell especially loved getting lots of grandmother love!

Along with the banner, I also ordered this cute birthday crown off of Etsy for Maxwell to wear. Let’s just say it didn’t go over so well.

Crown attempt #1…

Fail.  The grandmothers sure got a kick out of it though!  🙂

Crown attempt #2…

Fail. Oh well.

We knew we couldn’t have a party without feeding our guests well so Robert and I cooked up quite a feast.  Luckily I got to prepare my portion of the meal inside in the kitchen. Poor Robert had to sweat it out at the grill.  It was worth it though!

You know what comes after the birthday lunch don’t you? Birthday cake!!

A smash cake for Maxwell and cupcakes for everyone else.  All from Olexa’s and all really good. Like, ridiculously good. Yum.

Obligatory pre-cake family photo…

Thanks Jenny!

I had no idea how Maxwell was going to be with the cake but he quickly showed us all that he’s got his momma’s sweet tooth!

I couldn’t help getting in a little lick of that icing myself!  🙂

I then cut the cake up a bit for him and that’s when he really dug in!

A very happy birthday boy!

And a very messy birthday boy!

He even played patty-cake with his cake…naturally.

Love him.

We then tried for crown attempt #3…

Fail.

Little Al ended up wearing the crown for most of the party…

Success!

(please note how Little Al has a balloon around his trunk just like the elephant on the invitation. I was quite proud of that! It’s the little things.)

Maxwell might not have liked his crown but he loved his cake and that’s what matters!

The party continues tomorrow with presents, presents and more presents!  It’s good to be Maxwell these days!  🙂  See you tomorrow!