A Giraffe Party

Last weekend we celebrated Miles 1st Birthday with a giraffe themed birthday party!  We waited until all of our friends got back from vacation and I spent a few weeks planning, organizing, and working on all the details for his shindig!  I ALMOST decided not to have a party because I just felt like there was so much going on and I didn't want to physically over do myself or run the risk of Brooklyn coming early, but then I realized for the rest of our lives we will always compete with Christmas for Miles birthday, traveling, and potentially another birthday close by so I sucked it up and went after it!  I really wanted to make sure Miles got the same 1st birthday experience that we did for Gavin 3 years ago and I'm so glad we did it!

Miles greeted his guests when they came to the door.  This is his friend Aden who was born in Saudi a week after him- his mom and dad are teachers at the school Gavin goes to and our apart of our weekly meeting group!  Love the McGuire Family!  

We couldn't have a party without singing Happy Birthday.  We've done this twice before so Miles knew what was coming and pretty excited about.  Gavin was also VERY excited about the smash cake (he decorated it himself- see below for more details).

 

Here's a video of us singing Happy Birthday to Miles and him eating his cake!  He devoured it! (don't forget to scroll down and pause my music)

Happy Birthday sweet boy!  Mommy, Daddy, and Gavin LOVE YOU!!

Some of our friends at the party and their little ones!

Miles loved opening his presents and was semi into it.  We helped rip off the paper for him to see what was inside.. that seemed to hold his attention faster and better!  Aden helped too!

 

As always a favorite gift came from Uncle Micah and Aunt Steph... Miles got his very own riding toy and he loved it!!  It's just his size and allows him to have something to ride on when Gavin is riding his big boy toys!

 

 Miles birthday party was a lot of fun and I'm so glad we were able to celebrate his first birthday with our close friends here in Saudi!  This past year has gone by so fast and we can't believe our little man is already 1.  We're looking forward to watching him grow into his personality and are anxious for him to become a big brother!  

I was going to make this a separate post but figured I'd just group it all together.  

If you're still reading the blog... here's all the details about the party (if you care about this kind a stuff).  

I picked the giraffe theme because for the past year Miles has gotten multiple giraffe animals or toys so it just seemed to fit.  I wanted needed his cake to be semi easy, but also wanted it to be a cutsey little boy cake and not some elaborate, over the top cake so I went with the number 1 look and turned it into a giraffe.  Gavin actually decorated Miles smash cake and was VERY, VERY proud of himself.  It was a sweet moment when Gavin brought the cake to Miles when it was time to sing Happy Birthday to him.  If anyone came over to our house the day before the party, Gavin would go get the smash cake out of the fridge and show it off.  Too cute!  I picked up some giraffe stuff while we were in the states and ordered a few things from etsy to top off the party decorations.  I got the idea for a first year photo timeline to showcase at the party from a blog and had giraffe themed monthly tags made and then went through all my pictures of Miles from each month and picked out my favorite one or the one I felt represented that month the best and made the banner.  It really turned out cute and everyone loved seeing how much Miles had changed over the year.  

 

 

The birthday boy sporting his birthday shirt!  I had this shirt made for Miles to have a keepsake for years to come and ordered it from this etsy store.  

Something I'm so glad that I did and didn't think about it until the last minute... was to have some sort of sign in for us to remember who celebrated Miles first birthday with us.  For Gavin's party, I had been scrap booking his first year and just made a sign in sheet for his book.  For Miles, I'm making a digital photo book of his first year, but I'm not finished with it (my original goal was to have his book printed and leave blank pages in the back so people could sign it, but I really wanted to have Miles first birthday in the book, so I knew I needed something else that we would always keep.  Shel Silverstein is a great author and we have 4 of his other books and read them occasionally.  When I saw this giraffe book online, I knew this book would be something we would keep for years and years and it hopefully would not get lost!  When people came to the party they wrote Miles a sweet note and this will be something we'll cherish for years to come, not to mention remember our time in Saudi and the friends we were surrounded with!



Weeks leading up to the party I searched and brainstormed cute party favors to give to our guests, but felt like things were either too expensive or too corny to give.  I refused to spend money on "giraffe stuff" for adults since there were very few little kids to give favors to, so I bit the bullet and made sugar cookies.  These aren't my favorite things to do-- they are SOO time consuming and I never feel like they come out good... I've always said I'd much rather make a 3 tiered cake then decorate 2 dozen iced sugar cookies, but I went with a simple design, skyped my sister in law for help (who by the way, decorates AMAZING sugar cookies), and went to town decorating them while Brooks and I watched a movie.  Simple and Fun!  I think they were a hit with everyone and I'm just glad I had something to give to everyone!