Thursday, October 7, 2010

Our Little Monkey Turned One





My oh my what a week it has been!!!  Not only have we been super busy at school, but Jaycee turned one this past weekend.  Getting ready for her birthday was quite the event, but all in all things went pretty well.



My first idea was to have her party outside at a small park near our house.  I thought that way if there are any spills or cake messes, it's easy to clean it up.  I also thought that more people could spread out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather that we have been having lately.  I was also thinking about the kids.  I know that their attention spans are rather short, and if they have playground equipment to keep them occupied, then it would just make keeping them entertained a little bit
easier.
Here we have things set up at Teal Cove Park right by our house.
We went with the colors lime green and pink.  I had to do a little pink. Ha ha!!!




I decided that I wanted to center Jaycee's first birthday around a theme that has been reoccuring at our house lately.  Since Jaycee started walking about a month ago, she is all over the place and likes to climb and move all the time.  We call her a little monkey sometimes, so I thought it was fitting that her birthday be themed around the monkey cake.  I saw a really cute picture on the internet and made some invitations and sent them out to a few close friends and family.  I then decided that I would attempt to make her cake to look like the monkey on the invitations.  This was something that I have been wanting to do ever since Jaycee came into our lives.  I don't know what it is, but my dad made a few of our birthday cakes and I thought it was so cool!!!!  I thought that I would try my hand at it too.

Here is a balloon with the little girl monkey that I looked at to make the cake.


So I got the RSVPs from most people and had an idea of how many people were coming, and decided to make 3 round single layer cakes.  I then looked at the picture and cut them to look like the shape of the monkey's head.  I used chocolate frosting to help keep the pieces together and frosted the rest of the cake.  I also made several flower shaped sugar cookies to look like there was a flower in the monkey's hair.  It turned out even cuter than I had expected!!! 


 The cake table.

  
 Little Girl Monkey Cake
I made this myself. 
It was super fun!!!


 Cupcakes and Cookies galore!!!


 Jaycee's little baby cake.


Here's the birthday girl!!!
She looks nothing like me except for maybe her nose.


 Our little family.
I actually really love this picture.  We all look pretty natural.

Getting Jaycee ready to eat cake.
We used a plastic sack to cover her shirt, but it was useless.


Friends

Travis & Meagan Wells



More friends.


 
 Troy & Gavin Bruns


Chris, Jenn, & Corbin Williams


Gavin & Brenton
These are two of Jaycee's friends.  She is going to learn how to be tough around these boys.



Kyle, Amy, & Jendie Stevens


Janel & Karen


Foster & Parker



Family

My mom & dad, nephew Everett, & sister-in-law Casey.
I was so happy they could come.  They were in town from the Chicago area.

 Tom's sister, neice, brother-in-law, and mom.





Jaycee Eating Her Cake

 She took her time eating her cake.  I really think she was confused because we don't let her just go to town and smash her hands into her food like that.  But you gotta have a little fun with it though!!!




 Tom's dad is trying to get her attention. 
I think she is too preoccupied with that yummy cake.








Here's what was left of the cake after she was done with it.

 It's time to clean up and open presents.  Yay!!!
I think she wanted to keep working on that yummy cake!!!



 Opening Gifts

  We took lots of pictures of this, so I am just showing you a few of the highlights.

 Gift table. 
Tom did a good job of decorating







Jaycee had some time to play with her cousin Everett who lives too far away. 
They are only about 2 months apart in age. 










Party Favors
I mdae these myself.
I think that little monkey is so cute!!!



So many of Jaycee's friends and family came to wish her a happy birthday. 
I was completely overwhelmed by how many people love her.  She is such a blessing!!! 

We had a blast!!! I can't wait to see what exciting things we will see from Jaycee this next year.


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2 comments:

Amy said...

This is so cute, Mira! You did a great job! I'm in a bit of denial that my baby is almost 1. :)

Anonymous said...

Mira:
The cake is way cute!!! I can see many more mama made cakes in Jaycee's future.
Jonni Brown