Can You Dig It?!? My Baby is Turning One!

Wow. Had to believe that Mason's first birthday party was today. Thank goodness his actually birthday is a couple days away, otherwise I'd be a sobbing mess right now! It feels like just yesterday that Mason was a 4-week-old, sleeping on my chest, as I combed Pinterest for birthday party ideas. (Yes, I was the crazy mama who started planning that early and yes, I'm already thinking about next year!)

I chose a 'construction theme' mostly because it was a cute compromise between the "baby themes" that I loved and the "rough and tough big boy themes" that my husband pushed for. Little did we know that as Mason grew into his own personality, he would discover his love for trucks and tools! (One of his fave toys to haul around is a plastic saw).

Seriously, how cute can one baby be?!?

The great part of planning a party so far in advance, is there was little to no stress in getting everything together. I purchased all of the plates, forks, cups and napkins at Dollar Tree so I think I spent $9.00 total. I made a lot of the decorations myself but also scored $10.00 worth of construction themed birthday decorations (7 pieces) from a Kids Party Swap group on Facebook. (I seriously love the genius mama who came up with the idea of swapping used party decorations to save some dough!) My husband's place of business lent us some caution tape and safety cones (FREE STUFF IS THE BEST!) and I washed up some of Mason's toy trucks and incorporated them into the decorations.

Since Mason was born, I've always taken monthly photos of him to catalog his growth. On one of our glass doors, I posted each month. It was fun to look back at the different months!

I "borrowed" some ideas from Pinterest and renamed a lot of the food I was serving. Carrots turned into traffic cones, onion dip turned into cement, pretzels turned into support beams and grapes turned into wrecking balls. 

 

My favorite part of the party planning was designing his cake! I'm not exactly known as a domestic goddess in my family so everyone was a bit shocked to hear that I made it myself (and by "make" I mean used box cake mix). But I did make my own frosting and decorate it myself! I scored a few tiny tonka trucks on sale at Target months ago and they were perfect for the cake's "construction scene". I also made tiny traffic signs out of card stock and toothpicks. Everything else was edible.

Taddddaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

As much fun as the planning was, it was even more fun to celebrate! I was so proud of Mason for missing out on one of his naps and still partying like a 1-year-old rock star! He laughed and clapped when we sang Happy Birthday and tore into his presents like nobody's business! There were minor "bumps in the road" when Mason decided to bite off a piece of his plastic fork and I almost did the Heimlich on him and another "bump" when Daddy went to do a diaper change and Mason peed all over the both of them... but those will be funny tales to write in his baby book someday. It was a perfect day and I wouldn't change a thing!