Ezra's First Birthday

 It's about time for first birthday pictures don't you think? We'll celebrate him turning 15 months today with a look back at his party! We had decided awhile back to have his party at Pullen Park. We thought it would be perfect with the train and carousel.  But, with my procrastination in reserving the shelter we had to shuffle around several dates before finally getting a Sunday 3pm shelter. Not ideal for a napping baby boy but it worked out ok. Although it seemed as everyone else in Raleigh was at Pullen Park as well. Talk about busy! I was determined to have a stress free party but of course got frazzled. Full of ideas thanks to pinterest I had planned a bright colorful chevron theme. His adorable one year onesie was my inspiration. I love it!

I found this chevron cake and was in love. I was going to make it rainbow tiered inside but in reality I had no time or skill to complete that cake. So I settled on just doing the banner. Which was relatively quick. But, thanks to some serious wind it didn't get the attention it deserved. For the snacks we had plenty of fresh fruit, rainbow goldfish, variety of tea sandwiches, and I made cheesecake stuffed strawberries thanks to pinterest. 

But, instead of a graham cracker topping I put on blueberry in each. They were super yummy. Luckily for me there were plenty left over to enjoy. For cupcakes I made a variety of kinds. One package of trader joes vanilla, a batch from scratch vanilla, from scratch chocolate, and banana from scratch. I had been reading about the effects of dyes on children so I wanted to do natural dyes for the frosting. I ending up making a blueberry frosting which tasted great but really was a light purple. Oops! For the other ones I wanted an orange color and I read that turmeric is the perfect way to achieve that. After I made I didn't think it tasted right. So I used the blueberry cheesecake icing for most of the cupcakes. A couple weeks later I realized why they tasted a little off. I hadn't used turmeric like I thought but taco bell seasoning that was unlabeled in a ziplock. So if you had a weird cupcake I'm sorry! All I could do was laugh. I made Ezra a banana cupcake since he loved banana bread. But, when his big moment came he would have nothing to do with it. Instead he ate my chocolate cupcake! We ending up not getting a single family shot, and I don't think I'm in any pictures except the back of my head. Oh well. That's how it goes.  I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. Next year I think we will go simple like Emerson's second birthday. Parties are a lot of work!