Having a birthday party for Marlowe was a no-brainer for me.  She is a total ham, and loves to get in on the action and play with her friends, so nothing seemed better than organizing something where all of Marlowe’s pals could come over and jam with her!  It feels nice as a parent to celebrate a year of keeping a child alive, too.  I’ve been planning for months! We call Marlowe Lowie-Bird as a nickname so I felt that a bird theme was in order.  I loved the cupcake decorations and garlands that I found by Meri Meri with adorable pastel birds, and I added to them with some DIY tassels and paper flowers.  Otherwise, we kept it simple.  I served a trio of mini sandwiches, Caprese skewers, turkey meatball skewers, and good old-fashioned home made cupcakes.  There were little cups of puffs and popcorn for the kiddos, and half-pint sized water bottles.  Beer and champagne were on hand for parents!  I also ordered a vegan smash cake from Buttercelli Bakery for Marlowe to dig in to.  She isn’t vegan, but I figured that the other babies would want to get in on the action and I know a lot of Moms aren’t giving dairy, gluten, or nuts by this stage.  Let them ALL eat cake!
We also happen to have a child who is OBSESSED with jamming out to music of all kinds.  I hired The Beat Buds, who are a fun and uptempo kid band, to play her party and they were a hit!  Marlowe knows their CD by heart and it was hilarious to watch her sit there with her mouth agape in awe for the first three songs or so as she processed that the guys she usually listened to through a speaker were here in her backyard!  Be cool, Lowie, be cool!  After that she went nuts, and especially loved the part where they all bang on a drum and then lift up a parachute.  We had been practicing blowing out her candles for a couple months now, so when the cake finally came around the corner she started blowing a little too early (ineffective but so cute).  As the cake got closer, she seemed a little apprehensive and just stared at the candles before blowing out one of them herself.  We had all the other children come up and help her with the others, and then let her dig in! And dig in she…didn’t.  Unless digging in means making sure your skin is ultra moisturized with vegan cake frosting.  (Is she a skincare maven in the making?)  After rubbing frosting all over her body, she started putting it in her mouth– and the rest is history.  We had a two-hours-late bed time that night as my brand new One Year Old zipped around the house on her sugar high.  All in all, the day was a major success…and it will take me until August 9th next year to clean my house and get it back to normal.  Worth it!  Happy Birthday, Marlowe.  We love you, through and through.

xoxo
EAM

p.s-  Marlowe’s Birthday Dress is by Jacadi, my striped shirt is J. Crew, and Kyle’s is Club Monaco.  😉