Curious George Birthday Party

On Saturday, October 27th at 2:00pm we celebrated Charlie's first birthday with a Curious George party at our apartment. I spent quite a bit of time getting ready for this party, and with a lot of help from my lovely assistant, my wonderful mother who showed up Thursday night to surprise me and help me out, I was really happy with how it turned out! Please enjoy all the photos! The picture above is the strung birthday banner I made from scratch out of paper!

Monkey snacks ;)

Paper circles sewed together to create a paper garland:

New Curious George books for my little man:

Display right inside the door with some of Charlie's new birthday toys:

Below is the full sized picture that is framed above. I didn't want to post this one with his one year old pictures in the previous post because I wanted it to be a surprise for the party, but it was taken that same day!

A good view of most of the decor:

The display outside the apartment door as you enter:

Didn't have enough room in my tiny apartment for the drinks, so they went on a table outside:

My pride and joy... the cupcakes! I made and colored the frosting from scratch. The cupcake toppers are little banana runts:

My other pride and joy... Charlie's smash cake, a banana, also decorated by hand!

Let the cake eating begin! He was a bit unsure at first, mainly because he couldn't reach the cake yet and we were all singing to him:

But once that cake was within reaching distance, he had no reservations digging right in:

And I couldn't decide on just 1 or 2 cake pictures... so you'll get 5 total :P

With cousin Scarlett:

Then it was time to open gifts, although Charlie doesn't quite get that concept yet and got help from his older friends and cousins! ;) He received lots of fun toys, books, and articles of clothing from his friends and family. The cute personalized chair from Pottery Barn Kids that Charlie is sitting in was a gift from my parents for his birthday and Christmas! So awesome!
Pictured below are Gibson Cotner (lower L corner), Trev, Charlie, and cousin Kanyon: 

Playing in his room with some of his friends and other party guests. From L to R: James, Tara, and Gibson Cotner; Hallie Barrett and her dad, and then Charlie.

Many of the family party guests from L to R: Jill (Grandma), my mom (Kimma), Deanna & Kayle, Meghan, and then friends Brent Christensen holding his son Tyler (almost 1 year old) at the bottom: 

Not pictured guests include Grandpa Russell, my dad (who was on Skype for a while!), and Nicole Christensen. Even though it was a bit crowded, it was a fantastic party and I think everyone had a lot of fun!

Oh! And here's what the invitation that I created looked like:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE ONE!