1st Birthday and the return to work

That's it - here and gone - SO quick.

Missy Lou  turned one and I have returned to full time work. Where does the time go?

Thank-you for all the Birthday wishes - and thank-you for a wonderful weekend filled with cake, laughter and love!

I was chatting with a girlfriend who's 1st born turned 1 this summer - she hit the nail on the head when explaining the size of the Birthday party- "it was pretty much a small wedding".

Yep - inevitable - 1st Born, 1st grandchild, 1st - 1st Birthday - it will be huge.

Mr. O's 1st Birthday took place over the course of 3 days - WAY too much! So we tried to scale back...

Missy Lou's Birthday was a two day event - 2 parties which co-incided with Thanksgiving.

Party #1 was a Dora theme - complete with A 'map' for a scavenger hunt, purple 'backpack' (or buckets) to hold all scavenger items, a Pinata (of Dora... slightly creepy - yet hilarious as the kids loved to smack the crap out of it), and of course the cake.

On the hunt....

Party #2 was what I'll call the PINTREST party - everything was inspired by Pintrest.

The Pintrest inspired decorations worked out really good!

embroidery hoop + fabric+ "1"+ ribbon

tissue paper + pipe-cleaner (click here for tutorial)

'clothes line' of pictures documenting each month

balloon weight - small glass jar +  4 boxes smarties + #1 candle

But I think my most TRIUMPHANT Pintrest inspired idea was the Zebra Cake....

she was Marvellous!
 SO Delicious too:

Piped with reverse shell technique - you tubed it that morning! (Icing took about 1/2 hour)

Now Missy Z - didn't want to get her hands dirty - and actually didn't eat/smear/wear her cake (which was too bad as that is probably the best part of the 1st Birthday) - However she did enjoy her cake the next day :)

Here is the Zebra Cake Tutorial. I did use the Betty crocker mixes - as they were on sale for 88 cents that week - The cake was moist and quite enjoyable!!

We all had a ball - and slept REALLY well that night.....

... and then bright and early the next morning - my alarm went off and that was it - Mat leave over - 1st Birthday came and went.... and I was off to the clinic.