Baby Bean’s One Year Birthday Party

This is my kid…but you guys, this totally is my kid.

Look at the joy. The pure, undiluted joy on his face as he tears into his smash cake like a ravenous little velociraptor.

More than the blonde hair and the blue eyes and the skin that I won’t let outside without a thousand layers of baby sunscreen, those are my genes. The foodie genes. The ones that led him to not just dig into that cake but to smash it with gusto and devour it with joy.

Super proud mom here.

So, this past weekend, we had a little first birthday party for our little Baby Bean. He’s not a Baby Bean anymore. He’s a Little Bean according to our friends.

He’s one. Somehow that happened.

I’m coping.

But in the meantime, we decided to throw him a little party with a few of our favorite friends and families. My mom and my in-laws came to visit, and we hosted five other families – about twenty additional people – for some games, some prizes, some great barbecue, and a whole lot of fun!

Featuring the new back deck, which we’re still working on furnishing.

My son’s absolute favorite movie right now is Disney’s Moana. Whenever the music comes on my Hawaii Pandora channel {yes, I’m homesick} he gets excited, and he loves the movie.

So we took the opportunity to make his party Hawaii themed – lots of hibiscus and slipper print, grilling up huli-huli chicken and pineapple and kalua pork in the crock pot {will post that one soon!} and potato salad and slaw and Hawaiian rolls and all the good stuff.

And You Are My Sunshine Cakes, a lovely local artist here, made him the sweetest little Moana themed cake you could ever wish for.

Don’t you love the little figures and the hibiscus and the pretty little boat and the brown sugar sand?

This is not the cake he smashed. I wouldn’t let him smash this cake. Our friend made him a special smash cake and we sliced this one up to serve. And I swear, it was the most delicious cake ever.

Although as the mama who tests everything before he gets it {I know, I’m compulsive}, his smash cake was pretty darn delicious, too. Thanks so much for his lovely little surfing wave smash cake, Katie!

Our friend Katie created a beachy little smash cake with a fondant surfboard and a frosting-covered round cake wave for him to tear apart.

With all this, I’m ignoring the fact that somehow, suddenly, I’m the mom of a one-year-old. It seemed to take forever to grow him big enough to be born, and suddenly, once he was out, time flew. He’s now one.

I’m coping.

I’m repeating that in the hopes that it sinks in and my body and brain will just assume that, because of the repetition, I really am coping.

But for now, I’m just going to bask in all the love that was in our house, in all the love our friends and family showed to our little man, in all the good food that we served up at our table and the new friendships between friends and family we saw blossom {my absolute favorite part of hosting big gatherings is watching people we love make connections}, and in all the joy the Hawaii memories we got to revisit bring to us.

Happy birthday, Little Bean. We love you!