one-year-old birthday parties: my thoughts

over the last few years i've attended my fair share of first birthday parties of friend's children. i've even flown in for our really good friends' kiddo's first birthday party. mind you, it was basically all adults drinking margs and eating tacos and catching up on life. but still.

i've seen the babies who have an entire cake in front of them all to themselves that was....not cheap. i've seen the beautiful balloon cascades around/behind their high chair. i've seen the professional photos taken (sometimes even videographers (i didn't even have a videographer at my wedding !!)).

i once had a boss tell me that all career promotions should be really celebrated because they don't happen all the time. and trust me, i'm ALL FOR celebrating big moments in life - not just careers/jobs. i believe that you should recognize when big/awesome/incredible things happen in life. i consider myself the queen of self-rewarding. 

but lately, as i think about MY baby turning one, and i began to stress that we don't know enough people to really put on a massive party for august, i started to think about the why behind the extravagant first birthday parties. don't get me wrong i'm so so SO excited to celebrate august and his magical one year of life and all the things he's accomplished and learned. i'm excited to give him his gift, and i am looking forward to him tasting sugar in his cupcake for the first time.

but these MASSIVE parties, guys... that immediately end up on instagram and rack. up. the. likes.

i had to check myself to figure out why i was so stressed about what we were going to do to celebrate august's first birthday. since we don't have family in the state, i just decided we'd travel somewhere. sure, we didn't have a bounce house, but we visited national parks!! how cool?!! RIGHT?

ultimately, after a lot of thought, we decided an intimate celebration of august was more our style. we'll be heading to ATX two weeks before his birthday, and a week after his birthday we have my in-laws coming to town. when it's all said and done, we'll have celebrated his birthday three times. there will be no production team showing up to document it all. we're not catering or hiring geronimo to install balloons.

i honestly can't wait. and some parts it might end up on instagram. we'll see. :)


(photo above from pinterest)