Gavin's 1st Birthday Party!!

We celebrated Gavin's 1st birthday at that cool bike/wheel-of-any-kind park. It was a great venue for all the kids but especially for the older ones. It's enclosed so everyone is safe and it's got enough roads and paths to keep the kids well-entertained. Even the little kids enjoyed hopping on small cars or push-toys and walking around. We're thankful we know some friends who let us borrow their pass to get in! 

The theme for this year's party was "the Happy Face" for our Mr. Smiley. Not only does this little happy face remind us of Gavin's constant demeanor, but he loves to play with a yellow ball that has a smiley face printed on it, too. After going through over 300 pictures, I've narrowed it down to the following ones I think will give the gist of the party...

 My mom and I worked on those cookies while Rudy created the following watermelon masterpiece!

I really enjoyed the simplicity of this party. We served pizza, salad, watermelon, cookies/cake and water. Badda bing. The tables were sprinkled with some smiley "confetti" I made and some smiley mints I picked up at a party store.

We hung these smiley beach balls from the covering and gave them away as party favors at the end.

Since my original idea of a kind of clothesline month-by-month picture gallery didn't work in the space we had, we decided to clip the pics on each of the larger balls. I used Gav's monthly block pictures to show how much he's grown over the year.

The lower hanging balls quickly became punching bags! (Holden and Kyle)

Also included in the favor realm, and with the hopes that a Frisbee game would be encouraged, we gave out these smiley face Frisbees (larger ones for the older siblings and smaller ones for the babies ;). It's amazing what a Sharpie marker can do for ya!

 

Then, along the road we had a little sign for Gavin.

Gavin wore a smiley-face t-shirt that GG sent just for the occasion! It's just so him.

Ru reused one of the old checkered curtains I had hanging in my upper grade classroom. It turned into a finish line for the Road Rally we had going.

Uncle Ryan flew in from Chicago just for the special weekend! He's such a fun uncle and the boys have enjoyed playing with him.

Kyle and his friend Holden had a blast and totally entertained themselves the entire time! Fantastic, eh?!

Then came time to sing to Gavin and watch him "eat" his smash-cake. (I forgot to get a picture of the larger cake!)

He didn't disappoint! :)

And he even shared some with Daddy.

The family.

Happy Birthday, Gavin. We love you, Mr. Smiley!!!