For Eliot’s first birthday, we celebrated with friends at the local pool. It’s about two blocks down the street from our apartment and we have been anxiously awaiting the summer we were out of school and able to pay for the membership! I really like parties, but also tend to stress out (like, a lot.) about getting all of the details pulled together. So, I decided to keep Eliot’s party as low-key and simple as I could, while still sharing tasty food and a nice atmosphere to enjoy with friends. I’m happy to say that it went really well and despite lots of bumps in the road the day of the party, I felt really calm and happy.
The one thing that I did stay up late working on–though without stressing out, was this bright scrap penant banner. I have wanted to make one for months and this was the perfect excuse to sit down and do it. I wanted it to be bright and multi-colored to be able to use as simple decor for any event, so I just grabbed random pieces from my stash. My neighbor came over to help me (at 10 pm the night before the party…you know how I roll), and together we cut and stitched around 40 triangles. I had a super long piece of homemade bias tape leftover from Eliot’s Christmas Quilt, and it was perfect for finishing this off. I like the triangles spaced out a little bit, so I actually only used about half of them (for a 20′ banner!) It will be fun to make one more with the left-over pieces someday…
The baby of the hour. I swear this last year passed in the blink of an eye, and I am completely smitten for this little buddy. He is the perfect addition to the close friendship I shared with Milo before he came along (that I was so worried about losing!) Because Eliot is so calm and good-natured, he helps me calm down a little bit. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know his little personality, and I love what a fun-loving, independent, cuddly guy he is. He still totally feels like my baby (although he started walking last week and seeing him teeter on two feet makes him look a lot more grown up…) and I adore him.
The party started at 5 pm and I wanted to serve a light dinner so people could get their kids right to bed when they left. I finally decided on making a huge batch of greek pasta salad to serve in individual cups with the fork taped right to the side for easy pool-side eating. I supplemented that with a few different types of bread with cheese, Trader Joe’s Yogurt Kale dip, and Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter (both uh-mazing, if you’ve not tried them!) Milo helped me put grapes, blueberries and strawberries on skewers–again for easy eating, and then we had a cooler filled with different types homemade lemonade with my printable labels stuck on the bottles. I think the casual buffet was perfect for a pool party. Everyone also enjoyed sampling the different flavors of lemonade and choosing their favorites (I think Mango and Lavender were the hits.)
Rather than a whole birthday cake to melt in the heat, I bought a single cupcake for baby Eliot to make a wish (with a little help from mom), then we opened up a cooler filled with several types of popsicles for all of our friends. The summer feels so complete sitting by a pool, eating a drumstick cone. There were enough popsicles for seconds and thirds, and I think the kids were in heaven!
Eliot didn’t mind his cupcake at all either! It’s no secret that this wasn’t Eliot’s first cupcake…He’s eaten just about everything in sight since he started solids at 6 months. I think it took him about 2 minutes to double-fist the whole thing. That’s my boy!
I letterpressed these invitations months and months ago as the my June calendar page for Pyramid Atlantic’s calendar. My intention was to set the type for the details of the party and send them in the mail. I ended up just sending the pdf file of the design in an email because I procrastinated the printing and didn’t have time to send them. Instead of a mailed invitation, I decided to slip them into the favor bags as simple summer letter press prints (sort of like a favor for the moms!) The words say “and the living is easy” after all of my hand-drawn summer motifs. I was happy to get to use them even if not in the intended way! I also found these really cute and pretty inexpensive kids sunglasses to give as favors. I needed some for my boys and thought they were a fun and useful little gift. I resisted the urge to create individual sunglass cases (trying to keep it stress-free) and just slipped them in a cellophane bag with the print and some candy. Easy peasy.
All in all it was a fun, relaxed, enjoyable celebration. We loved seeing all of our good friends, watching the kids splash around in the water, and spending a couple hours being so happy that Eliot is a part of our lives.
