My little boy turned 1 at the beginning of December. It doesn't seem possible that it's a year since he was born, but then again it seems like he's been with us forever.
I wanted to mark the occasion, but without spending too much money. The main things I wanted to do was a cake smash the weekend before his birthday. Then the Saturday after his birthday we'd be free to have a day out, without too many time restraints.
If you don't know what a cake smash is, it's basically putting your baby in front of a cake and letting them loose on it. This can be as elaborate or simple as you want it to be. Some people just put their baby in their high chair and a cake on the tray. You can even buy sets now to decorate the high chair and a mat to go under it. Or you can go to a photographer and pay for professional photos. As I have my own photographic equipment I would take the photos myself, which meant rearranging furniture to fit the lighting equipment in the room. I also purchased a helium gas canister from a supermarket which came with balloons and I purchased a silver number 1 balloon. Since I wanted balloons for the cake smash and his birthday celebrations, I thought this would be the best solution. I'm not sure if it saved me money, but it did save me the stress of going out to get the balloons the day before or morning when we needed them. And we still have plenty more helium left for the future.
I had originally planned to buy a cake for the cake smash. Again I didn't want to spend loads, so was just planning to buy one from a supermarket. But I never found one I liked enough to spend the money, so I ended up making it with the help of my lovely husband. We also made the cupcakes which we had the following weekend when we celebrated his birthday.
Here are the photos from the cake smash, with a few from the day we celebrated.
Time for a bath!!! We used a large metal drinks bucket, warm water and plenty of bubble bath. We also blew a few bubbles to add to the effect. He loved it, although he did need another rinse off after this bath because of how much bubble bath was in the water.
Birthday Celebrations! I wanted balloons everywhere (floor and ceiling). It was a bit of work to get it done, but well worth it, Tommy loved it. For a while he just stood there looking at the floor, then gazing to the ceiling and then back to the floor.
It took him 2 days to open his gifts, not because he had loads, but because we left him to open them at his own pace and when he showed interest. But by the end of the 2nd day I wanted to see what was inside, so I gave him a little help 😊.
All of these photos are just perfection!!