Leander’s 1st Birthday Party | Little Blue Truck Theme

Well, it’s been a whole week now since we hosted a grand total of 31 people in our house for Leander’s 1st birthday party! (Remember a few years ago, when I thought packing 24 people into our house for Braelynn’s 1st birthday was a little crazy? I honestly don’t know how we fit 31 people in here & I straight-up refuse to think about next year when there will be at least 3 more people added to the list – yikes!) We packed everyone in like sardines though & it was absolutely fantastic. I know it was tight, I know that we had to get really creative, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. And by “creative”, I mean that we turned our dining room table sideways so we could fit another long table in the dining room, then we pushed all of our couches aside so we could fit 3 more folding tables down the middle of the living room!

We hosted this small army of people though to a dinner of homemade lasagna, bread, and salad. And then, of course, had cupcakes & ice cream! It was a lot, but it was so so so good.

I think the fact that our sweet little boy is now a whole year old is finally starting to sink in – it’s taken a while!! It helps too that his little personality has practically exploded over the last week – he’s suddenly sillier, louder, trying so very hard to repeat words back to us, and now gets super-duper excited over so many fun things!

But, back to the birthday – Leander’s actual birthday fell on a Tuesday & his party wasn’t until Friday, so we had our own “mini party” on December 3rd (we couldn’t let the day go by without some sort of celebration!) We went out to dinner & then came home to let Leander have his very first taste of cake. Obviously – he was a fan!

We gave him a few gifts too! He really wasn’t sure what to do with these wrapped parcels we gave him (and somewhere deep inside me, I cringed at us trying to teach him how to “rip” the paper to open the packages – my sweet boy doesn’t know how to tear into things yet, why must we teach him such bad tricks?) It was all fun though (and thankfully, even after his party, he still doesn’t “get” the whole ripping open presents thing – so we have no torn books or ripped up Braelynn-artwork – yet – Christmas is coming).

For his first birthday party, we hosted a Little Blue Truck themed party. If you are unfamiliar: Little Blue Truck is a series of books that we absolutely love. They are super easy to read with the rhyming & the lilt of the story, plus the illustrations are adorable. They are some of Leander’s favorite books to read (and mine too)! So, of course, it just made sense to theme his party to these fun books!

Almost all of the photos from here on out were taken by my amazing sister Ellen! She was kind enough to grab my camera & snap these photos for me – so that I could enjoy the moment (and be in most of the photos too!)

This time, he was much more eager to dig into his cake!

Leander was simply overwhelmed with all of the gifts he got! Tons of trucks & cars, new books & some clothes – a little cell phone, his Little Blue Truck Christmas book, the red wagon, and his own personal Hobbes (that my sister Ruby created!) were definitely his favorite gifts of the night!

And then, we attempted a group photo of Leander & his 3 girl cousins! Alethea & Alex are just 8 & 9 months older than him & of course, Leander & Leah were born just 2 days apart! If this photo doesn’t perfectly sum up what it means to try to take a photo of a 21-month old, a 20-month old, and two 1-year-olds, I’m not sure what does!

Thankfully, poor Leah recovered quickly (hey, being set up on a couch with 3 other little people while 15 adults all jumped up & down behind a camera is quite traumatizing, okay?) and we were able to get a few cute photos of the birthday babies!! You know we’ll be taking these photos every year from here until forever, right?

I just wanted to end by saying a huge thank you to everyone who came & celebrated with us & Leander for his birthday (and squeezed themselves into our house without complaining)! I doubt there are very many families that would willingly come & sit on folding chairs, the floor, the stairs, and literally on top of one another, just to celebrate a little boy’s birthday – it means the whole world to me that my family is so amazing! I am overwhelmingly thankful for the tidal wave of love (and gifts) that everyone poured out on my sweet boy – we are so blessed!