Daniel's 1st Birthday (Party)

On Sunday we had Daniel's 1st birthday party with his family.

To start with, on Saturday night I needed to make Daniel's birthday cake. I wanted to make an afl ball, however, we didn't get around to getting a dollyvarden cake tin so opted for another favourite toy of his - his ukelele. I was very nervous about making it and so had put it off most of the day. I was using the guitar in the Woman's Weekly cook book as a base. This is the progress.

After baking 2 cakes, I cut them to make the ukelele shape

I used a whole bottle of purple food colouring to make the main icing

Add a cocoa circle

Licorice for the frets, wafer as the bar, musk sticks at the top and then white thread for the strings

Marshmellows at the top for tuning and green pen icing to draw on the trees

The finished product with the real ukeleke

Ta da. Pretty pleased with my efforts.

The mammoth effort to cover the ukelele so that it didn't touch the icing but didn't dry out

For Sunday's party we decided to just invite family as it would get too big and difficult to invite friends and to know who to invite - where to draw the line. I'm glad that it was just family because the weather was horrible so we had to make it indoors. This resulted in a lot of brainstorming to make everything and everyone fit in. The couch was moved to the wall, Daniel's rug was brought out so that the floorboards would be protected, 2 fold out tables were brought by the Howies who also brought some fold-out chairs as well as Mum and Dad. We were ready to party.

Unfortunately on Saturday afternoon Daniel became very upset and clingy and during the night woke up almost every hour. The morning was no different. He was a very upset, unsettled little man. There were little to no smiles, there were big red cheeks, he just didn't know what he wanted. The poor little thing. We gave him some panadol after he woke up from his nap which, after around 30mins, seemed to kick in.

The birthday boy had just woken up

Cuddles with Mummy before heading out

After a few cuddles to help happy him up a bit we went out to meet the guests who were already here. Grandma G came with Mum and Dad so we got our 4 generations photo. This was the best that Daniel was going to give the poor bubba.

Our other guests arrived and Daniel was there to greet them.

After having a lot of cuddles with Mummy to try and happy him up a bit

he was happy to go to Nana. After talking with Uncle Peter for a bit he was happy to go and have cuddles (even though his face didn't show it).

 After hanging out with Uncle Peter he then was happy to go and have some cuddles with Nana J and have a chat with Grannie and Boompa.

Eventually the panadol kicked in and Daniel was happy to crawl around between the rooms and watch his cousins and 2nd cousins playing games.

Sprung playing with Oscar's 4.5 birthday present from Nana and Poppy

In the meantime James was busy cooking the bbq - yummy chicken and sausages. Howie was helping keep him company and encourage his cooking.

The food went down a treat, both in the kiddies table area and the grandparents/great grandparents table area.

Daniel had some great laughs with Auntie Jenny, getting tickles and playing 'round and round the garden'. I'm so glad that he enjoys hanging out with her. Makes me feel better abou going back to work one day a week and having him hang out with Jens, Howie and Oscar.

1 step, 2 step... tickley under there

After lunch it was birthday cake time! We had the obligatory singing of "Happy Birthday" followed by blowing out the candles and then cutting the cake.

Looking at the cake

The candle is lit

Happy Birthday to you!

Blowing out candles

Cutting the cake

Then while Jens kindly cut the cake up for everyone to eat, Daniel opened his amazing presents from everyone. They were very generous!

Looking at the photo frame from Kimberly with lots of Daniel photos

Playing his maracas and tambourine from Grayma and Auntie Sue

Daniel's collection of presents

Then it was cake eating time. This was Daniel's first attempt of having sweet food (besides fruit) and his reaction didn't disappoint. 

Keen to try it

Yuck, get this off my hands!

Why did you put that in my mouth Mummy?

Daddy finds it funny, I don't

Ok, I'll try a bit more

Nope, not keen. I'm too tired!

I then took Daniel and gave him some milk and put him to bed. He fell asleep during his milk feed and then slept for a couple of hours. He did so well during the party for not feeling very well.

At the end of the party, Oscar, Kaysey, Tristan and Maddie had a great time playing with the balloons. They did some chasing, balloon fighting and hair raising.

Trying to make Uncle James' hair stand up

It worked on Maddie!

All in all it was a lovely day, even with Daniel feeling out of sorts. It was so lovely to have so many of Daniel's family be able to come and celebrate, especially having Great Grandma from Old Bar and also Aunty Jen, Maddie and Nana J come from Hervey Bay. Thanks to all who came!