Let it Be: Happy Birthday!!!

Today is Lexi's birthday! Can you believe it?? It's crazy that I have a one year old now! Welcome to toddlerhood!

The birthday party went really well this afternoon. This morning I noticed Lexi got one heck of a birthday present... Her top two middle teeth decided to make their big entrance! Fun fun! (And that explains why she was so fussy while doing errands yesterday...) I expected her to be a mess, she even bit her tongue at one point :( , but she was a total champ during the party.

Things were a little hectic getting ready. KJ asked his sister if she would be able to come over like an hour early to help set up. We thought she was going to, but she couldn't make it into town early enough. So it was just the two of us trying to do everything and wrangle Lexi at the same time. We were even up until 2am the night before making food and decorating and we only got done just in time.

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The only thing I would have done differently would have been the cupcakes. I love making everything from scratch, and the recipe I used came out wonderfully. I will definitely be keeping that one around. But for the decorations, I tried to make my own marshmallow fondant. Big mistake! I wanted to save money and making my own was the cheapest choice.

Three options I should have done instead of making my own:

A) Bought the fondant I saw on clearance, in the colors I wanted, for $6 and gone from there.

B) Paid $70 for 3 dozen cupcakes from a bakery (I priced it out, but just couldn't justify the cash... Now I can!)

C) Nixed the fondant all together and just done colored buttercream frosting.

Any one of those options would have been 10x better than making it myself. Never again! And it's not even that the recipe was hard or complicated. It was very straight forward. It was just very time consuming and a total bitch to kneed and dye. And quite honestly, my decorations didn't come out looking all that great. Yeah... Never again.

We had a good turn out for the party, lots of family came. All we basically did was eat, do the smash cake, and open presents. We had it from 12-2pm and two hours was just the right amount of time. Lexi was pretty subdued with her smash cake. I didn't think she's go crazy with it, but she really just wanted to squish it. She squished the frosting, the cake, and the decorations. She tasted some, and I think she liked it, but didn't eat a ton. Hey, whatever.

The food went over pretty well. At our parties, I always try to serve food that is flavorful, healthy, and interesting. I get so board when I go to a cookout and all they have to eat are greasy burgers and uninspired potato salad. In today's world of Martha Stewart, the Food Network, Rachel Ray, and now Pinterest, you can do better than that.... But I can always count on KJ's mom's side to be unadventurous eaters. I had a platter of deli meats (honey maple ham, cracked pepper turkey, buffalo chicken) and cheeses (Vermont cheddar, provolone, roasted garlic), a variety of buns (chibotta, poppy seed, wheat) and spreads (spicy brown mustard, yellow mustard, chipotle mayo, garlic and herb mayo). I thought everything sounded really yummy and covered all the bases of what people like. But of course, KJ's grandma complained that I didn't have Isley's chipped ham (I think Isley's is a Pittsburgh thing, but is super greasy, cheap ham. Their commercial says, "chipping the ham makes it taste fresher... Hammier" *barf*), American cheese, white rolls, or full fat plain mayo. Umm, yuck! Live a little grandma! It's not 1950 any more... Ugh, I get so annoyed by her... For many reasons other than boring sandwiches.