Turtle’s 1st Birthday & Our Birch Bay Family Vacation

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Turtle's 1st Birthday and Our Family VacationWhen Bean turned 1 we had a big birthday party for her. Adult friends and family members were invited along with everyone from our prenatal class and all of the baby friends we had made during Bean’s first year.

Call it 2nd baby syndrome, but Turtle did not have a similar birthday. I have 2 close friends that had babies around the same time as I did. We have spent a lot of our maternity leaves together and we decided a couple of months ago that we wanted our 3 families to go away for a mini vacation. As we looked through the calendar there was only 1 weekend that would work for all 3 families… the weekend that we had planned on throwing Turtle’s Birthday party. The hubs and I talked about it and decided it would be nice to have a small birthday party. Just the 3 families along with my family (who live close to where we were vacationing) and 1 other family that has been very important in Turtle’s life (and also happened to be vacationing there at the same time).

A destination birthday party it was! Our destination was beautiful Birch Bay, about 30 minutes and across the US/Canada border from where we live. We found a gorgeous house for rent with enough room for all 3 families. It was right on the water two doors down from Birch Bay State Park.

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Turtle’s Zodiac sign is Cancer (as is mine) so we decided to have a crab themed birthday party. I would have loved to take the theme over the top (being the craft blogger that I am) but our car was filled to the max with all of our other weekend supplies so I kept it simple.

Candy Crabs to put on ocean themed birthday cake

I made these candy crabs…

Crab Ocean Themed 1st Birthday Cake

To decorate the birthday cake and cupcakes.

Crab Ocean Themed Birthday Cake

For party favors the big kids got fish shaped bubble guns (shoot didn’t get a picture of those.)

The boys in their Lilikoi Lane Crab shirts

And I made the babies Lilikoi Lane crab shirts. Oh my goodness those 3 boys make my heart melt. I sure do hope that they are forever friends.

Crab decorations

The beach house that we stayed in was decorated with tons of crab decorations which was so much fun with our theme.

Handmade tissue paper flowers chrysanthemum peony rose dahlia The only other thing I made for the party was these blue, orange and yellow tissue paper flowers. I will post a tutorial in the next day or so showing how to make them. It was super easy.

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Oh and we blew up a ton of balloons and tied them with baker’s twine, the kids had fun playing with them.

Turtle playing the drum

Turtle had a great time opening his presents and being the center of attention. Sisser and Jimmy Jimster gave him a toy drum. At one point he was playing the drum and bopping to the beat. Then he would look up at all of us and clap. We would all start clapping for him and shouting “Horray!” Then he would start drumming again, stop, look at us and wait for his applause. As soon as we started to clap he would giggle and start playing again.

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As much fun as it is to have a big, huge birthday party… it’s also nice to have a small intimate day where you can really enjoy your family.

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I thought Bean might have a hard time with jealousy about her brother being the center of attention for the day, but she had a great time too.

Sew Creative Family Enjoying Turtle's First BirthdayIt was a beautiful day, and Turtle was surrounded by the one’s who love him the most. At the end of the day you can’t ask for a better birthday than that.

Tell me… Are your children’s birthdays big extravagant shindigs, small intimate affairs or somewhere in between? What is your favorite birthday party theme?

We won an award for this post and our fun party decorations! Thank you Party Pail!

 

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8 Comments

    1. Thank you Jennifer! 🙂