Birthday Girl

September 24th was Jillian's first birthday. It. Was. Awesome.

I pinned something on Pinterest about the birthday boy/girl waking up to balloons all over their room so I had to do it for Jillian. We snuck them into her room a few hours after she went down, even though there was a good chance that the balloons would scare her and she would wake up and just be terrified on her birthday. Thankfully she loved it. Please excuse her crazy bed head...

When I was thinking about what theme to do for her first birthday I really wanted to do the girliest, pink explosioniest garden tea party ever but it turns out that tiny floral teacups and babies don't mix. Who knew? And my rude mom wasn't willing to offer up her luscious garden and perfectly manicured lawn for a party for 50 people. God!

With my garden tea party idea shot down, the next logical option was a petting farm party. Oh, your brain does go from tea cups to livestock? Either way, I found the nicest couple who own a hobby farm with miniature horses, a mini steer, a mini pig, an alpaca, a donkey and a buttload of goats and they do birthdays. Sold. In other words, it was heaven for me, oops I mean Jillian. Once we booked the farm for the day I was unable to stop my brain from dreaming up the coolest birthday invitation know to soon-to-be one year old babies everywhere.

I made a horrible draft of what I wanted with squiggles and some Microsoft Paint worthy drawings to Valerie from Inkblot Graphic Design Studio on Etsy and she turned it into this...

( I don't really think that people are interested in calling me, but if you are, please don't. I will answer as a Pizza Hut employee if you do)

for $12.00 effing dollars. Do you believe that? This girl put up with my crazy and like 3 edits to send me the PDF of her design to have printed. $12.00! You can't even buy lube for that these days! Val also designed our post card Thank Yous too for $8.00. More on them later.

I put the invitations safely in their coordinating gingham lined envelopes complete with a custom apple stamp on the wrap around labels because I'm crazy. No really, who does that? I saw the envelope at my FIL's house and he and SMIL didn't even effing notice. Why did I spend the better part of an afternoon cutting and gluing in envelope labels when I could have been watching trashy TV or standing over the sink eating a sandwich so Jillian wouldn't bother me to share with her if no one was going to notice my envelope liners? Dumb.

With the invitation crazytown over, it was time to kick party decor crazytown into high gear. Luckily I had 2 MONTHS to find cohesive decor and pink bakers twine and other ridiculous things that no one probably noticed. What I couldn’t find in store, I made Husband build for me. Like the "Farm Fresh" boxes and drink stand. I did the wooden "1" by myself though. With powertools and my penis.

I also insisted on having water carafes with chalkboard labels because labels are bitchin’ and I like to make more work for myself. I saw a recipe for mint lemonade somewhere and I needed that too, but because regular ole lemonade did not go with Jillian’s birthday party color scheme, I used pink lemonade. It was like the nectar of the gods too, it barely lasted an hour.

Ignore the chocolate milk that my Cougar Grandma brought, even though I told her to only bring things that were in the color scheme. She brought potato chips in a YELLOW bag too. It's like she doesn't even listen.

Of course, carmel apples are a first birthday party staple and you have to make them yourself so that you can eat all of the leftover carmel and then gain a pound and then cry yourself to sleep because you are such a shameful little pig.



Jordo still insists that because of this party people don't think I'm crazy, they know I'm crazy. Whatever. Despite all the decor hoarding for months until the party, when the day came, I didn't have nearly enough time to ensure optimal placement since I was only allowed to set up an hour early and some assholes came like 45 minutes early and kept bothering me so it looks a little jumbled and not at all Hostess with the Mostest quality that I had envisioned.

Hostess with the Mostest perfect food tables can suck it though. Look at this cake. Fuck yes. It didn’t even just look pretty on the outside it was a pink ombre cake on the inside. Because I’m fancy.

Jillian had her own smash cake with a little "J" on it with the same ombre inside but she didn't even make it to the cake.

At first she was just picking little pieces of frosting off and eating them and feeding them to Jordan and I but after a few seconds she said "Fuuuuuuck this" and just dove mouth first. (Oh yeah, my baby swears in my mind)

As part of their packages, you and your guests get to ride in a cart pulled by a mini horse. At first I sorta felt bad for the horse, his name was some kind of nut, but it escapes me now but let me tell you Pecan or Walnut or whatever the hell his name was could MOVE.

Then they let us lead the horses around their barn. Jordan looked like he thought it was so stoopid but after giving him a hard time in front of our family and friends he did it. Crowds will do that to a guy.

Then my Mom, my Aunt and I thought it would be funny to make my Cougar Grandma do it too since she hates animals. Really, hates them. She calls my dog a "flea bitten hound" and she told the cat not to "rub his nasty self" on her leg. Oh, but back to the horse, she did and that horse was Grandma’s bitch for a lap around the barn. Poor horse.

And they had a kitten!!!! Don’t worry it’s still there and it somehow didn’t make it into my purse. But not for lack of trying. I don’t have an orange one, this kitten would have made my collection complete. I would have named him Martin. Martin was Jillian's favorite part of the animal portion of the party. The asshole donkey scared her by hee-hawing too loudly.

This is Jillian, me and BFF Stube judging people. We like to judge. A lot. This time I think it was FO.

Speaking of FO and DoucheBrad..remember how they we're all like "We're going to smother you and bother you all the time". Yeah, that didn't/doesn't happen. They don't really see Jillian other than when we happen to be at the same place that they are. DoucheBrad calls here thought...to talk about himself to Jordan. They did bring a gift though....a Mr. Potato Head. I bet you're thinking "Whaaaat? Mr. Potato Head is for older children, just like the package says, it's for 2 years+" and I would say, "Yes, yes that's true blog friends" and would point out that in the in the few minutes that I allowed her to play with it in front of Jordan, she managed to put an entire ear in her mouth. Thanks for the choking hazard motherfuckers.