dane's birthday parties

i've been saying for months that i didn't want to throw a party for dane's birthday, because i didn't want to have to stress about it or plan anything and whatnot. so of course, once his birthday rolled around, what did we do? throw TWO parties for dane's birthday! they were both very minimalist, so i actually didn't feel stressed about them, and there were bubbles and balloons and cake involved at each one, so dane thoroughly enjoyed himself. what more can a baby ask for?

on monday this week, we hosted our group FHE at our house with a few other families in our ward. we blew up balloons for the kids to play with, gave a brief FHE lesson, and then went outside and had cupcakes and sang happy birthday to dane. it was so awesome and easy.

dane is a big fan of balloons right now, and basically anything ball-shaped. he was crawling around pushing these around very excitedly.

we had birthday hats for all the kids, and the cupcakes were just a texas sheet cake recipe poured into cupcake pans. (they were delicious, if i do say so myself.) 

dane didn't hesitate--he plowed right in and finished off his cupcake in under a minute.

so we gave him another one, and he almost finished that one off too.

we turned on the bubble machine and it was a huge hit for all ages.

and then yesterday, we wanted to have an end-of-summer barbecue and combine it with a birthday party for dane. so we made burgers and hot dogs and cake and brought the bubble machine out again, and had a good old time with some other friends.

dane's birthday cake, round 2. this time we made him a "smash cake," made out of a giant cupcake pan one of my friends let me borrow. it was giant, a whole cake mix worth of cake.

and he dove right in with two hands.

look how much cake he ate: he DEMOLISHED this cake! and he was so serious about eating it all.

he got a few presents too, from our friends and his grandparents.

check out how much cake he finished!

and the bubble machine was once again the hit of the party.

he loves this.

both of the parties were just what we wanted: low-key and relaxed with good people. dane got to eat some birthday cake and got some presents, and i didn't feel like we had to go overboard or anything. we got to celebrate our boy and tried to make him happy all weekend long.