Hayden's Birthday Party!!

Before spritzing....

After a quick spritz of vodka...good thing I had some left over from Thanksgiving!!

The cake for first b-days is huge for me. Of course I started looking for ideas over the summer and put together this idea by Halloween. I copied most of the cake idea from cakecentral.com (you could really get lost in there!!) and had a blast making it over the weekend. Trav helped me roll all the little fondant balls for the border and helped me come up with the bow on top. The final touch was a spray of vodka to dissolve the remaining powdered sugar on the fondant. I learned that trick from Ace of Cakes on Food Network. All the big bakeries spray their cakes with vodka to give them a nice shine. The tiny amount of alcohol evaporates and leaves a nice sheen on the cake. I figure even if you ate all the fondant on the cake you still wouldn't get as much alcohol as is in one dose of cough medicine! Everyone loved it! It was frosted underneath the fondant in chocolate cream cheese frosting and filled with homemade strawberry jam!!
We're ready to celebrate!! Christmas tablecloth & streamers, Christmas dishes, and the kid favorite...Christmas balloons. We piled the display rack with delicious fried scones. Our guests could dress up their scones with cinammon sugar, peach jam, strawberry jam, apple butter, or honey butter. Thanks for the recipe Dad! It was a huge hit. Travis made the dough the night before and they were so easy to roll out and fry up!

Mmm...hot cocoa bar in what else? Christmas snowman cups!!

Hayden's ready to party!! By then it was past his bedtime and he was a bit overwhelmed by the crowd. (notice his adorable Christmas outfit!!) He especially loved that green balloon and would not let it go!

Hayden really liked the cake...Thanks Regan for feeding him!! She was his little buddy all night!

Brad poses with our Christmas luminaries.

Our friends were so generous!! Hayden got a stuffed puppy, ball popper, shakey elephant, and this cool toy besides adorable Christmas t-shirts! The Burdicks even gave all three boys matching Christmas t-shirts. They're going to wear them at the ward party on Saturday. We'll post pics later!


I just couldn't fathom throwing a birthday party just five days before Christmas, so we celebrated early this year! Our close friends came over for Family Night on the 10th and we had a huge Christmas/First Birthday party for Hayden. It was so much fun to plan and decorate for!! I wanted all red & green for our little Christmas baby, so I picked up a few things at the Party Store and found an adorable santa/b-day hat for our little guy.

The party was a blast. The kids had fun playing, the grown-ups listened to holiday music, everyone ate too much and didn't want it to end!! Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Hayden!!

P.S. We saved the top of the cake for Hayden's actual b-day on the 20th where he will open his gifts from the family and have a second helping of cake!!