Birthday party - small update

I miss blogging so much. I feel like I've missed out on so many things in the blog-world. Things I wanted to remember and share or discover. But I had the greatest excuse not to blog in the past few weeks. My beautiful son turned one last Sunday and it was such a wonderful time for all of our families. We had to split the birthday party into two parts (friends, family) because of the lack of space in our current apartment. In the end it worked out for the best and I couldn't be happier the way everything turned out.

Everyday before the party I was doing small things in the living room to make it look nice. It was a challenge but I managed to turn it into something cute that my friends said "wow" to, knowing what it looked like before haha It doesn't look exactly like my mood board, but close enough.

The mood and the theme of Ethan's party was also manageable. The hardest part was finding wooden crates to use them as a cake/food display. Actually we had allergy-free cupcakes instead of the cake, since I made Ethan's cake raw and it had to sit in the freezer until I was ready to serve it. Anyways, today I'll just give you a sneak of the birthday display. The rest of the photos will be later next week. Waiting for a DVD from my wonderful friend/photographer, who took a bunch of beautiful pics of the friends-part party.

Edit: Finishing this post few days after I started it. So many things going on right now and so little time. I have my drivers test this Thursday so I've been practicing like mad woman over the weekend, next week we might be starting slowly moving in into husband's parents house. It's a huge project and will take time. It also happened quite unexpected..we'll see what happens in a week. So far I'm concerned with my test and being anxious about it doesn't let me think of anything else. Fear paralyzes me. 

Anyhow, hope your week will be smooth!

First birthday inspirations

I have a little over month and a half to figure out what is going on with Ethan's birthday (menu, decor, kids activities, healthy cake). At the moment we already decided that we'd have to split the celebration into two days. One for family and one for friends. It's sucks to have a small place to live and not be able to fit all of the great people we love at the same time. As I mentioned before, we want it to be low key simple birthday. To accomplish that we'll invite immediate family and the closest friends with kids, have simple yummy finger foods and snacks, home-made cake(s) and some cupcakes. I already made the invites (went to bed at 1 am which turned my morning into a nightmare boo). Me and sister-in-law will be making some decorations so that overall budget won't kill us in the end. Here's a quick mood board I made to have a visual of what kind of theme I want to create. 

Ethan 1st bday mood board by marixa featuring hats

Ethan will be ONE in two months

Say what? How this even happened? Why so fast? Time is a crazy thing. Why days are so slow but months or even years are so fast!? You know what I mean? Anyhow...very soon my son will be one year old, very hard to believe and I don't even know what I'm feeling about it. All I know is that we are happy he's here and not sure if I remember how it was before him. 

Now to the fun part. Me and Ian decided that there's nothing bad about having low key 1st birthday party...or even 2nd, 3d etc for that matter. I remember my birthdays when I was little. They were lovely, in a small circle of friends with yummy cake my mom would always bake and other sugary deliciousness'. Kids would come and give me cute gifts, we would eat and watch cartoons and play games. While adults would have their own celebration with adult drinks and foods. I was always happy and never wanted more. I was very satisfied with all my birthdays. It was a nice "tradition" and we'd love to have a similar one for Ethan. We'll have few friends over with their kiddos, let Ethan eat his first cake and make a mess, we'll take tons of pics and adults will have their beers and finger foods. I'm excited. It will be my first party I will be hosting by myself...O_o 

For now I'm researching and making a "wish list" of things I'd like to get for our boy's birthday. I read somewhere that you should get something to wear, something to read and something to play with. I think that's how it goes. We already noticed he loves music and "dances" as soon as he hears a beat...so adorable. He also loves books, always carrying one around and chews on it haha Oh right! Talk about chewing. Everything ..EVERYTHING goes in his mouth. No matter what it is, the first time he touches a new thing he absolutely has to taste it first. That is why I am looking in to organic/natural/green wooden toys first. As well as some art supplies that are safe to "eat". As far as clothing - he has a ton hand-me-downs from our awesome cousin and her kids, so all he needs is shoes. And man, those things are expensive! 

So here are few things I found so far and can't wait for him to have it :) 

yes, I'm secretly enjoying every new toy he gets.

ethan's wish list by marixa on Polyvore

P.S. Under the shoes, there's a box of blocks with Russian alphabet. Ethan will be bilingual since his mommy's side is Ukrainian/Russian and daddy's American :)