First down birthday party -

We love birthdays and any opportunity to celebrate my babies and be creative. We invited a close group of family and friends in our church community to celebrate with us. Clay won’t remember the details or the food we ate, but as his mama I will definitely remember the people in the room who supported me and were on our team during the first year of his life. My hope for the day was to celebrate Clay; but also to bless our community with good food and fellowship in our home.

Step back and soak in the day

I wanted to throw a party filled with details and decor worthy of a touchdown, but I think so often today first birthday parties can bring a lot of pressure on mamas to go over the top. A really important question to ask is, “Why am I doing what I am doing?” Am I putting necessary pressure on myself to ‘wow’ our guest or post photos online? Am I able to step back and soak in the day?

I can think back to my birthday parties when I was little, my mom would take us into Party City and let us pick a theme right there on the spot. After that, she made up activities for the theme herself, no Pinterest boards filled with ideas and no posting online and we felt loved and celebrated. For me, creating a balloon arch, making appetizers and decorating our home feeds my creative outlets and brings me a lot of joy. If you enjoy creating and making these things, do it! Most importantly, you are a great mama regardless of the party you put together.

Party Supplies

For Clay’s First Down party, I grabbed a yard and a half of turf fabric from Hobby Lobby and used it as the tablecloth. I found Football helmet plates, football play napkins and cups from a cute company called Gatherings. For food, we did one shopping trip to Costco and made pulled pork sandwiches, meatballs, large pretzels, chips and cake. I found a ready made cake at Costco and decorated the top myself. I’ll link the party supplies here!