Carter's first birthday partay!

The 5th of December brought us lots of happiness as it was the day we chose to celebrate our little one's first birthday! We held the party at Chad's parent's house in Yorba Linda and invited both sides of the family. We had a great turn out which meant LOTS of great presents for Carter! Chad and I started marinating carne asada a couple of days before the big day, so the food was fabulous and my man was having a good time at the grill! Here's how the day unfolded:

We woke up with the little man around 7:30ish and I cleaned the house so that way we could come home to calmness instead of chaos while Chadly ran to the store for a few last minute things. Around 10:00ish we headed over to the Cisneros home and put the little man down for a quick nap before the madness got going. I started decorating while Chad and his dad got everything out of the car. We went with a sports theme with an emphasis on the CHARGERS! Chad was so excited he was going nuts! Thank goodness G-Funk (my sister!) came over around 11:30ish with the balloons to help me decorate (she has a way better eye for decorating than I do). Before I knew it it was 12:45 (15 minutes before the partay was set to begin) and Carter was still asleep! I ran upstairs to wake him up and change him into his birthday outfit and headed downstairs to join the first few guests who were arriving! He was such a great baby the entire day! I thought for sure that we would see some tears at some point, but he was awesome! Chad started cooking around 1:45 so we ate around 2:30 (many thanks to my mama, my MIL and her bff Jean - without them who knows how the sides would have turned out!). Speaking of sides we went with a ME-HE-CANO theme with rice and beans and a few other fabulous dishes! Right after we ate it was the big moment when Carter was supposed to dig into the cake! I totally thought he would go nuts, but he was super resistant and didn't even crack a smile! Chad had to push his hands into the cake and even that made him mad! So we wrapped up the digging-into-the-cake session quickly and moved on to opening presents! He sure did sweep in a heck of a lot of new toys because I'm sitting amongst all the boxes right now in my living room! Grandma and Grandpa Paplia gave him a cool ride-along Thomas the Train and Grandma and Grandpa Cisneros gave him a huge lion rug! He loved every single present. Needless to say, the day was a great success!

Now it's on to the next dinner party at our humble abode! I have to say that I'm pretty dang excited that I'm throwing my second dinner partay within the same holiday season! The first one was for the Cisneros crowd, but this one is for a combo of the Cisneros's and the Paplia's! It's going to be the night before Carter's actual birthday (December 23rd), and it will just a be a little celebration of what we were all doing a year ago! I'm excited and I just love throwing these parties! They're a lot of work but a heck of a lot of fun!