David’s first birthday is coming up, and since my sister and her family won’t be in town on the day of the celebration we decided to throw a pre-birthday party with them.

I had planned on just making a cake (I needed to do a trial-run of the cake I’m making for his party) and sing Happy Birthday on our last night together.

But as soon as my sister and mom heard “birthday” the arts and crafts started flying. They went all out with decorations and gifts.

My sister set the stage by making this beautiful garland.

(The rain on the windows is from the hail storm.)

She made it using food coloring, yarn and coffee filters. (She got her inspiration here.)

When my mom saw the finished product she said, “That needs to be on Pin-interest!” That’s a high compliment in this day and age.

Meanwhile, I made a Strawberry Sparkle cake. I read the recipe and ingredient list a few times to make sure I was prepared; I knew this was a delicate cake. But if you’re ever planning to make an angel food cake, the most important part of the recipe you need to know is this: “if you make your own angel food cake, you’ll feel like you can do most things in life.”

Well said, Ree, well said.

The cake was hard. I had a few hiccups, most of which were covered by the whipped icing (dyed blue to look like water) and lined with gummy fish.

To really drive the “this cake is the ocean” point home, I drew a bunch of sea creatures and Ellie and Abram colored them.

This was my inspiration, but we’re still on the fence about whether my blue icing looked classy or creepy. (The icing is a little over-whipped, which might be part of the problem.)

We gathered around and sang Happy Birthday.

And my dear, sweet, almost-one-year-old didn’t mind the creepy blue icing.

And neither did Ellie.

In fact, no one really seemed to mind.

Next began the onslaught of presents.

A xylophone!

A hummer that plays rap music! (Kids these days with their rap music.)

A puzzle!

A rotary telephone! The kind the dinosaurs used!

David’s shirt is covered in cake and he has a stockpile of new toys.

But the best thing about this party was the six little hands that helped make the garland, decorate the cake, open presents and showed Baby David how to play with his new toys.