{First Birthday} Birthday Festivities

I am back with some more first birthday fun. In my first post, I talked about how I decided on a theme and showed you Myles' Birthday Photo Shoot and invitation. I wouldn't consider myself a very traditional mom, but when it comes to milestones I tend to be quite extreme! So this mini-series is going to show just how crazy I get in celebrating Myles. This is my second post filed under Myles' First Birthday, and I may or may not have at least 4 more posts planned! 

*Side note: I already have a board full of pins, 3 pages of lists, and tons of supplies for his 2nd birthday coming up in August!*

Anywho, back to the 1st birthday! Even though we only just moved to California at the beginning of July, we knew we had to go back home for Myles' 1st birthday. A 1st birthday is a pretty big deal in my book and the perfect excuse to bring all of our families together to eat yummy food, have tons of goofy fun, and dote on the cutest little guy around! We flew back on the 13th so we would have a night to relax and recuperate after 12+ hours of traveling, before Myles' big day. 
We settled in at my parent's house, had a little visit, and called it an early night. When we woke up, I got a few shots of the birthday boy while we were getting in our morning snuggle time!

We lounged around for the rest of the morning and then finally got ready because we were meeting my dad for lunch. Around noon we headed up the street to one of my favorite neighborhood cafes. We ate an awesome lunch and loved on the birthday boy.

I have to preface these videos and pictures by saying that up until this point, Myles had never had a sweet treat or dessert of any type. He didn't care for any sort of cookie or chocolate. I tried a few times when he seemed interested but he would either just flat out say no or spit it out after 2 seconds of tasting it. Because of that, I knew there would be no point in getting him a cupcake to eat. So I picked out what I thought we would have the best luck in getting him to try: a carrot cake muffin. And truth be told, I wasn't going to mind one bit if I was going to be the one that ended up having to eat it. I brought a little candle from home and stuck it in the muffin for him!

I guess I should have assumed that he was going to try and reach for the lit candle (duh mom!), but at least I got to it before he did! It seemed like he was pretty excited to see what was on his plate, so I was hopeful that maybe he would eat it! But it went a little something like this:

Not quite what I has envisioned, but he got to get messy and I think he may have actually gotten a bite or two in his mouth.

I am pretty ashamed to admit this, but I have no pictures from the rest of the daytime. And because of that, I am even more ashamed to admit that I really have no idea what we did. I'm guess some playing, a nap, and some more playing... 
When the rest of the household got home, we ate dinner and I let Myles try out another treat for the first time: Jello! I was searching through the kitchen to find something I could put a candle in so we could sing 'happy birthday' to Myles all together, and I knew I stuck gold when I found a little individual sized jello cup.
Apparently, I didn't learn my lesson the first time with the lit candle. I didn't put it far enough away and he tried grabbing it again! This time he got so close that his fingers got a little hot and he freaked out. Luckily he didn't actually touch the center of the flame, but he was a little worked up about it.

But all was right again in the world when Myles got his hands on that jello! He was so picky and selective with his eating at the time, I couldn't believe that he liked it! He was literally shoveling the jello into his mouth and couldn't sallow it fast enough!

After getting cleaned up from dessert, we let Myles open up a present that his great-aunt dropped off because she wasn't going to be able to make it to his party. He was really into the card (I think it had a dinosaur on it) and was genuinely intrigued by the opening of his present. That made me even more excited for his party and to be able to watch him open all of his presents!

Then we got ready for bed, but before the night was over, I had sneak in a little first birthday selfie photo shoot. Then it was off to dreamland for Myles and DIYing for the momma!

Do you celebrate the actual birthday as well as have a party? Or just pick one? 
What are some of your birthday traditions for your kids?

Don't forget to come back to check out the actual party and see if all my hard work paid off!