Wednesday 24 April 2013

Wee Wednesday: The First Birthday Party



We held Lila's first birthday party with family up north in Sudbury this past weekend. It was a learning experience, most notably by the fact that we took so few photos, it was a total photography fail.

I don't know what happened. It's like we forgot cameras existed, or that we'd want to take certain shots. So the hard-to-source, non-disney character kitty-themed birthday party napkins, plates, and decorations? undocumented. Lila's awesome pink sparkly chuck taylors? Not a photo to be found.  A single family photo of the three of us? Nope. A photo of the wonderful brunch spread, complete with hash browns, sausages,  bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, maple syrup, fruit and mimosas? Not a shot.

 Which is interesting to think about- it seems it's a hallmark of the times that if you did something awesome and didn't photograph it to death, it feels like a loss. In reality, there are probably only five photos of my first birthday (and judging from those grainy, late 70s photos, I was not having a good time), and yet it is still clear I was wearing a frothy meringue of a pink dress, a party hat, and a look of pure misery.

But here are the shots we did get, either on our camera, or a family member's camera, or a cell phone snap (subtext: quality will vary!):

I have two uncles with birthdays around the same time as Lila's, and in my family we tend to batch our birthday celebrations. Although according to Lila's face, she's not happy about sharing the limelight. I made Lila a delicious banana cake (recipe here), to look like her favourite toy, a little plush hand puppet kitty (which you can see in the bottom left photo, actually). Lila is normally a great eater, but she just picked at her brunch spread. That is, until the cake came out:
That top left photo is probably my favourite of all her cake eating shots. She ate two pieces!  Although there are so many good shots that we didn't get, here are a couple of Lila playing with some of the decorations. You can see a little of the kitty-theme in them:

23 comments:

Silvia M. said...

Sounds like a fun time. :)
Happy Birthday!

Jane W. said...

She's adorable! Nothing like a good baby-eating-cake photo.

Tiffany said...

It looks like you had a great time and still got a lot of pictures. Sometimes it's better to put the camera down and be able to really be in the moment. Happy Birthday!

duni said...

it's much better to be present during the fun times than to be worried about getting it all on film. you've got a lot of really cute shots of the birthday girl and some wonderful family memories. well done!

knit by nat said...

Happy Birthday Lila! Wow time flies!

Nicole said...

Happy Birthday!
We usually hand the camera over to our best photgrapher and ask them to take photos, as I'm running around with food and drinks and the husband is keeping the other husbands entertained. Then we get lots of artistic photos.

Chrissy said...

Aw she looks so sweet. She was obviously saving space for the cake. Clever girl!

Katie said...

So cute! Happy Birthday, Lila! I think that when there are no photos taken, that's a sign that good times were had by all. ;)

Truly Myrtle said...

So familiar! It gets worse with subsequent children too :) We have family on the other side of the world so try very hard to capture shots for them .... I doubt the camera would make it out very often if we didn't!

CelticCastOn said...

Happy Birthday sweet Lila!
Her kitty cake was perfect.

Cassy said...

Happy Birthday to Lila! She's such a cutie.

Voie de Vie said...

Happy birthday Lila! I like a child that eats cake with gusto. :)

And my, my, what beautiful eyes on that child.

Preeti said...

That cake eating shot is priceless! Happy birthday Lila!!

Loulou said...

Just look at that cake and that little cake eater too! So cute. It looks like it was a great celebration. (I would have loved to see those pink sparkly shoes, so hopefully they will show up in other pictures sometime.)

Anonymous said...

I can't believe she's one already! The cake eating photos are classic!

Unknown said...

The kitty-cat cake is awesome! So glad that Lila enjoyed her birthday and was able to really dive into her birthday cake! You're totally right about the photos, these days if you don't have 200 photos of every milestone then you feel like you don't have enough! Just a few key shots, like that awesome shot of Lila eating her first cake, is all you really need.

Bronwyn Mroz Benson said...

It looks lovely and I love that it was kitty themed. Happy birthday, Lila! :)

Unknown said...

It sounds like a wonderful party! You're totally spot-on about our contemporary desire towards excessive photography. There certainly aren't very many pics of my first birthday either (wherein I believe I'm also sporting a "frothy meringue of a pink dress", see here)

Megan said...

Julie- don't fret about the photos-the ones that you have shown really did capture the moment. She is gorgeous-just like her Mama! I remember my eldest's 1st birthday... oh how we tried to get him to eat his cake with his hands...would have nothing to do with it. Enjoy her....they grow far too quickly. Thanks as always for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Living the moment.

Pam said...

I'm glad you got some photos - you'll always remember this day. But better yet, you were part of the occasion, not just the photographers. Congratulations!

Kristen Rettig said...

Lila looks very happy with her kitty cake!

Hilary said...

(Ok, in my mind I already commented on this post, but I just realized that I didn't...)

Don't feel bad about not having many photos...I often find that when I forget to photograph events, it means I was enjoying them so much in real time that I just forgot. So, it must have been really wonderful! I LOVE the photos of Lila eating cake...so, so, so adorable!