The party that shouldn't make it to Pinterest

After we came home from the walk, it was time for Joseph's birthday party! Since he really likes rubber ducks, we decided to do a duck theme. But since it wasn't a party for kids per se, I sort of had to improvise.

The cake:

Yup, just your basic chocolate cake mix. Some combination of powdered sugar and milk and butter and food coloring for the frosting. Beak made of strawberries. I considered doing something like a crumb coat to frost the whole cake better, but in the end I just wanted to eat the cake more than look at it.

The decorations:

We bought balloons, but the pack didn't even had any yellow ones. So we put up orange and blue balloons around the living room. We still hadn't (haven't) taken down the pink and purple streamers from my birthday, so it pretty much looked amazing.

The games:

What kind of games can you play with a duck theme that adults will appreciate but won't bore a 1-year old? The answer is, no games. But here's what we did.

Pictionary: A few weeks ago, I happened to check out a book from the library called Ten Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle.

In the book, the ducks fall overboard on their way from the factory and drift off into the ocean meeting various animals. After reading the book, we went upstairs to this:

On the back of each duck, there was an animal that the ducks had run into. Each of us took turns grabbing a duck and drawing the animal on the back (I don't think we kept score or anything). To make the game more complicated, the person drawing the animal had to hold Joseph on their lap. That part didn't work so well. But hey, it was still fun. And my family humored me.

Name that tune: The next game had two parts. The first was a treasure hunt where each team had to find the ducks that were hidden throughout the living room and kitchen. Once all the ducks were recovered, we played name that tune with the songs written on the back of each duck.

But these weren't just any songs we were singing. No, this game was inspired by the Love Ducks, which come from one of my favorite Arthur episodes ever.

In this episode, the Love Ducks is a bizarre TV show involving colored ducks that quack classical tunes. So that's what we did. Each team had one minute turns to quack famous classical songs to their team members.

Goofiest game ever? Yes. I can't believe I'm even admitting that I made this game up.

But Joseph loved it. He crawled around quacking with us, so I considered it a success.

And then came cake! Joseph went straight for the strawberries and was more interested in making a mess with the cake than eating it. But eventually he ate plenty of it.

We vacuumed.

We decided to wait until the next morning to open presents. I think they were a hit. Especially the ball.

Grandparents are not for smiling at

Well, maybe they are

So, there you have it -- Joseph's 1st birthday. We think he's worth celebrating. :D