A Vintage Race Car Theme First Birthday Party

It happened.  The day I was dreading.  My little baby boy turned one. 

There are no words to describe the conflicting feelings of absolute elation that your little one is growing up and learning so many new things every day, and absolute devastation that your little one is no longer so little.  I half laughed, half cried through the day.  I was overwhelmed by all of the different emotions I was feeling.  I could not be happier or more proud of the little man my baby is becoming!

My husband is a race car driver.  He comes from a racing family; it is in his blood. Though he only races locally, it is still a huge part of his life.  Naturally, as soon as James was born, his whole family was convinced he was the next to carry on the racing tradition.  Of course, when trying to decide on a great first birthday theme, racing was the first thing that came to mind.  I was so excited to start planning the party, but I was less than impressed with most of the decorations, games, and paper goods that were out there for racing birthday parties.  After much frustration I headed on over to trusty pinterest to see what I could find.  Within minutes I had settled on a theme!  Vintage Race Cars!

A big shout out and thank you to the Etsy shop littlebirdieprints!  Without her vintage race car theme party pack, this day would not have been possible.  I ordered all of the race car theme decorations from her to be delivered in pdf form.  The designs were beautiful and arrived by email in under 24 hours! I had everything printed out in no time and all that was left to do was decorate! 

Thankfully we were blessed with an absolutely beautiful, early spring in New England, day!  So beautiful, in fact, that the cake smash could happen outside (my hardwood floors thank you, mother nature).  The party went even better than I could have ever imagined! James had a wonderful time surrounded by those he loves!  Here are a few pictures of the big day. 

XO

P.S:  Among my family and friends it is tradition to save the top tier of the baby shower cake to use as the “smash cake” at the one year party.  As soon as my shower was over, I popped that cake in the deep freezer and took it out the day of the party.  James had a blast demolishing his cake!  When talking to some of my other girlfriends, however, I realized I was the only one that had done this for my little one (fed him year old cake, ha)!  Tell me I am not crazy and others have done the same thing!