We threw a little family party on Sunday. A very special little man in my life happened to turn one year old that day.

Time flies.

This may have you questioning my reasoning for concocting a party that made this adorable child into a little “man” and asked that there be mustaches on everyone.

I don’t really know. I just thought it would be kinda funny…and it kinda was.

I chose to make the same kind of cake I made for Harper’s first birthday party- a banana cake with a fudge buttercream frosting from Smitten Kitchen- and then we turned it into a mustache, thanks to some “pinsperation.” For Harper’s party two years ago, I made the actual Monkey Cake. Then I realized for this one that there is just something a little more wholesome about a banana cake for a one-year-old, and so for his first indulgent, messy-faced sugar high, I wanted it to at least have healthy bananas in it! Plus the frosting is insanely good.

Harper stood at the door to greet our guests and handing out mustaches, which were mandatory. Then I loved how all the women wore their mustaches for about the first fifteen minutes, and then once one person shed, they all shed. They felt funny. And they looked funny. So, they ended up as sticky garland all across the mantle. There were two champions of the mustache-wearing contest though; Uncle Jason (you can see his mustache eyebrows in the background of the photo where I’m carrying the cake) and the birthday boy, Sam! He kept his on the whole time, even while he ate his little cake.

Oh, he’s so hilarious.

I had a great time putting everything together for this mustache bash. We found the little buckets in the dollar section at Target. We used them for the kids’ goody bags, which contained some funky 80′s sunglasses I found online, a packet of three stick-on mustaches, mustache bubbles (also thanks to Target!), some crayons and a few fun-sized candy bars. The adults got a ribbon-wrapped tiny bottle of Mrs. Meyers lemon verbena dish soap…hey, it was something!

Sam seemed to have a great time. He was a very happy birthday boy and danced his little dance when we sang “Happy Birthday.” We wore the little man out and he slept like a baby.

A year ago, we brought Sam home from Athens Regional Hospital after I had spent five weeks there, safely “cooking” him and then awaiting his readiness to head home to the mountains.  I kept a blog, TheBedrestChronicles during my stay. Last weekend, we decided to take a family trip to Athens and do a couple of the things Brian and Harper did while I was hanging out in the hospital, like the zoo at memorial park and the wonderland playground. We also stopped by the mother-baby floor and said hello to several of the wonderful women who took care of me a year ago. It was really special to get to take Sam and Harper back there and to see those familiar faces once more. You can read more about our trip over at thebedrestchronicles.wordpress.com