Our family crams a lot of celebration into the holiday season. From about a week before Thanksgiving to Christmas we have 5 birthdays, oh and 3 of those are just our little family. That’s right, Rick, Noah and myself all have our birthdays at this time. The other two are my niece and nephew. So we are celebrating…a lot, including this weekend.
We had a great time with the family!
This weekend was around my nephew and Noah’s birthday, so we were having a party which included a very special guest, their great grandma. The party was the day that we were leaving so we had a breakfast surprise for Noah. He had his own giant blue cake to smash his fists into. Yelp, that’s right, he’s very own smash cake!
The Smash Cake
The smash cake is something I had never heard of until we started going to first birthday parties, which happens a lot once you have a kid. We went to one back in August where we experienced the smash cake for the first time, and I started pondering what Noah would do at his first birthday.
Noah’s first smash cake was a smash!
The idea is that this is the first time a child is given a cake. They may be tentative with it at first but once they get a taste they dig in with their hands, feet, whole face, who knows. It is intended to be a big old mess with great pictures and lots of laughs.
I think he liked the caked. 🙂
The best part about our first experience with smash cake was that the little girl was not really into the cake, so they put some broccoli in front of her as a motivator and she went to town. So we wondered what Noah would do when we placed him in front of mass of sweetness for the first time?
The Smurf Experience
Our little Smurf!
Noah provided us with the ultimate smash cake performance. The best part may be the icing choice of blue which coincidently matched his pajamas. Noah started out just how I envisioned with one hand at first, realization that his hand was full of sweet goodness, followed by digging in with both hands covering his whole face with icing. He ended up looking just like a smurf. It was a great end to a wonderful weekend with my grandmother meeting all of her great-grandchildren.
Here’s some pre-bath pictures of Noah enjoying his first smash cake.
Now it’s time to clean this little guy up and head to the airport. We’re hoping Noah’s second airplane flight goes as smooth as his first!
All cleaned up and ready for the flight home.
6 Tips We Learned From Our First Smash Cake
- You may not want to use a blue or black frosting. They are really messy and hard to clean up, in fact they may leave a lasting stain on your face letting people know what you have been up to.
- You want to have a really big covering on your floor as cake is fairly light and can fly pretty far. Or be like us and do it in a hotel room 🙂
- You want a bath easily available, unlike our hotel room which only had a shower
- Having a second wardrobe change available is preferable for both baby and parents. Cake ends up on everyone involved, I don’t know why I didn’t realize this
- Bibs only block a small area of space, why bother.
- Be prepared for it to not go quite like you envision but enjoy every moment of it!
Did you give your child a smash cake at their first birthday party? What do you think about the smash cake tradition? Tell us about it in the comments.
he’s amazing it’s very easy falling in love with Noah!!Please where do you buy those hats!!are hand made or have a brand??thank you
We got that one at Janie and Jack on sale around Noah’s birth. They have some cute stuff, but horribly expensive, so we only get stuff when it is on sale there 🙂
Darling! That might be a tradition we’ll have to consider when Elias gets to be one. We do have a darling shot of my firstborn eating a cupcake for the first time … two hands smashed against his mouth and cheeks covered in chocolate. I got lucky and a friend of mine had a camera and caught the moment for me, it hangs in my front room wall.
Yah, it’s a lot of fun (and a lot of mess.) But like my wife said, it makes for some super cute pictures. 🙂
If you end up doing a smash cake but sure to share a picture with us. 🙂
Oh my goodness, so cute. I love how the icing brings out his awesome blue eyes. We did that with our oldest 3 kids and we are excited about doing it for Levi.
Thanks Jody.
How old is Levi, and where are you guys from (if you don’t mind me asking.)
So THAT’S why it’s taken so long for James to catch on to eating table food! I didn’t do the smash cake! (*Smacks palm to forehead*)
Seriously, James was barely handling baby food (we started speech/swallow therapy the next week), so I dabbed a bit of icing on his lips and called it good. Even now, two months before his second birthday, I’m not confident he would take to it. He’s made a ton of progress, but doesn’t like dry foods, and cake would fall in that category. Icing wouldn’t, though! Maybe it’s just the thing he needs to make his breakthrough! 🙂
Something I have to break through is my willingness to let him (and myself) get dirty! Looks like Noah had a great time, and Abbie, you got a little Smurfy yourself, I bet!
AWESOME! I love messy cake pics. Esp when it involves a little kid as cute as Noah.
Ha,ha…thanks!
Let’s some of yours! (Feel free to post some on the Facebook page.) 🙂
Boy, my middle son gets the compliments on his blue eyes, but Noah takes the prize! I am sure you never get tired of hearing how beautiful his eyes are. Let’s hope he doesn’t get tired of it, cause he’s got a lifetime of hearing it! They didn’t do smash cakes when my kids were little – except by accident – so we now enjoy them with the grandkids. So cute!
Levi is 8 months old now. He is growing so fast. It is a joy to watch Noah with him being older. It make me excited about Levi’s future. We live in Arizona. I was reading from a few day’s ago and seen that Noah had a CBC. My Dr hasn’t said anything about doing that text. We had the thyroid, eyes, and ears from the six month check. Is that something I need to request?
I love NOah’s blue pajamas Happy b day noah ps today is my cousin b day she is nine also someone with DS that I know birthday is today as well funney timing
Such a handsome boy! We love you Mr Noah!!! Abbie, i bet a new set of clothes were in order for you too 😉 xoxoxo
This site is awesome. I loved it so much I had to re-tweet it. Thanks so much for sharing.
We’ve always stripped the baby down to just a diaper when they do the smash cake. Makes clean-up MUCH easier!
We had my daughter’s first birthday party at a local play place for kids (think chuck e cheese meets starbucks). We just ripped her shirt completely off. It was warm enough in there and saved the laundry. She didn’t get her hands messy, she just dunked her whole face. I love the smash cake!!!
He’s so adorable!
Thanks! 🙂
These pics are amazing! He is so handsome! And the cake is the same color blue as his eye! Is that a coincidence?
Noah is so precious. Smash cakes are the best. Happy Birthday Noah
Looks like your son enjoyed his smash cake much more than my daughter did! My daughter barely ate hers, and it seems like many babies barely eat the cake at their parties. That’s why my main advice if you want to have a smash cake would be to keep it a tiny cake or a slice of a bigger cake for the guests. I made the mistake of giving my daughter her own cake and I basically wasted a cake. I wrote more on that (and about some funny smash cake fails) today on my new blog of daily hints to help make parenting easier and cheaper:
http://hintmama.com/2013/10/10/todays-hint-skip-a-big-1st-birthday-smash-cake/