I was so excited to plan Lex’s birthday party and wanted to share all the little ideas and touches that I thought made it more special and meaningful to us. Unfortunately the pandemic is still happening so options were pretty limited, however, we just wanted something intimate anyways so it was not a huge problem. We were initially hoping to have the party in the function room of our building complex but annoyingly it was not open yet. We ultimately decided to have it at our home and while it was a little cozy stuffing over 20 friends and babies in our living room, it all worked out well and we (and I hope Lex) had a blast!

Jerry and I try to be environmentally conscious in our day to day life so I wanted to make sure that we tried our best to be less wasteful with the decorations and other party props. I was super lucky that my bestie Clara was super helpful and helped me order a few things on TaoBao. I picked some banners that can be reused for the next year and also tried to minimize the use of balloons. There are a few things that I don’t think I can reuse and I plan to give them away to other moms so they can use it for their baby’s birthday party. I also found a group on Facebook that party decoration swapping! I also bought some compostable plates. While I know they are not perfect, it was just too much work to use our own plates so I felt like that was a compromise I was ok with. I also purchased flowers from the local flower shop in Stanley and arranged them in old food glass jars that we had in the house. It was so much fun to do and made the table setting look super cute!

For food, I did a mix of homemade and ordering from bakeries. I wanted to support a lovely business called The Good Cake. It is a small woman owned business that donates a portion of its earnings to buy rice of elderly living in poverty. I have purchased items from them multiple times before and they are always delicious and beautiful. It feels good to support a meaningful small business and the owner Karen is also lovely! I was also lucky that my friends Clara and Christine brought some delicious homemade goodies such as brownies and quiche.

I was initially planning to order a cake but our usual baker was out of town. I was tempted to use cake mix to bake a cake (I actually love cake mix!) but decided to try making my own cake from scratch. I have never used proper tools like a cake scraper and a turntable before so I was definitely taking a risk. Luckily the cake came out SO well and I was super happy with it. Karen from The Good Cake also provided some lovely plastic animals for me to use as cake toppers.

For goodie bags, I wanted to also support some local businesses. I ordered some wooden toys (to kind of fit the woodland theme and also because we generally prefer wood over plastic) and also bought some linen drawstring bags from Stanley market with each baby guests’ initial. Small shops have been suffering greatly due to the lack of tourists during the pandemic and I wanted to do my part to support them a little.

Overall it was such a lovely and intimate celebration and I was so happy that we are still able to have a celebration during the pandemic. It is so crazy to think that over a year ago we also had to do a small gathering at home for my baby shower and after so many months it is the same situation for Lex’s birthday party. However, we are already so lucky to be able to celebrate and of course to have our good health. I am grateful everyday for the life that we have and I am excited for more happy celebrations for our little boy.