Baby turns 1- celebration ideas?

[NewMom11]

My son is about to turn one. I'm trying to be creative about celebration ideas. With other kids I know of, they are given a big cake to make a mess out of on a tarp and do it in their diaper. I'd rather not start my LO with cake when he turns one but I'd like to have something fun to remember in years to come. Ideas anyone?

[AFWife]

I made him a cake so I could control what went in it...and gave him a PIECE of it. He was hitting the "careful eater" thing and so it wasn't a mess at all! He picked it apart with his little fingers.

Mostly just having a bunch of family together was nice. Lots of pictures.

[akind1]

One of the other moms here made a blueberry muffin with plain or vanilla yogurt as icing.

FWIW, DS had 2 parties and two smash cakes. He didn't really eat much of either, except for the icing (which I know is probably the worst part!) mostly he just made a mess. The first party was with DH's family who don't really have any little kids so was just presents and cake. The other was all of our friends with kids and my family. The kids played in a big pile of leaves, my dad took them on a mini hayride, but mostly they just ran and played outside. It was alot of fun. I was more worried about food coloring than sugar, and thankfully both smash cakes were white and yellow. (DS's skin reacts to some food coloring).

They are only 1 once, but you do have some alternatives if you don't want "cake" - you can still let them make a mess (or not if they choose not to)

[cocoanib]

OP, I've been thinking about this a bit and we are not doing the whole tearing the sugar and food color laden cake apart thing.

It's just not us. I'll probably make DD vegan carrot cake cupcakes with coconut milk icing. We will have a get together with fam and friends and lot's of good food to share. Maybe a vegan potluck or maybe I'll prepare everything.

It will be a gathering full of love and fun and we can just enjoy the day. We will sing happy birthday, but there won't be games and such, because DD will be 1 and probably won't care about all that.

If you don't want a cake at all, you could do a fruit bowl or fruit display with whip cream(dairy or non dairy).

[cocoanib]

I thought of something else.

If you wanted to do a fruit display you could do fruit in different shapes arranged nicely like those edible arrangements.

You could have a couple dipping options like a whip cream of some sort, nut butters(if your LO isn't allergic) and chocolate or something.

That would be a nice option instead of a cake.