Annie's 1st Birthday Party

Annie had a really special and fun 1st birthday party.  Family and close friends were there to help celebrate and overall we kept it fairly simple and laid back.  I love party planning so here is how it went down!

The invitation

I decided 11 am would be an ideal time as Annie normally goes down for a nap around 8:30/9am and is up around 10:30.  We ended up waking her up that morning so she wouldn't sleep in and stick to schedule and like a charm, between 10:30 and 11 she woke up from a good nap which was a relief to know we would have a happy baby for the party.

Given my 11 am start, I knew we needed to serve lunch.  I was so undecided on what to do for lunch,  I'm not an indecisive person at all!  Grilling in March with the weather is too unknown.  Plus it creates work for Aaron, more of a mess to clean up, and takes Aaron away from enjoying the party.  I thought about doing pastas, but decided a little heavy for lunch.  So I ended up with a HyVee platter of deli sandwiches and I was very happy with them.  They were served on cibatta bread with a toothpick on top with a cherry tomato. They presented well and tasted fabulous!  With that I served a Ceasar salad and given macaroni and cheese is Annie's favorite, I made up a batch of that the night before and all I had to do was bake it before the party started.  Easy peasy and it seemed to go over well with everyone.  I know the guest of honor was putting the mac and cheese down so we pleased the most important {little} person of the day!

Annie and her Dadda (heart melting!)

Love this little girl -- who does she look more like?  I think she is a good mix of both of us.

Poor Charley, she is such a good dog but when guests are over, we struggle getting her to listen and calm down, I wish she wouldn't get so excited when guests are over, for most of the party we had to detain her at the bottom of the stairs.  At least it's because she is 75 lbs too friendly, could be worst! 

Grandma, Annie, Nana and Cousin Eli.  Eli is so good with Annie!   He is no longer the only grandchild and he shares and is amazingly sweet with Annie

Annie with Uncle Cody

Grandpa Hyde getting his cuddles 

Lots of smiles with Grandma Hyde

How many 1 yr olds have a true best friend?  Alaina and Annie are! 

Lots of playtime was had

These two play pretty well... most of the time.  We are getting a glimpse of the struggle to come with sharing toys!

After lunch, we opened gifts.  When guests asked what Annie wanted for her birthday, we replied with outdoor toys.  We are running out of room for indoor toys so I thought outdoor gifts would be the most useful.  We got some great outdoor gifts that I'm looking forward to seeing her play with this summer.  I was stumped on what Aaron and I were going to get for her.  We wanted something a little special given it's the first birthday.  At daycare they had a play kitchen that Annie seemed to really like, although a little too tall for her, it would be a gift she could grow into so a play kitchen it was!  It's pretty cute seeing her open the doors and hide toys in the oven and reopen to check they are still there.

Annie still doesn't get opening gifts yet, next birthday will be a different story I'm sure! 

After gifts we went straight into cake as Annie was starting to show she was wearing down a little and likely not far from her 2nd nap of the day.  I had a pretty good feeling the cake smash would not go over the best and I was right.  Surprisingly she didn't cry while we sang happy birthday to her but had zero interest in the cake and when I tried to put a little frosting on her lips, she started to give me that look and arch her back as if she was close to a meltdown.  I know this look and know what happens here, there isn't a chance at this point we will get her interested so rather than continually trying, the cake smash ended and we let her run the last bit of her energy out before going down for her next nap.

Cutest 1 Yr Old I know!

One taste and that was it! 

First birthday party is a wrap!  Good memories, great company, yummy food, new toys, 2 naps... what more could a one year old ask for?!

Now for some "behind the scenes" details...

When I was planning the party, I saw so many cute decorations to buy and personalize on Etsy.  When I added up all my favorite items, it was going to cost hundreds of dollars.  That just didn't make sense!  So rather I figured out how to replicate and make my own and you know what... my own turned out better than what I liked on Etsy.  I may show some tutorials in coming posts but for now, let me show you what we did!

Upon finding this sweet little outfit on Etsy, it was how I came up with our birthday theme.. which was simply the colors of gold and light pink.  LOVE!

Made all on my own!  The ones on Etsy are going for $30... mine is $5 made from scratch. 

DIY at it's finest!  Less than $5 -- a little scrapbooking paper , stickers and colored string. 

Another DIY project, making good use out of those stressful monthly photo shoots

A-N-N-I-E! 

Aaron's coworkers wife was able to make this for me, how nice was that! 

Since Annie's birth, I have spent hours documenting her life in 2 book. Left one is a memory book, right one my mom made to collect picture.  Both are full of the 1st year's memories! 

I did not make this.  Let's be clear, I do not sew and never will.  My Aunt/Uncle/Cousins sent this early for us to open.  How cute!  Loved it! And to have a hat and balloons on the bib to match the set up -- it was too perfect! 

Again... let's be clear -- I did NOT make this cake.  It was the same cake vendor we used for our wedding, so it was something special we wanted for Annie's 1st birthday.  The cake turned out exactly as I asked for it to look.  So cute!

Cake display, simple but cute

Smash cake -- again by our cake vendor.  Perfect for the purpose intended.  Although I just ended up eating all of it later that week since our little Annie wanted nothing to do with it!