Carolina's First Birthday Party

Carolina's first birthday party was just perfect!  I had so much fun planning it and joked that it was really my party.  I'm sure she'll make her requests for future themed parties but I was happy to do this one all in my taste.   

We felt so blessed to have our friends and family join us in celebrating her first year.  Most of the kids were little so they would be able to play together and play with her toys.  It was a Saturday morning party so everyone could come and then get on with their day.  

There were so many details but one of my favorite parts was Carolina wearing the bloomers I made her for her newborn photos.  I made them a little big when I was still pregnant (not on purpose!) but it worked out.  She wore some costume pearls that my Nanny gave me a long time ago.  

 I loved having all the little babies crawling and running around the house and it was so adorable to see them interacting with each other.  See the homemade birthday cards from some sweet "older" friends in the collage below.  And just look at the little chat by the window.  I wonder what they were saying.

I know that nobody expects a gift when you are coming to a birthday party but it was fun being creative and putting together the beach bucket gifts.  My favorite thing was a stamp pad and little card for the kids to make art on.  The next day was Father's Day so I thought I was helping out there!

 You can't see them, but I had beach balls hung up through the house and a float as the centerpiece on the table.  I did use Pinterest a lot for planning but my goal was to not spend too much on decorations.  I mostly used what I had.  The most I spent was buying 9 beach balls for 99 cents each.  We also invested in a long table that we can use at holidays as well.

The cake was my masterpiece!!  I love having an excuse to bake and decorate cakes.   I thought I would make a healthy cake for Carolina but in the end, aesthetics won out.  I wanted a pretty cake more than a healthy cake.  Fortunately, she didn't eat hardly any of it.  She touched it and then pushed it over on the floor (on a sheet)!  We all still ate some though even though I made cupcakes for the guests too.

Carolina has been such a joy to us, it's indescribable how much we love her!  I'm so excited that I have more parties to plan for her and a lifetime to love her.

First Birthday Party Plans

I am so excited about Carolina's first birthday party!  I've been googling and pinterest-ing for a few weeks now piecing together what I want to do.  It's not until next Saturday but I have been working on things a little at a time.  

Today I had some help though and it was wonderful!!  I had a little assembly line going to put together mason jar tags and water bottle labels.  Having a teenager full of hot air helped blow up a lot of beach balls too.  I'm so happy I didn't have to do that.  Thanks guys!

Carolina had fun playing in the beverage containers. 

There was even an official goldfish taste test to see which ones I want to serve.  

Can you tell it's a summer beach party theme?  It's a loose theme but I wanted something that would be simple to do.  It all started with the party favors, which are adorable.  

I'm one of those crazy Moms who wants her baby to eat a healthy cake.  I tested this one out because it uses bananas as a sweetener, so no added sugar.  It's kind of like a banana bread and really good.  I still have to test out what icing I'm going to do with it but I'm thinking whipped coconut cream.  I realized this idea of healthy everything is going to be an uphill battle when I saw they are serving marshmallows to the 1 year olds at VBS next week.  

For the guests, I am making strawberry cupcakes.  I baked these today and the icing has real strawberries in it.  After sampling these, I think I'm going to go with a vanilla cake and strawberry icing though.  The strawberry cake competes too much with the icing.

 These are my blue mason jars.  I love them!!  I deliberated over whether to buy them or not because I really don't need any more glasses.  I decided that we would use them a lot in the future and Gustavo really liked them too.  

There was a lot of experimenting with what to do about names on the mason jars.  I have a limited amount 12 blue and 12 clear so people can't just lose their glass.  I was going to do sticky labels but they might sweat off.  Hopefully this will do the trick.  

A friend made water bottle labels at my baby shower and I was completely enamored with them.  They make everything look so much more elegant!  I googled some free templates and found these which go perfectly with beach ball colors.  I just used packing tape to put them on.  So simple and free!

I'll be working on a lot more little details through the week.  I'm having so much fun planning for her first party.  It's a great distraction so I don't have to focus on how a year has passed and how it can be that my little baby is turning one.

Sob.