Lucy's First Birthday Party!

We celebrated Lucy's birthday with a party with family a couple weekends ago.  This is the invitation I had made and sent out... I have never gotten something like this done for any other birthdays, but I just wanted to do it this time.  I think the more babies I have, the more I find myself thinking, "What if she's the last one?  What if this is the last first birthday party I will give for one of my children?"  Sob.  So I want to do things special, even though I may get a chance to do these things again down the road...

To decorate, I made Lucy a birthday banner from various pretty pink patterned scrapbook paper.  I printed the letters onto cardstock and then used a circle cutter to cut them out.  Then I strung each piece onto a pretty ribbon.  This was lots of fun to make and will be reusable for the other girls if I make sections with their names on it...

I hung it up in the three sections against a white bedsheet which was draped over the china cabinet to make a backdrop.  We spray painted some picture frames pink and put a few recent photos of Lucy in them.

Here's the food all laid out... we had various snacks, including a buffalo chicken dip, a hot corn dip, a cheese ball and crackers, and apple and pear slices with two fruit dips.

Then there was the cake... Lucy got her own special cupcake.  It was made with the same batter as the big cake, a carrot cake, but it had a more basic frosting: cream cheese with just a touch of honey mixed into it.

This one, on the other hand, was full of cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar... lots of it!  Mmm, it needed a whole bunch of frosting to make all those swirly roses!

The birthday hat I forgot to put on her for the whole party... whoops.

A top view of the cake...

Yes, lots of cake photos.  It is hard to get good ones of white frosting, so I took lots!

This is Purely Os, puffed kamut, and those Happy Baby greens puffs

The flowers at the end of the table are courtesy of my mom... she tends to remember flowers for special occasions, and the funny thing is, I meant to ask her if she;'d pick some up and bring them to the party, but I forgot... apparently, she didn't!

Pink strawberry punch... have you figured out the "pink" theme yet?  In the pitcher is a yummy mango iced black tea from Trader Joe's.

Lucy opening presents... is it lame that we gave her something I pulled out of a bin in the closet?  We have enough toys already, so I wrapped up the old Fisher Price phone with the dial and eyes and the pull string...

I made Lucy her own family book using a free code from Snapfish.  I made these for the older girls around this age by laminating photos on cardstock with stiff laminating film... so they were able to read them without hurting them.  This one has to be read to Lucy with assistance so she won't tear the pages.  She is obsessed with this book and cries when we put it away, or if she decides she wants it and is pointing to the desk where I keep it and I don't get it down for her...

A pretty dress from Uncle Mike and Aunt Crystal and the cousins

Lucy and cousin Chloe playing with Grampa

Cake time!!!

I took most of these with natural light so they wouldn't look washed out.  High chair photos with a flash have never looked good when I take them.  We had really good sunshine coming through the windows, so most of the photos came out clear.

Lucy didn't know what to think about the candle... but she didn't try to grab it, surprisingly!  She must be learning from those lessons in church where I show her the candles and say, "Hot!"

The first taste... 

hmm, what's this??

She basically just tore it apart after this.

I love messy eating pictures... Caroline didn't eat her first birthday cake, and Cecilia's fine motor skills were such that she barely made a mess with hers.  Lucy got it pretty much everywhere.  I won't share the photo of  her bib's pouch, into which she oozed mouthfuls of cake when she had too much in her mouth...

The handsome cake distributor

pondering whether or not she should ask for seconds...

Here's everyone eating their cake in the living room.

Cute Little Red

You can see the cake on her high chair seat cover to her left... whoever invented cloth seat covers for high chairs??  Gimme one of those 80s vinyl covered cushioned things, or a bare wooden one!

Happy baby!

Showing Gramma how she ate the whole thing... except about 60% of it that went into her bib, that is...

What a fun party - Happy Birthday, Lucy!!