A Birthday Celebration

My bugs is one. Seriously that is still mind-boggling to me. Unfortunately, the calendar doesn't lie. She is indeed one year older and a heck of a lot wiser. A first birthday is one of those BIG milestones in my eyes, so I couldn't help but go all out with celebrating.

The party was last Saturday, and the theme was Pink Lemonade and Cupcakes. I was searching blog posts/pinterest for ideas and came upon this post and knew right then and there what we were going to do. I'm still in love with the idea, and am so happy with how everything turned out.

I went around town a few weeks before the party and took some one year pictures of Ava, some which included the lemonade theme. I also did trial run with her birthday cake and used it for an at home photo-shoot similar to many pictures I have seen on pinterest. I was glad I did because her party cake turned out so much better than the trial run! I then framed or created a mod podge canvas to display the pictures at her party. Here are a few of my favorites:

I did quite a few other DIY projects to make the party that much more unique and personalized to Ava. I made the three yellow/pink banners [one above the dessert table, one along her highchair tray and the other across the lemonade stand]. I also copied the pink lemonade inspiration post and created a similar lemonade stand using an apple crate. It was actually pretty easy to do, and added that much more character to the party. I also decided to make the cupcakes and frosting from scratch, as well as frost them using these fun tips from Bake It Pretty.

With all the other project I had going on, I opted to not create my own invitation. I browsed and found this invite from HelloLoveBoutique. It was exactly what I was looking for. Isn't it great when things just seem to fall into place? Here is what it ended up looking like:

Seriously, I love it.

Here are some of the pictures from the big day: (big thanks to my friend, Anna, who took a lot of these for me!)

 

 

 

The party luckily fell on a day when most of our friends were still in town before they left for their summer vacations. My mom and dad also flew out here to celebrate, which made it that much more special. I couldn't have done it without them!  It was a fun way for us to kick off our summer, but in a way I'm glad that is over.

Until next year...