Last night we celebrated Carly's first birthday! She is still 11 months old for one more week, but since my mom was in town we thought it would be wise to have her party a little early. Tiff is still playing basketball, so my mom has to get back to Iowa for sub-state; hence why she came this week. :)
The day was loads of fun, decorating, cooking, cleaning...I enjoy the decorating part the best. I really enjoy putting events together, but I've decided I don't like being the host. I just don't like the pressure and take things very personally when they don't go just perfectly. I suppose I will learn to shrug it off the older I get. Here is the decor and the spread for her birthday party:
Throwing a big birthday bash comes with a learning curve. The party started at 4:30pm, and guests arrived for about 20 minutes. I think I counted 30 people in total who were able to celebrate with us. Carly and I should have stayed at the door greeting, but I was trying to talk to everyone who came in. Mistake number one. Brian was suppose to get off a little early and be home by 4:50pm, but he didn't roll in until nearly 5:15pm, so I was rather anxious for those 25 minutes. I wanted to wait for him before we ate, so we just chatted and played but that was mistake number two. People, including Carly, were hungry and it wouldn't have felt like we were waiting for him had we all been eating. Regardless, Brian came home, blessed the food and thanked the Lord for our sweet Carly, and we all dove in. On the menu was Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps (a favorite in the Weiss household), fruit kabobs & Brian's Aunt Paula's Veggie Pizza. We had Pink Lemonade, Nutella cookies and lady bug Cake Pops for dessert, plus an array of pink candy and cookies for guests to take home with them. It's nice that Carly is born around V-Day, because there is ample amount of pink for sale!
Carly was very fussy for the first hour of her party. She greeted guests but then became completely overwhelmed that there were so many people in her house. She hadn't had a great nap and was hungry, but knew that there was chocolate on the table and refused to eat her dinner....pointing, screaming and lunging for the chocolate. So, I felt discombobulated, embarrassed, and anxious that whole first hour. At that point I had decided that the party was a epic fail. :(
But...as soon as we got Carly in her highchair and began singing "Happy Birthday," she made a 180 degree turnaround in attitude. Her ladybug cake was placed on her highchair and she was happy as could be. The girl loves chocolate...can you blame her? Chocolate is one of my absolute favorite foods, so I'm not at all surprised. Carly ate pretty gracefully, but inevitable the cake painted her skin. So fun!
 |
| My friend, Amanda and her daughter made the cake! |
 |
| I made her a pink polka-dot bow to match her theme |
 |
| All done!! |
Here's a video I took toward the end of her chow down. We got 7 minutes of footage on our camera but I haven't edited that yet.
We moved into the living room to open presents and Carly really enjoyed that time. There were 8 toddlers/babies at her party and they were all sitting on the floor, so she had plenty of playmates. It was precious because she kept crawling over to Jacob (the boy she spends each Saturday with). It's fun to see her really know another baby. The oldest child there was Karis, and she was the biggest help in opening gifts! I have decided that every 1st birthday party needs a 2-year-old to assist with opening. Karis loved opening Carly's gifts and then would sweetly hand them to Carly, who truly loved each and every one, a fairly even spread of clothes, toys and books [and one very fun alphabet puzzle that she has enjoyed spreading all over the house]).
 |
| C is a paci stealer! |
 |
| Rapunzel soft baby doll |
 |
| Learning puppy |
 |
| Alphabet puzzle |
 |
| Big lady bug stuffed animal she decided to ride! |
Overall, the party was a success! I shouldn't have had any expectations going into it, especially of Carly. She's 1, after all, and it was her party, so I suppose it was acceptable for her to act however she felt comfortable acting. We felt so loved to celebrate her first year of life with so many friends from different facets of our life (we had lots of people from church, Disney and a couple of neighbors). Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us and support us and love us!
No comments:
Post a Comment