Par-tay!

Lucy was born on saturday of last year, which means that her birthday fell on a sunday this year for her first birthday. That worked out perfectly for us to be able to celebrate her first birthday on her actual birthday. And celebrate we did!

We started out in church on Sunday morning when she was dedicated by our pastor, Matt. In our church, dedications are taken seriously, yet are very informal and short. We were happy to be able to dedicate Lucy to God and commit before our church family to raise Lucy in the love of the Lord and the truth of the gospel and communicate this through public admittance and corporate prayer. Lucy isn't smiling in this picture, but she was great for the whole thing and even smiled a lot!

When we got home from church Lucy napped and I ran to the party store to pick up the balloons for the afternoon birthday party. Lucy was in a great mood when she woke up and had lots of fun playing with the balloons. Three days after her party, we're still playing with them! My mom is holding her in the picture below. We were so excited that she was able to come up from Georgia to spend Lucy's first birthday with us. Lucy loved having her here, and I think she is still wondering where Mimi went!

I considered buying Lucy's birthday cake, but then decided that making it would be fun and more personal. I had a ton of fun doing it! It was the first time I decorated a cake, and I think it turned out pretty well. Lucy loves blocks, so I decided to make alphabet blocks to spell out her name. Because the fondant frosting doesn't taste very good, I also make some colorful buttercream frostings that people could eat with the cake. It made the table even more colorful, which I loved!

We did a couple of different things at the party. The first thing we did was read Lucy's 1st year "special" birthday card. At one of my baby showers, everyone in attendance was given a number when they arrived, and then during the shower they made a birthday card for Lucy that corresponded with the number they drew, so that we have a birthday card to give her for every birthday until she turns 20. The first year birthday card coincidentally matched perfectly the colors I used for the party decor. The card was from Aunt Lindsey, who is married to one of Kip's brothers.

In addition to reading the birthday card aloud, we also played the "Lucy Milestone Game." There were 12 milestones, one for each month of Lucy's age. The party attendees got to guess which month each milestone occurred in. It was a lot of fun, but I have to admit that in the chaos of the party I forgot to finish it, so late arrivers didn't play because they didn't hear about it and I forgot to announce the winner. Oh, well. It was a fun idea, anyway!

In addition to the cake I made, I also made Lucy her own individual alphabet game that spelled out her name, and I used buttercream instead of fondant so it would taste better to her. I guess it worked!

 

My in-laws gave Lucy this adorable little hat that says, "it's fun to be one!" We managed to get a couple of pictures of her wearing it before she pulled it off. Hats don't stay on Lucy very long!

We put a candle on Lucy's cake and sang happy birthday to her, and then it was her time to shine. All eyes were on her as she very happily dived right into eating her cake! She knew she was the center of attention, and she was loving it! And everyone at the party was loving seeing her so evidently enjoying the taste of something she had never experienced - sugar! And lots and lots of it!

Her cake was not on a plate, but at one point she grabbed my plate from me when it was a little too close to her chair! I guess her own cake wasn't enough! I'm not sure how much she actually ate and how much went onto the floor and into the high chair. I was afraid she was going to get sick from all of the sugar, but it didn't seem to bother her at all. I think this one has a sweet tooth. Or maybe two or three of them!

After the cake eating part of the party, I took her upstairs for a bath and got all of the cake and frosting off of her! She was much cleaner for the rest of the party, and everyone was having so much fun socializing and watching the US/Canada hockey game (we had both Americans and Canadians at the party, which made the game pretty fun to watch), that they didn't mind the delay.

After bath time we hung out for awhile with all of our amazing friends who came to the party, and then we opened gifts. I felt incredibly blessed by all of the gifts from everyone, and I was so surprised by everyone's generosity to our little girl. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends and family who love our little Lucy so much!

Lucy loved opening all of her gifts and afterwards she had fun playing with her toys and all of the paper left on the floor after the gift opening mayhem!

It was a great day and we had a great time celebrating the first year of our daughter with family and friends.  At the end of the night, this was one happy 1-year-old!