Our little girl celebrated her first birthday this month and we had a sweet little gathering for her. I resisted my urge to do pink, orange and yellow (like her baby shower and nursery) and went for a simple, country feel with a bit of strawberry and watermelon inspiration. My sweet in laws were gracious enough to let us have it on their awesome 40x10 front porch, a perfect setting. (Looking for a lovely, historic home in Virginia? Theirs is for sale! Take a peek and score this sweet entertaining spot for yourself.)
We lucked out and had an absolutely GORGEOUS day - August days in Virginia are rarely this lovely. What a great present! I'll have a few posts on creating the party later and will just focus on the day of here.
A fun confetti of pink and green party colors for Lennox's first birthday invitation. You may note that the "1" was pulled from the candle we used for Lennox's cake (see below). Next year I'll have to get invitations out earlier - August is a busy month for birthdays and some cousins had two other parties that day!
We kept things pretty simple and sweet. I combined a few Pinterest ideas to create a display of photos from the past year, all washi-clothespinned on to pink and green yarn. Friends and family were asked to select their favorite photo and write a message to Lennox on the back of it. I have a special album for these and am contemplating making this an annual activity. The notes written by Lennox's "big" cousins were particularly sweet!
We decorated with light pink, bright pink, red and green beve balloons. I love the balloons in front of the boxwood and the sweet, light pink balloon that Chris tied on to Lennox's wrist.
We made fruit kabobs with our paper straws - you can really see our color inspiration here!
We also had barbeque, corn on the cob and, of course, cake!
To drink, there was minty limeade and sweet tea. Thanks for loaning your cute ceramic dispensers out, Mom!
A cute and easy way to pull in a party's inspiration is through paper straws and washi tape. I think these do a nice job of capturing the vibrant green, red and pink of our strawberry and watermelon color scheme.
We helped bring the simple, country feel in by using mason jars and covering the tops with cloth like old fashioned jam jars. We used these 9 ounce wide-mouth mason jars with metal, cloth-covered lids for the little ones' drinks. These helped keep spills in. We'll look at all the 'how to' details in a future post.
For adults, we used 16 ounce wide-mouth mason jars with fabric ties that corresponded to the small jars. Not only did the ties dress up the cups, but they also made sure that people (ahem, men) used the cute paper straws with washi pennants. I like using the wide-mouth jars as I find them easier to drink out of for every day use and, a new bonus I discovered, the small jars fit perfectly inside the larger ones so storage space is halved! How convenient!
Chris was in charge of making the cake, following my aesthetic guidelines. I got the cute "1" candle from Nikki Crafts on Etsy - love it! Chris used a basic yellow cake recipe and made the cake and icing from scratch. Go Chris! He insisted on using strawberries to naturally color the icing to achieve the ombre pink effect on the cake. While it took Lennox a while to warm up to the idea, she ended up taking a good chunk out of the cake. Hidden gem: Lennox's oldest cousin, Liam, telling her, "You don't have to be clean; no one is judging you." The things kids say! :)
And speaking of cousins, how cute are these three?! Lennox nine cousins all in the area, how lucky is she!
Present time! Lennox had plenty of help opening her gifts from her big cousins. I love wrapping presents, and that's something we'll focus on in a future post. Her invitation shared the that Lennox loves to read, so friends and family helped grow her library with sweet selections of nursery rhymes, Red Truck (from her little boy cousins who love trucks!), and fun Sandra Boynton books. Thank you all!! She's loving them!
Oh what a day! Being one sure is hard work!
Thank you all for checking out Lennox's fun first birthday party! Please feel free to Pin, share and comment!
Looks like a great party. Happy birthday, Lennox!!