Mercy. I have a One year old.
You have been hearing all about the party planning and prep for several weeks now! So I thought I would share some pictures of the day itself, and some of the decorating touches.
One of the tricky parts of being in serious party planning mode is that you may forget to take pictures yourself. So I had to rely on a few Grandpa “shaky hand” pictures 🙂
But you’ll get the idea!!
Since we had all the family in town for Elizabeth’s birthday, we decided we would also have Elizabeth’s dedication at our church that same day. It was such a beautiful time, celebrating Elizabeth and dedicating her to God, as well as my husband and I, as her parents, who are charged with guiding her. So sweet.
Elizabeth did enjoy the Children’s Story, and peeking over at Grandpa!
On to the party that afternoon! The birthday girl actually slept through 1 whole hour of her party! I had to wake her up to do the cake 🙂
But once she was up and about, she loved cruising from room to room in our house, chatting with the guests.
We had quite the housefull!! We had over 40 people there, with 15 kids under 3! Crazy! But we all had such a blast!!
Thank goodness for our finished playroom in the front of the house. It was constantly full of kids AND adults.
Elizabeth’s face when everyone started singing Happy Birthday was priceless! She looked so pleased! She started clapping, too. But she was a dainty cake eater (thank goodness!). She took little bites, and only managed to eat a quarter of cake.
On Sunday morning, we went back to the playroom to open gifts!!
It was such a fun time with family and friends! Elizabeth is so loved, and it was such a blast having everyone together to shower her with love!
Since our theme was basically “Autumn”, I got to take advantage of my typical Fall decorations, and then kick it up a tiny notch. Here’s what I did!
For the front porch, I bought tons of mums! I thought one bright yellow mum at the corner, by the driveway, would be cheerful and a nice greeting. I tucked some raffia inside the pot to dress it up a little.
I loved the way the front porch came together!
On the front porch steps, I stacked various sizes of pumpkins and mums on the stairs. I decided again to tuck in raffia to tie it all together.
My urn planter still has some summer flowers in it. I didn’t want to replant it, so I decided that mini pumpkins and raffia would make it look on theme.
I jazzed up my usual raffia wreath with a simple chalkboard hung from it. I picked up the chalk board in the dollar section at Target.
Moving inside, besides the typical decorations of faux pumpkins in cabinets and wreaths on doors, I did a few other touches.
In the playroom, we hung up some burlap twine and hung some pictures from Elizabeth’s first year.
We also did something similar near the food table. I printed off Elizabeth’s monthly pictures and just simply taped them up on the wall with some glittery gold washi tape.
The color is poor, BUT my mom borrowed a felt flower garland from a friend of hers. In fact, the garland got used at my sister’s wedding as well. It’s made the rounds at our family events 🙂 This bay window is our eat in kitchen area, behind our kitchen table, where we had all the food staged. It helped dress up the area.
I forgot to snap a picture of the table fully set, but you get an idea of what we did! I found a brown plaid blanket at Ikea on my August trip. We casually placed it on the table, and used some boxes underneath to raise up a few platters.
On the mantle, I added in a faux door swag inside my large lantern. For height (it’s a HUGE built in TV nook over our fireplace, but we don’t have a TV!) I wanted an arrangement in my hurricane urn. My mom literally just walked out to my front yard, snipped some branches, and came in and arranged it. I think it looks amazing!
I wish I had some more pictures to share! I kicked myself after it was all said and done that I didn’t take pictures myself.
There may be better pictures floating out there that family and friends took, but I hated to wait!! If there are real gems, I’ll keep you posted 🙂
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First off, your house is adorable! Ours isn’t set up to really have the party here, so we will see how she does with napping that day in a different setting 🙂
Your decorations are all adorable! I especially like your mantle decorations. And Elizabeth looks like she had so much fun. That’s wonderful you guys were able to do the dedication the same time, we still have to decide when we are going to do that. Sounds like a great weekend!
Thank you!! This was the first time we’ve had so many people at the house. But thankfully it wasn’t too stuffed. If it wasn’t raining that day, we would have been outside for a little more space, but oh well!
Good luck with your party! The nap part was tricky. Saturday is already a tiring day for us because we always have church in the morning/afternoon, and then with the party on top of that? Mercy!!
I would definitely recommend doing the party and the dedication/baptism (whatever it would be!) all on the same weekend. It’s pretty special!
You have a gorgeous home – I have always loved houses in that style. Everything looked so pretty and autumnal, great job! And Elizabeth…what can I say, she’s so precious!
Thank you very much!!! Elizabeth is a joy, that’s for sure!
Your party (and house) looked awesome! Simple and fun, but personal. Happy bday to Elizabeth!
Thank you!!! It was definitely nice just having the theme of “Autumn” 🙂 The Fall decorations had to go up at some point! haha!
What a fun weekend!! I love that you made the most of having family in town and packed a lot in. Your home is stunning!! It’s so classy. I’ve always heard that 1st birthday parties are to celebrate your whole family and it looks like you did just that. Elizabeth is one lucky lady 🙂
Thank you! We love our house! Been here over a year now. The first birthday was definitely more to celebrate with all the family and friends. Elizabeth had fun though!!
Looks like Elizabeth had a wonderful party. All of the excitement must have worn her out. I love all of your decorations. You did a wonderful job!
Thank you!! It sure did wear her out!! She’s been taking decent morning naps again 🙂 haha!
It looks like you all have a wonderful time! Everything turned out amazing! Happy 1st birthday, Elizabeth!
Thank you!! It was a great time!
I love the theme! Your entryway looks so lovely. Elizabeth is just adorable in her party outfit, and it sounds like you all had a great time. So fun to be able to put on an event like this, but kind of exhausting, right? Thank goodness for the family help. And same issue here with the photo taking… pretty sure there are zero with my husband in them (doesn’t help that he showed up late to the party – darn residency call schedule).
Thank you!! Yes totally fun to do but I was wound pretty tight the days leading up to the party. Such a bummer your husband made it late. They are always missing something!! But I know he would have rather been at the party than stinky call.