Charlotte's 1st Birthday

OK, here it is, Charlotte's 1st birthday post...

The invitation front

After two boys, and since Charzie is such a girly girl, we went with a general girly theme with most of the colors being pink and green.  I hung crepe paper, made paper rosettes, hung poofy paper pom things, I did a Charzie through the year banner, we got flowers, and I even made Charlotte a onesie with a "1" on it to wear with her tutu (which I had made for her Halloween costume and it still fit!)  We also had a girly playlist with songs sung by girls (Cyndi Lauper, No Doubt, Bjork, The Ditty Bops, The Sundays), or about girls ("Girls" by The Beastie Boys, "She's a Dancing Machine" by Jackson 5, "My Girl" by The Temptations), or had "baby" in them ("Baby Love" by the Supremes, "Baby" by Justin Beiber, "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey) and some Rockaybe Baby! alternative rock songs turned into lullabies.  There were also some other songs we or the kids just liked thrown in there (They Might Be Giants, The Smashing Pumpkins).

Crepe & tissue paper decorations & thru-the-year banner

A big part of our birthday parties is always cake.  After Simon's very involved Darth Maul cake, I kept it simple.  The main cake was chocolate with buttercream icing, green decorated with simple pink drawn flowers.  The cupcakes were strawberry with chocolate buttercream icing decorated with pink drop flowers.  Charlotte's smash cake was also strawberry with chocolate buttercream decorated with pink drawn flowers to match the bigger cake.

Cake, cupcakes & smash cake

I really like how it all turned out.  I only wish my 3-teired cake stand wasn't broken so I could have had a better display.

Charlotte was a bit confused at first.  Her brothers blew out her candle for her since she had no idea what that was all about.  Then she noticed everyone staring at her...

The birthday girl melted down.  I tried to get her to taste her cake, but she only wanted out of her high chair and to be held.  So we cleaned her up, passed her off, served cake and ice cream and started the main event of this party: the photobooth.  Charlotte was all about that and really put on a show!

A page from Charzie's birthday party photobook

Some of the dress-up things were from Jenn Fortune's stash (we used her business) and some of it was ours; I think most of our party guests had fun dressing up and taking pics with the birthday girl.

My intention with the whole photobooth session was to have something fun a 1-year-old can do with other kids, to get pictures of our extended family (which I usually forget to do when we visit) and to make a photo book that the kids will really enjoy.  These are some of my favorite pages from the book I made.

After we were all finished playing dress-up (and Jonas photo-bombed about half the pictures!) , Charzie opened her gifts, played with some new toys and most of her guests left.  Then my sister & I tried giving her cake again...

She thoroughly enjoyed it this time!  Of course, she had to eat it off of Aunt Manders' plate, but she did decide cake was more delicious than scary.

I had thought that since it was a holiday weekend, more of the extended family would be able to come to Charlotte's 1st birthday party.  I was a bit disappointed that most of the aunts &; uncles missed out on the photobooth fun, but maybe they can at least enjoy the party via pictures.

Dear Charlotte, at 1 year old, you are so sweet, smart, hilarious and amazing.  You love playing baby dolls and Star Wars guys.  You say so many different things but your favorite is "Hi Dad, hi Daddy, hi Dada," and you will say it all day long.  You love to dance.  You like Justin Beiber's "Baby" song.  You put pretty much everything in your mouth.  You took your first steps the day before your first birthday.  You really only like to walk when you have an audience.  You manipulate Simon to get what you want, bringing him snacks out of the diaper bag so he will open them for you.  You give big sloppy kisses but mostly save them for baby dolls, Daddy & Simey.  Sometimes you give them to Mommy & Jonas, too.  You like to stand up on the tiny rocking chair.  You love to knock down towers that your brothers build, but you also like to help build them back (usually knocking them down again in the process).  You are great at cleaning up because you like to put things inside other things, but this also causes us to lose your pacifier.  You are attached to your pacifier (or plug, as we call it).  You share a room with your brothers and really seem to like it.  You have girly owl decals on your wall and when you point at them and say, "OW-L, OW-L, hoooo, hoooo!" it is pretty much the cutest thing in the history of all things.  You will sit very still while I take your clothes or jammies off to get you dressed, but the instant I start to put something on you, you will crawl away giggling wanting me to chase you.  You were a dramatic pregnancy, dramatic delivery and are a dramatic girl... dramatic and wonderful.  I'm curious about the little girl you're turning into, but I'd really like for you to stay my baby for a while longer.  I love you Baby Charlotte!

1-week-old Charlotte