Birthday Party

Myelle's first birthday party theme was "Little Golden Books." I debated doing different themes but settled on the book theme since we did the same for Kyler's first birthday (Little Miss and Mr. Men books). I created her invitation myself (with a little help on the bleeds from my aunt - thank you Sandy!). The invitation looked like the front and back cover of a Little Golden Book. The original book was called "Baby's Birthday" which I edited to say "Myelle's Birthday."

The back of the invitation was one of the classic Little Golden Book back covers. This is where the party details were provided in Golden Book fashion. I really like how the invitations turned out.

I have to apologize in advance that there are a lack of pictures from Myelle's party. I was helping her and Brett had the video camera so we didn't do so well on the still photos. 

** If anyone at the party has some pictures of the birthday girl, please please please send them to me! **

I did take some pictures of some of the decor after I thought about it (which was 3/4 of the way through the party... oops).  

I tried to keep the Little Golden Book theme going with the food. We had appetizers, snacks, soup, and cake with Tammy's famous homemade ice cream. The peninsula was set up to resemble the setting of "The Poky Little Puppy."

One of the snacks was "Poky Little Puppy Chow." I made a copy of the sign at the end of the book: "No desserts ever unless puppies never dig under this fence again!" Of course, I had to include a copy of the book as well.

The puppy chow was almost as addictive as the "Little Golden Caramel Corn."

Tootle Tea and Little Golden Apple Juice were served in pink cups with gold chevron paper straws.

I made a bunting out of an old book from my childhood that was falling apart. The "M" is decopauged with scrapbook paper. I bought several cheap wooden frames and spray painted them pink and gold to put up around the house for decor. And we had metallic pink and gold balloons.

Myelle woke up from a nap just after our first guests arrived. When I got her about of bed, I asked her if she wanted to get dressed and put her pretty shoes on. From there, she was immediately in a good mood. She wore her gold sweater dress (the same outfit as in several of her professional photos). When I put her gold shoes on she kept looking down and pointing at them. She loves fancy things at an early age! She was a little show-off when she saw all the people there for her and greeted several guests as they came in.

We opened gifts once pretty much everyone had arrived. Myelle enjoyed about everything that we opened. She was pretty funny with the clothes and spent most of the time playing with them. She would drape a clothing item around her neck as if she was putting it on. And she did this over and over again. Some of her bigger gifts were a little table and chair set from Brett and I, an activity cube from Brett's parents, and a bouncy dragon from my parents (which my dad immediately scared her with - she's over it now). 

After gifts we watched Myelle's first year video which Brett largely put together.

Finally it was cake time. Here is the big cake that we served the guests. You can also see the copy of the "Baby's Birthday" book that the invitation was based on. Myelle had her own small pink smash cake with a "1" candle in it. As I mentioned in the last post, she was not as into the cake as on her actual birthday. Part of it may have been that she was getting tired.

Everyone stayed around a while and snacked, visited, and ate. We had some party favors for them as they left. The sign next to the door read: "Please take a Little Golden Ornament as a thank-you for helping us celebrate Myelle's FIRST birthday! Our younger readers are welcome to choose their own Little Golden Book and bookworms. Happy Reading!"

This is the party favor table. I bought a bunch of gold glittery ornaments for the adult guests to choose from (since we mostly had adult guests) and put them on a small tree that we bought last year for Kyler's room. I think we had almost everyone take a ornament too, so it was a success!

There were several Little Golden Books for the kids to choose from as well as packages of "bookworms." Kyler was excited that here were leftovers of both the books and gummy worms.

Overall, I think the party was a great success. Myelle was happy and entertaining, she enjoys all of her gifts, and we had a great time hosting so many of our close friends and family. The only downfall is that Myelle is growing up so fast. A big thanks to all who shared in this celebration!!