I tried to keep my theme in mind along with colors of yellow, pink, and orange. I wanted the feel to be rustic and I wanted to keep everything as simple as possible. I had enlisted the help from a lot of family members and in the end the day ended up being so much better than I could have dreamed off. I need to thank so many people for making this day as special as it was. Aunt Alissa put together a soundtrack of classic oldies that played perfectly with the sunny September afternoon. Aunt Mandy made several test batches of cupcakes until she came up with the perfect recipe for Strawberry with Strawberry butter cream icing and Sprinkle's vanilla with butter cream icing cupcakes! Nana let us borrow her tea carts along with several of her serving pieces and drink ware. Mimi made the burlap table cloths, kraft paper flags, and decorated the entire party. Finally all of my out of town family who was staying with me helped by preparing food, running errands and dealing with me!
Back to the theme I tried to keep it in mind with all of my planning. I had originally planned on just pink and yellow for the colors but when the yellow giraffe bounce house was already booked, I ended up getting an orange tiger and decided to pull some orange into the color theme.
The drink table had yellow paper cups and yellow and white straws. I had lemonade, Cupcake Pinot Grigio (which has a yellow top and label), Aunt' Alisa's homemade fruit sangria, and small water bottles with custom label's made by our friend, Kaitlin, that said "Ava's 1st Wish." For the dessert table we made a cupcake toppings bar with yellow and orange mini M&M's, orange, pink, and yellow sprinkles, and crumbled up birthday oreo's. For food we served nutella and homemade jelly sandwiches cut in the shape of cupcakes and birthday cakes. We had Chick-Fil-A nuggets, a fresh fruit bowl, and finally a veggie plate with artichoke dip.
We had white tablecloths that we tied up on the sides with brown twine and burlap table runners. I wanted the flowers to feel like I had just picked them from a field and we used yellow, white, and orange flowers and finished the tables from a picture from each one of Ava's professional photo shoots. We brought out our small kitchen drop leaf table for her gift table and used mason jars for all of the flower arrangements as well as for the cupcake toppings bar.
The children really enjoyed the bounce house as well as the adults and we also had crown and paper pinwheel favors for all of the children.
This was not planned but I ended up wearing an orange dress, Travis had a yellow polo on, and Ava wore a smocked pink cupcake bubble so we all dressed with the color theme from her party. I promise I had not planned this and it was not until a friend pointed this out that I noticed that we had done this.
The party was All About Ava , as my Aunt Ann put it, and it was true that we had a fantastic day celebrating her. Ava loved all of the family and friends being over and went from one person to another and had a smile on her face the entire time. When it came to the cake, Ava did not hesitate at all and dove right into it. She did not make as big as a mess as I would have thought and her cousin Joseph came over to her and told her that she had two hands and then her took her left hand and stuck it in the cake so that she could double fist the cake. I never laughed so hard in my life watching Ava eat the cake and my face hurt from smiling so much.
We opened up her presents and Ava really enjoyed ripping up the tissue paper. There was a moment when Ava got upset when her cousin Jacob took away a gift that she was playing with but then she would love to watch her cousins as they helped show her how to play with her gifts. Ava was loved on and I am so proud of her as a mother on the little girl that she is becoming.
After we put Ava to sleep that night, we stayed up to watch a video that Aunt Mandy has been working on for the last couple of months for Ava's gift. It was a DVD of video's and pictures of Ava's1st year. It was very emotional watching everything that has happened over the last year and this is something that I will cherish forever.
We took Ava to her Pediatrician the following Monday for her 1 year check up. Dr. Long was really impressed at Ava's progress and how well she is walking! As for her stats:
Height: 31 inches, 95% percentile
Weight: 22.8 lbs, 75th percentile
