Pink & Gold Sweet Baby Girl First Birthday Party

It's really hard for me to imagine that my baby girl is already ONE! I am always telling new moms that the age-old saying "the days are long but the years are short" is age-old because it is true! And my kids keep proving that with every birthday that we celebrate. I think back to the day she was born and how nervous, yet excited we were to meet her. She was born five weeks premature. Mostly healthy but needed help breathing. She spent time in a special care nursery until she could breathe on her own. Luckily, with the nurses help she was able to breathe self-sufficiently by about 24-30 hours after she was born. She was actually a pretty good size baby considering she was premature. She weighed in at 5lbs 15oz and she was 19" long.

One thing I remember was that she was a grunter. She would grunt when you were holding her and moved, she would grunt in her sleep, grunt as she ate, grunt when we were burping her. We guessed it was because of her breathing issues at birth and they faded fairly quickly. It seemed like forever because it was so loud and she slept in our room so we got even less sleep... if that is even possible! Ha! It's kind of hard to remember all of the details because it happened fast and I was medicated but she was a beautiful baby and we have grown to love her to pieces!

I wasn't lying- she was an angelic baby! :)

A great trip down memory lane as we celebrate her first year. She turned ONE February 20th and we celebrated it adequately with lots and lots of food (her most favorite thing)! We planned the party to be a family get together on Sunday, February 22nd but on Saturday my son and I came down with a stomach bug. It was ugly! But thank goodness it only lasted 24 hours... unfortunately we counted four so far that we infected. :/  We cancelled the party and rescheduled for this past Sunday. Luckily one year olds don't remember or have their heart broken over cancelled birthdays!

She seemed all smiles on the day her party was supposed to be... and to think this wee little one didn't catch the bug that everyone else did! Lucky lady (and lucky mom).

Enough sick talk and on to the party, the fun! :)

For her party I didn't really plan a theme just kept it to a couple coordinating colors. I picked gold because I was able to find some decent deals on gold items right after New Years Ever. I picked pink because I found deals on pink items right after Valentine's Day! Planning ahead is always my number one budget saving tip. Here is the breakdown of all my party planning, links, prices, and how-to's included!

Party Information:
- Sunday Brunch, 10am
- Family Only... about 15 attended

Invitation:
My lovely and talented sister, Kim, created a first birthday invitation. I used the design as my inspiration for the party! I edited the below image so that our address is not out there for everyone to see. :)

She hasn't set up an Etsy shop, though I've been bugging her about it, but like I previously mentioned, she is talented! Kim is a Graphic Design major at Missouri State University in Springfield.

[I send evites for almost all of our parties. They are easy, track RSVPs, track comments/questions, and save a little time and money. I use Celebrations.com and love it.]

Decorations:
Tissue Paper Tassel Garland DIY using this tutorial. I have done this in the past... so quick, simple, and cheap! $5 in tissue paper and the rope was something I already had. This DIY took about 1-2 hours.

"Happy 1st Birthday" Banner DIY. No tutorial because I simply cut the letters, glued on the banner pieces, and then glued to the rope to hang. $8 in paper supplies but I had the rope on hand. This DIY took about 3-4 hours since I cut it all by hand!

Vintage wooden highchair painted white... this was just something fun to do for pictures and to go with the rest of the party decorations and colors. It was pretty old and beat up but it turned out nice. It was $12 at Goodwill and I used the paint and supplies we already had to fix it up. This DIY took about 4-5 hours over the course of three days, allowing for drying between coats and about one week of drying before use.

"ONE" banner for the highchair was also a DIY. $1 and it took about 30 minutes.

Table coverings... I am not really a fan of plastic table cloths but there is no denying that they are cost effective! The pink and gold plastic table cloths were $3 total plus I found these beautiful lace like cloths to go over them to make them look more refined. :) They cost me $2 each so the total for table coverings was $7. There was no time involved in this one... quite simple!

I printed pictures of her throughout her first year and glued them to a poster board in the shape of a "1". It was a nice walk down memory lane.

Food:
Since the party was a brunch we served some breakfast foods as well as lunch foods. Pancakes, bacon, yogurt, and granola for the breakfast foods. Mini sandwiches, chips, veggies, and fruit skewers for the lunch foods. In line with loving on our sweet baby girl for her first birthday everything was heart shaped (or everything that I could make to be heart shaped).

I cut out paper hearts and glued them to cake pop sticks to help keep the pancake stacks in line.

We served raspberry lemonade and coffee for the non-morning people. We had hot chocolate with strawberry heart marshmallows too.

I made the birthday girl an extra large "smash cake" to devour... it was a healthy version with bananas. Here is the recipe. The "frosting" was a mix of pureed strawberries and greek yogurt. It was a hit for sure!

In all the food and drink was about $65. I spent an hour at the store and about four hours prepping the food the day before and morning of the party... with help from my wonderful husband of course!

Attire:
The outfit she wore was actually something I bought on a kids buy/sell/trade site. It was $2 and in perfect condition. :) I washed it as I would anything used and that's about it. The petti-romper was bought with a gift certificate for Etsy. Very cute!

Summary:
All in all the total spent for the Pink & Gold Sweet Baby Girl First Birthday Party was $99 and about 15 hours of work... that is aside from the endless hours of Pinterest-ing I did to get ideas and inspiration! We had about 13 people at the party not including the birthday girl. It was a small gathering of just family but we still did great with the budget for time and money.

I really enjoyed putting this party together. I love party planning so now I guess I am off to plan the next one!

Come back tomorrow to see the heartfelt first birthday gift we gave her... I think you'll really love it!!

<-Kassy->