Our Little Lady's First Birthday Party

Little black spots and polka dots,

That's what ladybugs are made of.

Won't you come and join the fun?

Our little lady is turning ONE!

Only a few days shy of having our little "lady" in the family for an entire year, we celebrated Abigail's first birthday party this morning.  And what better way to celebrate our precious little girl than a ladybug-themed party.  With two older brothers who dote on her day and night, Abigail has certainly become quite the little lady of the family this past year so it seemed such a fitting theme for our little sweetie. 

Pop and Nana and our good friends the Kriebels and the Saunders were here to celebrate Abby's big day with her.  What a fun, fun first birthday party we had and, of course, what a pleasant, happy girl Abigail was throughout the entire day.  She went with the flow, watching the bigger kids do crafts and play games that she is just too little for right now and she crawled around and played instead of getting fussy when naptime came a lot later than usual.  Our little ladybug had such a fun time at her big party!

Happy birthday, Abby!  We love you and cannot believe that you have been in our family for a year already.  What a sweet, precious blessing you are to us!

Her invitations, ladybug style.

The gift table with the first 11 months of Abigail Nancy showcased...and one of her one-year photographs framed.  My, how our little girl has changed over the year!

 

Abby, the morning of her party, after just having seen her very own Anywhere Chair from Pop and Nana!

Our sweetest little ladybug, all dressed up in her red and black for her big day.  I love this little face so much!

I have always thought that Abby has the sweetest profile, with her curved forehead and petite nose, so I just LOVE this one of her.

Happy birthday, Miss Abby!  Your big brothers love you :)

Nana and Pop with the kids.  We're so happy that they were able to be there to celebrate Abigail's big day.

Some fun little crafty ladybug favors I made for the kids, that they all got in their goody bags.. "XOXOXO Love the Little Lady."

 Miss Abby's ladybug cake that I made for her with homemade buttercream and fondant.  The top layer is actually to be removed for a separate "smash" cake for Abby!!

Our table setup.  All of the kids got some fun antennas that I made for them - the girls got the headband version and the boys got the red visor version.

Miss Abby's place setting, equipped with her personal cake onesie that I made for her with transfer paper.  "This little lady is "1" (cutie pie)" 

Our first activity as we waited for all of the guests to arrive was to have storytime with the adorable little book, Ladybug's Birthday.  The ladybug in the book had all of her little friends join her for her party and she was so happy to have all of them there to celebrate with her.

Our craft for the day went with the whole nature theme...we made ladybug or bumblebee nature jars out of coffee cans that I had spray painted.  The girls made the ladybugs and the boys made the bumblebees.  Here's the sample (aka Abby's) that I had made in advance.  We didn't have a bee sample but you'll see pictures of the boys with theirs later on.  They had such a fun time making these and I know it's something that my kids will use when they head outside to collect rocks, sticks, leaves, etc.

Miss Abby in her ladybug antennas with her Daddy during craft time...well, while the bigger kids did their crafts.  One year old parties are fun to plan but unfortunately, the guest of honor usually can't participate in most of the activities.  But the bigger kids enjoyed them. Next year, Miss Abby :)

Next on our agenda, as we let our crafts dry (we will be using them later on for our game), was lunch and present opening.  Lunch needed to cook for a few extra minutes so we decided to distract all of the kids for a few minutes by letting Abby open her gifts.  At times like this, I am glad that we have smaller birthday parties for our kids since having just a few gifts was completely manageable for a one year old.

First, a sneak peak at lunch...and then the gift opening.

Of course I couldn't do a theme as cute as a ladybug one without having some theme food to go along with it!  Actually, it's part of the reason why I chose this theme.  ladybugs just scream "cute" to me.  So here are our goodies....I had such fun making everything!

Menu:
Homemade pizzas (BIG hit with the kids and adults!)
Salad
Fruit ladybugs
Ants on a Log
Ladybug Buckeyes
Ladybug  Cake Pops
Birthday Cake

My first attempt at making the hottest trend in baking:  Cake Pops.  I am officially addicted!!  They are so much fun, they look adorable and they are yummy to boot!  Basically, they are cake mixed with icing, rolled into a ball and covered in chocolate. Ummmm....are we having fun yet?? :)

 Not enough fun yet....and so we add Fruit Ladybugs, made with strawberries, grapes and mini chips.  Enough ladybugs??  Well....

 ...we're not tired of ladybugs yet, are we??  Because who can resist Ladybug Buckeyes?? Ummm....nobody!  They were a big hit....

We had some bumblebee friends during our craft time and later we'll have some inch worm friends, too.  So, the ants had to make an appearance at lunchtime...no, fortunately not real ants!! :)  Just the celery and cream cheese variety.  Believe it or not, most of the kids ate at least one of these.  So, yeah, that makes up for the sweets in my book :)

Next up: the gifts!  Miss Abby thanks all of her friends for all of her super girly, incredibly fun gifts!!  Thanks especially to Elaina, Sammie and Bri for applying their keen girl-sense and picking them out for their little buddy :)

 Natey was one of the kids who wore his antennas for almost the entire party!! Cutie pie :)

Next after lunch, we took our nature cans we had made for craft time and headed outside to play our party game.  Of course we had to use our cans to collect fun things outside, right?  So, I planned this cute little scavenger hunt for the kiddos and they had a BLAST! 

First, I had spray painted these little ladybug, bumblebee and inch worm friends.  OK, are these guys not the CUTEST??  The kids loved them!  I hid them around our patio and the object of the game was to go on a scavenger hunt to find one ladybug, one bumblebee and one inch worm each.  I thought this would cause confusion and surely someone would appear with 6 bumblebees in their can...but surprisingly, these kids are smarter than I give them credit for! :)  Everyone did great and did exactly what they were told.  They had such a fun time.  Both Ben and Nate told me it was their favorite part of the party!

Once the kids had found their three rocks, they had to head back to the steps and stand with Pop and Nana (and Abby).  Here's Ben, on his way back to show off his loot!

And here is the group photo (plus Pop, holding Abby!!) after everyone had found their rock friends.  Note the ladybug and the bumblebee cans that everyone proudly displays.

The final activity on the agenda -- well, of course! -- is the birthday cake.  I had specially made Abby the two-tiered pink ladybug cake because (1) every one year old girl needs a pale pink tiered birthday cake :) and (2) because I just loved the idea of putting the top tier - the happy ladybug - on a separate cake board so that I could remove it to use as a "smash" cake for Abby.

Her blouse is off and she is in her special birthday-eating onesie.  Abby is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her lighted cake.

 Here is comes!  Happy first birthday to you, Miss Abby!! :)

 I want that cake NOW, Mama!!!

Ok, now I'm getting the hang of this...and it's so yummy!!

You want some??

So, so very happy...and surprisingly very neat, even when having this entire cake in front of her for about 10 solid minutes.  Such a difference from her two messy brothers - lol!!  Happy first birthday, sweet Abigail, we love you to the moon and back again :)