Hadley’s First Birthday Party–A Winter ONEderland!

With the craziness of the holidays, we decided to throw Hadley’s birthday party a couple weeks after her actual big day.  (Not to mention that having it later meant that some of our closest friends – and Hadley’s first friend – who live in China right now, were able to be here for the big day!)
I decided on a Winter One-derland theme for her party, and in true Texas fashion, we had a beautiful, albeit windy, day in the mid-70s.  Go-figure!  This time last year we had had a couple days of snow!  It was wonderful, though, to be able to use our back patio, as our house was not made for entertaining 20+ people!  
Before I dive into the pictures, I want to make sure to include thank-yous to our family and friends.  I could NOT have thrown this party without the massive amount of help I received!  My mom came up  4 days early to help with Hadley and getting the house in order, my dad MADE Hadley’s smash cake (he also made the cake for our wedding, which you can see in this post – DELISH and such a special treat to have it homemade with love).  My sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law were huge helps as well – I wouldn’t have any pictures of the day if it wasn’t for Katie – and the BBQ wouldn’t have been nearly as tasty without Eric’s help!  My in-laws came a little early as well and helped arrange the tables and cut up vegetables – not to mention bringing the adorable mason jar server for the lemonade!  And my dear friend Courtney came early to help with the decorations!  THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU to all of you!  And to everyone who came – we feel so, so blessed by the friendships we have in you! 
Ok, on to the pictures!  I had every intention of getting out my good lens and snapping some artsy, beautiful pictures, but of course I didn’t take one.single.picture on my camera!  Thankfully, my sister took pictures as we were setting everything up! 
First of all, this was the invite I designed… (I blocked out the address info, just so you didn’t think that was all white space!)


The dessert table…  We had cupcakes, “ice cubes” (marshmallows dipped in white chocolate, dipped in sprinkles), chocolate covered oreos, and “frosty truffles” (cake batter truffles). 

This was the table by the front door.  One of my favorite things that we did was have the guests fill out a “Wishes for Hadley” form (thank you Pinterest!).  I will forever treasure these cards!  The favors were cookies that I set out towards the end of the party with a card that read “Thank you SNOW much!”






At the food table, we had BBQ chicken sandwiches, homemade potato salad (thanks mom!), fresh fruit, and veggies and dip (“veggies dipped in snow”). 

I also set up a hot chocolate bar with marshmallows and chocolate chips as add-ins. 

A little behind the scenes look – Eric is shredding the chicken while my dad makes the hot chocolate!

And, last but not least, some pictures of the birthday girl!
Checking out her presents with Brynn…

When it came time for her “smash” cake (which I put in quotations, because she was SO not into smashing the cake, whatsoever), she was a little less than enthused.  She loved being sang to, and loved all the attention, but I had to break the cake up for her and even then she took a little taste and decided she wasn’t in the mood for cake.  She did, however, love the banana filling that her Poppie put in the middle layer for her! 

We had her shirt made by the wife of one of Matt’s co-workers!  She has an adorable etsy shop called LilyBella’s Boutique and she did such a great job.  Thank you Elizabeth! 
All-in-all it was SO much fun throwing this party, but I am exhausted!  Thank you, again, to everyone who came to help us celebrate!  We love you all! 
Sources:
All the paper products (labels, banners, cupcake toppers etc…) were homemade with my new Silhouette machine!  I had planned to make stickers for the cups, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the print & cut feature to work with sticker paper. 
Cupcakes: Sam’s – delicious cupcakes at only $13 for 30!
Cookies: A local bakery
Hadley’s shirt: LilyBella’s Boutique
Decorations: Most of the snowflakes were found either in the dollar section at Target or at the Dollar store!
Oh and one more picture… after everyone had left we realized we didn’t take a picture of the three of us!  So, I set up the self-timer on my camera and we stuck Hadley back in her high chair for this picture… ha!




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