Alexis Turns One

I'm back!  And it's only been about a year.  Where did the time go?  I literally can't believe that our baby girl just turned one.  I had always meant to stay on top of blogging, but babies sure do take up a lot of time.

As Alexis' first birthday approached, I knew my theme was going to be "What A Onederful World".  I'm sure by now you know the meaning behind that song, so when I saw that evite had a "Onederful World" theme, I knew it was fate.  I opted to do an evite instead of real invites, because, let's face it, babies are EXPENSIVE and this was free.

So now that I had my theme, I started to think of what I could do for decorations, food, etc.  I wanted to play off the "world" theme and not pull lines from the song, so we went with Mexican apps (chips and salsa, guacamole, etc.) and then Italian for the main course (calzones, pasta, meatballs).  I ordered some sign holders from Amazon and printed them myself.

For the cake, I used a local bakery, told them my theme, and asked if they could design something.  They were able to match the globe on the evite perfectly.  I just loved how the cake turned out, and it was so good!  It was also egg free due to Lexi's allergies, but no one even knew.
 

We had about 7 kids ranging in ages from one year to 5, so I wanted ways to keep them busy.  When I found the inflatable globes online and was thinking of ways to use them, Dan came up with the idea of a ball pit.  We have a mini play yard we got for our shower that we knew would be perfect.  The older kids (ages 2-5) loved this and it really entertained them.  I also added a little arts and craft area and included coloring pages I found online as well as passport sticker books from Amazon. 

For favors, I bought an extra set of inflatable globes and put a sticker on them that read "You've got the whole world in your hands".  For the big kids and adults, I bought some chocolate globes again on Amazon and put them in little bags with a ribbon tie.  I don't really think these were essential and a lot of people left without them.

General decor focused around things I already had on hand such as What A Wonderful World song books, framed pictures, and a pink letter 'A'.  I found a cute little pink and gold globe at Target and printed some lyrics to Louis Armstrong's song.  I was also lucky enough to find a map box at Home Goods months ago that I made into a card box with letters leftover from Lex's Christening.  

Since Alexis was born, I have been working on a scrapbook for her using Project Life.  I'll do another blog post on the details of that, but I put that out on display.  This ended up being a huge hit, and every time I looked, someone else was flipping through it.  

Perhaps my favorite part of the decor was the banner I picked up on Etsy.  I found a shop that printed banners on vintage maps, so I contacted them asking if they could make me a banner.  It's hard to see in the pics due to the sun, but it says "What A Onederful World" and has pink globes on the ends.  The same shop also printed the confetti which were globes and the word 'one'.  I scattered these around the tables.

The day of the party, Lex's actual birthday, was full of emotions.  I got a little choked up when everyone was singing happy birthday to her.  This past year has truly flown by and those first few months are really a blur.  I didn't believe everyone when they told me how fast it would go and that I would look back and hardly remember the sleepless nights and how tiny our little girl really was.  I'm sure in no time I'll be doing a post for her second birthday!

Be well,