A Carnival Birthday!

I'd say that Lu's 1st birthday was a success!  I cannot tell you how much easier it is to plan a birthday party when it's not 4 days after Christmas.  Stella and I spent a good two weeks getting the decorations ready - it was so nice to be able to do it at such a leisurely pace (and there may or may not still be a few things up).

On the day of Lucy's birthday we had a couple of practice runs at the whole "stuff your face with cake" thing. We went out for donuts for breakfast.  I'm not really much of a donut kind of girl, but for some reason people have been posting pictures of coffee and donuts a lot lately and I'd been wanting it!  Not the best thing for two little growing bodies, but it was a special birthday treat.  I think you can see that Lula Bug was a huge fan!

I wasn't going to make 2 cakes in 4 days, and quite frankly we usually end up throwing cakes away at our house.  Still, Stella and I felt like we needed SOMETHING for her big day.  We ended up going to the store and getting 4 cupcakes.  She did great with both of her smash cake trial-runs.  (remember that for later)

I can't begin to tell you how much help Stella was getting ready for the party.  I kept saying, "remember how we used to ask someone to keep her so we could get ready?"  No more!  Here she proudly sits in front of the fireplace decorated with a carnival banner and daffodils in vases wrapped in tickets.  I got Lucy a dress from Etsy and wanted to get Stella a matching one.  She did a great job on them.

 Stella and I made her a birthday hat headband which she was not willing to wear for long.

On the other fireplace mantel we made a banner of monthly pictures.  We just put them on fun patterned paper and then labeled the months.  It was so fun to be able to look at it and see the changes.  I'm not sure how long we'll leave it up.

For the dining room we used red and white striped fabric to make "curtains" like the big tent would have and then I hung a mirror with an "L" in the middle.  

On the table we had the cakes, carnival colored cupcake wrappers filled with peanuts, animal crackers, cracker jacks, and the vases were filled with gumballs.  We also filled a punch bowl with strawberry lemonade and put circus stickers on glass pop bottles (I guess I didn't get a close up of them - they were cute.)  The buffet held an apothecary jar filled with huge jawbreakers, a gumball machine, bags of popcorn, cotton candy, and more vases filled with gumballs and rainbow swirl lollipops which you can KIND of see in the back.

 I didn't go crazy decorating the cake, but I love the Happy Birthday bunting!

 

 Her smash cake had the "Lucy" bunting and her candle.

 This was the favor table.  It was Stella's to decorate and she was so proud.  You can kind of see the tickets she hung.  She draped em and taped em.

 Stella and her cousin with wax lips.

 When it was finally time for the smash cake bruiser got shy!

All of that practice so she could really go at it and she decided to be lady-like.  No amount of coaxing from us could get her to dive in. Believe me, we tried!

This was as crazy as she got.  So far she's like me, not a huge fan of the cake, but bring on the ice cream!

It was a great day spent celebrating our girl with our family.  I look forward to so many more birthdays with this sweet person and to someday looking back at these pictures and remembering "when".