Tessa's First Birthday Party

Man, being a part-time working mama sure is cramping my style (post to come...someday!). The time I used to spend working on my blog and reading other blogs is now used for catching up on the errands and chores I don't have time for on work days. I feel so out of the blogging loop...I think I only scrolled through my Bloglovin' feed once or twice this week, so I feel like I'm missing out on so much.

These first few weeks back at work aren't necessarily going to be the new normal, though, since we had not one, but TWO birthday parties for Tessa over two weekends, so that kept me extra busy. Since both of our families live out of town, we had my family here one weekend, and my husband's family the next. It didn't work for everyone to come at the same time, and we don't have the space for everyone to be here all at once, so that's why the two parties. We planned one party, and threw it twice! :)

We decided to go with a simple, small, family-only birthday party. As much as I wanted to do a bigger, themed, Pinterest-worthy party, we just didn't have the time, nor did we want to spend the money and effort on something that Tessa won't even remember. I'll save the big theme parties for when she's a few years older! Besides, a smaller, simpler party is more our style and fits better with who we are as a family.

I kept the decorations pretty simple. I made a yarn pom-pom garland in pink and yellow to hang over the dining room window, and a simple banner using her monthly photos. I also made a little banner for her highchair and my mom picked up the balloons.

The pom-pom garland was by far the most labor-intensive part of the decor, but I started early and made a few pom-poms each day in the weeks leading up to the party, so it wasn't too bad.

 

The photo banner was just a matter of printing off 5x7's of each of her monthly photos, making the month labels and gluing them to clothespins. Easy peasy!

The highchair banner was kind of an afterthought. I wanted something to go on her chair, so at the last minute I made two extra pom-poms, my husband printed off the letters to spell "one" and I cut them out and strung them together. It wasn't the prettiest, but it worked!

I also kept the food pretty simple. We had strawberry and lemon cupcakes, fruit (strawberries, grapes, and pineapple) with my favorite Skor dip, and pretzels & dill dip for something a little salty. To drink we had lemonade.

I used framed photos of Tessa (one of her newborn shots and one of her one-year ones), and the jar I filled with hospital memorabilia as table decor, and off to one side I had the laptop set to a slideshow of her first birthday and cake smash photos. (I thought I got a picture of the whole table, but I realize now that I didn't - oops!).

No, she didn't eat the whole thing! :)

And, of course, there were presents! Tessa got spoiled by her grandparents, aunts, and uncles!

Hugs for her new owl. :)

We had two great, full weekends celebrating our sweet one-year-old with the people who love her most. We are so thankful for her and for our families for making her first birthday so special.