Maci's First Birthday Party!

My sweet sweet baby had her first birthday a month ago on March 4th. I was conflicted initially on how I felt about it. I am so excited to watch her grow and as she gets older, she's so much fun because she can interact and laugh and play with me. OMG though, my baby...that tiny little thing that was in my stomach is getting bigger! It's the worst pull and tug ever to want to keep your baby tiny forever but hope for them to grow and thrive.  I am so grateful for her health, strength and progress and milestones but I miss her as a newborn. As I write this, (a month later) she's already doing more than what she was in these pictures and it's just a good reminder to stay in the moment, not take things for granted and spend every moment loving and kissing and hugging them.

My birthday girl had a party and I was debating for a while whether I wanted to just have family and cake or do a theme and invite friends too. I know she didn't know the difference but I ended up doing a party because you only turn 1 once (YOTOO?) and I thought it would be fun to plan and have pictures to look back on. I'm very much a party person so it was a good excuse for me to go on Pinterest and play!

I already knew I wanted to get Maci a teepee as her birthday gift so I decided on "Camping with Woodland Friends" as her theme. I know, long theme name but it was important to me to incorporate camping, outdoors and animals.

 Here are the invitation we sent to her friends and family. Each envelope was decorated with something different. 

This is the front of the invite and the back was her picture. I used picmonkey.com to create the invitation and edit the picture that I took in our neighborhood. 

Maci's dress from Old Navy and her sweater is from H&M (not available online anymore)

I made this floral 1 that hung over the gift table at the party

We did her cake smash on her actual birthday at home with just the 3 of us. Her dress is from Old Navy, her headband is from Target (unavailable online), shoes are Keds 

The entrance to the party was decorated with logs from our yard and a Welcome pennant that I made and strung across a stick from the grass :)

I made our camp signs from cardboard attached to a stick from the yard...stuck into a planter (that had a dead flower in it that is still in there)

Once inside, you enter Camp Eden! I loved our teepee so much and I embellished it with flowers and butterflies from the dollar store. Our forest was borrowed Christmas decorations from my mom. The grass carpet and my picnic blanket and fur rug are from Ikea. We also had these soft woodland animal toys out for the children to play with. 

I found these little cards at Tuesday Morning and drew camp signs on them 

Make Your Own Trail Mix for the kids to snack on

The Campfire Cake tasted great, my mom made my favorite chocolate cake from my Grandma's recipe. I didn't like the way my "flames" turned out but I didn't have time to remake them. 

We got grocery store cupcakes for the kids and Maci's big sister drew forest animals on them.

Guests took home s'mores and treat bags with play-dough and bubbles.

We had such a great time celebrating Maci's birthday with all of her friends and family!