Crystal Stine

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Madi’s First Birthday – Party Details

Everyday faith

When Matt & I were planning Madison’s first birthday party, we started with the guest list. We agreed that we would only invite people who have been a significant part of her life for the last year. We thought that would help narrow down the guests and give us a smaller party to plan.

Um. 
It apparently does in fact take a village to raise a child, as we ended up with a list of over 80 people to invite! 
80 people do not fit in our house. I do not have room in our driveway for that many cars, nor do I have enough seats/plates/bathrooms/standing room for 80 people to be inside. Because the child has a late fall birthday y’all and it is COLD out right now. Otherwise, we might have been able to do a picnic or a bbq and flow outside. But still. See reference to not enough bathrooms for 80 people.
So we decided to have it in the basement of our church, where we had our baby shower. It’s not really cute. It’s a basement. But I didn’t have to clean it, they already have a kids area, and there was plenty of parking! 
I’m pretty type-A organized when it comes to party planning, but this was out of my element. I should have picked a theme – something – to make it easier, but instead I just started buying random decorations on super clearance at Target. Add in a few tablecloths from Hobby Lobby, some tulle, and a cupcake decorating station and we were good to go.

Did I mention that she woke up the morning of her party with 100 degree fever and an ear infection AND has two molars coming in? Poor kid was a trooper. And I was reminded that I’m an introvert who is exhausted at the end of these things, has no idea what even happened, hope everyone had a good time and apologize to the people I never even spoke to. Thanks for being part of Madi’s life over the last year 🙂 

A pretty birthday wreath for Madi’s door 🙂

Of course there were balloons!

Washi tape + cute photos = custom thank you cards
The party supplies

mmmm…cupcakes in cute animal print wrappers 🙂
Bella and Madi. I adore the two of them so much 🙂 

She really doesn’t eat sweets, ever…so she wasn’t a huge fan of the cupcake

The Minnie Mouse shirt and tutu make me smile 🙂

Her favorite birthday card was from our friend Nick. It played a song and sparkled. She did her wiggle dance 🙂

Bella was a big helper!

I adore this. 

As you can see we ditched the fancy outfit in favor of something more comfortable. And while it looks like it was just the two of us opening gifts, I can promise you I was the most popular woman at the party, as all of Madi’s friends were playing very nearby 🙂
Sharing toys with her buddy Ashton (stole this one from Mara’s Facebook…thanks!)
Stole this from Steph’s Facebook (thanks!)
This was an amazing pop up photo album from my aunt – I finally got around to filling it with photos for Madi’s birthday and I love it so much! 

A few decor shots – the photo table

As pretty as a church basement gets

The cupcake bar

So, there you have it. We survived. I made entirely too many cupcakes, forgot to do half the stuff I wanted to do and we were all overwhelmed and exhausted by the end of it. But our daughter is loved by so many, and that’s what we really wanted to celebrate.

Oh and Madi loved all of her new toys so much that she chose to skip her nap yesterday to keep playing 🙂

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Comments

  1. Lisa-Jo Baker says

    Gah I get all teary looking at these. There is nothing, NOTHING like a baby girl turning one. Oh my heart. Enjoy every delicious minute. None of it is wasted. All those people who love on her – what a gift. They are what you will remember. Lucky church basement to have so much love squished into it on a single afternoon!

  3. Crystal says

    Thanks Aurie! I highly recommend the cupcake bar. I’m not sure I hate anything more than putting icing on cupcakes..and I didn’t have to!