Olivia Cate's Pink & Gold First Birthday

*Copyright Notice - Please DO NOT pin pictures of my children on Pinterest.  You may pin pictures of the projects and decorations, but NO pictures of my children.  If breeched, legal action will be pursued.*

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I can't believe my baby girl is one... seriously, HOW?!  I just had her yesterday.  They say time flies when you have babies, but I never knew just how accurate that statement was until I had my own babies.  This year was seriously the fastest year of my life, but it was definitely the best. 

As y'all know, I am a DIY kinda girl and I love creating and crafting, so I decided to make the majority of Olivia's party decorations myself.  People always ask me, "when do you have the time??"  Since I work full-time, it took months to get it all done, but I just did a little each day when I could, aaaand then I took the Friday off before the party and binge-crafted to finish the rest - HA.  Hallelujah for lunch breaks during the work week and nap time on the weekends!!  <Clappy hand emoticons!>

I knew that I wanted to do a pink and gold party since before I ever even got pregnant with her.  Seriously.  So the color scheme was easy.  Coming up with a theme was a little harder, though.  I had seen some cute Winter Onederland parties on Pinterest that I thought might work well for a February birthday, but they didn't really go along with the color scheme, and honestly, by February I'm about ready to kick winter in the teeth.  

So, one day I was doodling some hearts on a piece of paper and I thought how great it would be to incorporate hearts into her party since I love them so much, and THEN I realized that the party was just a week after Valentine's Day!!  How could I NOT do some kind of love theme?  And that's how the "Our Little Love" theme came to be.  AAAALL THE HEARTS!

I actually handmade all of the decorations for Olivia's party, but before we get started sharing those, I understand that a lot of people just don't have time for crafting.  So if you aren't looking to make your party items, I have listed some FANTASTIC items of pink and gold birthday items below.  These gold glitter heart picks are almost identical to the ones that I used for Olivia's cupcakes and these rose gold crowns would be adorable for a pink and gold party!  These are also an absolute MUST for all parties and announcements right now and this pink table cloth would be perfect for a pink and gold party as would these gold place mats!  

I have also listed several items below from Amazon... all are pretty inexpensive and most qualify for Prime free two-day shipping!  You definitely can't go wrong with that.  All links have been updated as of May 2017:

ONE // TWO // THREE

FOUR // FIVE // SIX

SEVEN // EIGHT // NINE

TEN // ELEVEN // TWELVE

THIRTEEN // FOURTEEN // FIFTEEN

Now, here are some of the crafts that I made for Olivia's party...

Banner for food table

Banner for her high chair

Main cake topper

Clips to hold her monthly photos on a banner for the mantle

Garland for the drink table.  I later went back and added pink hearts as well.

Jars to hold silverware and straws

Cupcake toppers

The party was on Saturday, February 21st at noon.  The day was mostly sunny and it was warmer than usual, so that was just the icing on the cake.  Good thing we didn't plan a Winter Onederland theme.

Invitations

Y'all know I had to do a chalkboard since I've been documenting all of Jacob's birthdays with chalkboards AND I documented every week of my pregnancy with Olivia with chalkboards.  I love how it turned out.

For the party decorations, I used lots of light pink ribbon and gold glitter scrapbook paper.  The people at Hobby Lobby now know me by name.  Who am I kidding?  They knew me by name before this.  I'm pretty sure that heaven is going to look a lot like Hobby Lobby. 

On the Menu:

Chicken salad sandwiches on croissants
Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets with honey mustard dipping sauce (because you can't go wrong with CFA!)
Fresh strawberries, grapes, and pineapple
Chips - plain and BBQ
Fruit pouches, Puffs, and Yogurt Melts for the 121,723,225 babies who attended
Cake
Cupcakes
Cake pops

And my favorite touch - a Candy Bar for the older kids to take home as party favors.

Strawberry Heart-Shaped Marshmallows

Strawberry Banana Gummy Bears

Chocolate Sixlets

Tutti Frutti Rock Candy

Cherry Rock Candy

Yes, the older kids (namely, Jacob) were tearing around the house like maniacs from all the sugar.  Oops.

Olivia, of course, had her own little smash cake and it was just darling.  And the gold glittered One candle made by yours truly really completed the look.

And ooooh her outfit.  I die.  Seriously, I die.  I wish I could say that I made her onesie, but I ran out of time and had to purchase one on Etsy.  I found someone who was selling the gold glitter heart with "One" in them, and I asked her if she could add Olivia's name to the butt, and BOOM, perfection.

Gorgeous!

I can't even with those thigh chunks!

I made her tutu myself (and holy goodness did it take forever), and it turned out great... until she put it on the morning of her party and we realized that her chunks were even bigger than I had anticipated.  #DIYFail  She still rocked it anyway, stretched out elastic showing and all!

Perfect before it was stretched out ;o)

I made her headband as well, and that fit perfectly.

I couldn't wait for her to dig into her smash cake... Jacob hated his and cried when the frosting got on his hands, so I was looking forward to one of my babies getting really messy.  I just knew she was going to make the messiest of messes, but instead, she daintily stuck her little hand in the cake, put the tiniest bit in her mouth, and then gagged.

I tried to feed her with a fork thinking that maybe she just didn't want to get her hands dirty, but she just swiped it from me and proceeded to feed me instead.  What the birthday girl wants, the birthday girl gets!  At least we didn't have to worry about a sugar high and a tummy ache later...

She received so many sweet gifts, but she wasn't too interested in opening them... she let Jacob do all of the work for her while she shredded some paper.

The whole party was perfection, and I'm so thankful to everyone who took the time out of their Saturday to come.  It really meant a lot to us.  It's the last time I'll ever plan a first birthday party for one of my own babies (I can practically hear God laughing at me and saying, "That's what you think."), so I'm glad it was a good one.

With that, I'll leave you with the only two remotely good pictures that we were able to get of our entire family.  #RealLife #HandToTheFace

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