Sophia's flower garden first birthday party!

I just can't believe our baby girl is a whole year old! We decided to go with a super girly flower garden theme for her birthday party, and invited pretty much all our friends to come and celebrate our sweet Sophia!

As I've mentioned before, we had a really fun themed photoshoot for her party invitation.  And I think it came out super cute!  As is becoming par for the course for me, I found a designer on Etsy to put together the party decorations for me -- and just look at the beautiful invitation she created!


The rest of the party decor was in pinks and greens, playing off the colors in the invitation.  I tried my hand at a cake I found on Pinterest, complete with little fondant daisies (my first attempt at working with fondant), and put together more pink and green desserts and snacks (pink frosted sugar cookie bars, caramel-dipped green grapes, pink liners for muffins and cupcakes).  And I strung up some pink and green streamers to hide the messiness of our dining room shelving.  ;)






So many friends came over to celebrate Sophia's birthday with us!  I had hoped to have some overflow space out our back door, but it was gloomy and rainy that morning, so we ended up being a bit, um, cozy indoors.  :)  But I think everyone had a good time hanging out -- and Sophia enjoyed seeing everyone!  Once she woke up, that is.  :)








And of course, the best part of a first birthday party: baby's first taste of CAKE!!






What a fun party!  Happy birthday to our sweet little girl!

Joshua's farm 3rd birthday party!

It ended up being a bit delayed, but we finally threw Joshua a party to celebrate his third birthday!  We had originally planned to have the party on Saturday, February 9 -- a couple weeks after his actual birthday, but as his birthday was the day before the PEF/Manna winter retreat, one of the busiest weeks of the year for David, we decided to put off the party until we'd had time to recuperate.  Then a huge snowstorm was forecast for the 8th and 9th, so after much hemming and hawing, we decided to postpone the party a week.  Which ended up being a good thing in retrospect, since Joshua spent Sunday the 10th throwing up and listless from a 24-hour stomach bug...  I'm glad we didn't potentially expose all of our friends' kids to whatever it was Joshua had!  The 16th was the perfect day for the party -- we were all recovered, the roads were clear of snow or ice, and we were ready to party!

This year, we went with a farm animal theme.  As I think I've mentioned before here on the blog, Joshua loves singing "Old MacDonald," and he's very into animals these days.  So we thought it would be fun to go whole hog (har har) with pigs, cows, sheep, ducks, and other cute farm animals decorating the party zone!  I went with another Etsy shop for the invitation and party printables -- super cute party designs, which I just had to print out and assemble!








And I admit, I had a little too much fun with the farm-themed food items...  :)





And in keeping with tradition, I attempted a homemade theme cake -- a big red barn, modeled after the one in one of Joshua's current favorite books!




We invited a bunch of Joshua's friends from play group, Sunday School, and our other friend circles.  There were so many little toddlers hanging out at our house, and Joshua had a blast!















And then we got to the part Joshua had been waiting for all day: CAKE!!  :)  This year, Joshua was able to eat it all by himself!  And he didn't let something as trivial as birthday hugs from his buddy Elliot distract him from his goal of shoving as much cake into his mouth as quickly as possible...






We tried to get a photo of the two littlest ones there, Sophia and Leila (9 months), but I think Leila was just a teeny bit too interested in Sophia's dress, and Sophia didn't really take well to Leila's inspections...






All told, though, our kiddos really did have a good time.  :)  We're so thankful for all the good friends who came to celebrate our wonderful, funny, smart, sweet THREE-year-old.  Thank you for loving our little Joshua!


He totally can't wait for the next party.  :)