Fairies, Flowers, and Food, oh my!

As those of you who have been reading my blog know, I have been busy planning my little girl's 1st birthday in Pittsburgh. Even though she just turned 1 and won't remember anything we did for her, we still went all out and planned everything with a "fairy/garden" theme (thanks to lots of help from family!)

My sister-in-law and mother-in-law decorated the living room and kitchen with lights, flowers, and fairies everywhere. Even the fan had fairies hanging from it, so turning it on was not an option unless you wanted to chance having a kamikaze fairy fly into your eye.

For the food, we had lots of skewered fruit with fruit dip, veggies, meatballs, mini egg rolls, pigs in a blanket, and chips and dip among other deliciousness. I tried my hand at food art by attempting to make little bouquets out of the cauliflower and broccoli and putting them in flower pots. For only feeding 18 people, we made a TON of food. Unfortunately, we had to drive back to Tennessee the next day so we couldn't stuff our faces a second time.

And then of course, there were the cupcakes. If you remember, I had been planning to make toadstool cupcakes (think Toad of Mario Brothers fame) with homemade buttercream frosting and red fondant as the dots on the toadstool. My husband and I ran 2 trial runs and finally got the recipe right on the second try so I felt pretty prepared.

I bought a pack of basic colored fondant (red included) and went about my cupcake making, only to find that the makers of the fondant included 2 yellow packs of fondant instead of one red and one yellow! I had to think fast since going back to Michaels wasn't an option, so I made cupcakes with flowers on top using all of the fondant colors instead. I still wish I could have made the toadstools, but they still turned out good, so I'm told. I never did get to eat one now that I think about it, but with all the trial cupcakes I've been making, I'm all cupcaked out anyway :)

Haley made out like a bandit when it came to gifts.It looked like Christmas all over again. She was so cute though, she would help me rip the paper off of her packages and then smile and clap after we got them open. She got tons of cute clothes, a kitchen set and playfood, Little People playhouse, bath toys, and a handmade stuffed monster from her Aunt Shannon that she absolutely adores.

We put all of her new toys in her playroom when we got home the next night, and I wonder what we ever did without it. She has so many toys that we couldn't fit them all in her room, so I'm sure they'd find a home in the living room like they were before. I'm glad that she now has a room to herself that is dedicated completely to making a fun mess.

When it came time for Haley to sit down in her high chair for her giant birthday cupcake, it seemed all so surreal. Just over a year ago, I had been sitting at home going about my everyday life and thinking about how I would be having a baby in (what I thought would be) 4 1/2 weeks. That night, I was in the hospital giving birth to my little 6 lb. 2 oz. Haley. Now, she's much bigger and acting more like a toddler and less like a baby every day. She says 6 words, walks with assistance, and gets into just about everything. I guess I need to get used to the word "toddler."

Or not :)