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Ladybug 1st Birthday

From the time Grace was born I began planning her first birthday party, call it a sickness, I call it passion and a slight obsession. As I began to brainstorm ideas, I fell in love with a ladybug themed party; I mean how are those little red, black-spotted bugs not adorable? With the theme set, I was now on the hunt for the perfect location and couldn’t think of a better place than a local park. If you know Grace, there is nothing this little girl loves more than the park. Theme…check. Location…check. Now it was time to focus on all of the fun ladybug details, my favorite part of planning this party. The color scheme for the party was red, black, and a touch of lime green. For the tables, I alternated between two different ladybug designs. Half of the tables were covered with black table clothes and accented with a ladybug balloon centerpiece; while the other half were covered in red table clothes with black polka dots to resemble a ladybug. The dessert table displayed handmade ladybug party hats, lime green wrapped boxes which served as a display to our red and black polka dotted ladybug cupcakes, and Grace’s personal ladybug smash cake. The “Big Bugs” were given a treatbag full of candy while the “Little Bugs” were given a treatbag full of ladybug crayons and a ladybug mini coloring book. Both were adorned with a personalized thank you tag that matched the invitations. Aside from the park, there was a ladybug pinata and since it was the middle of August, a refreshing water balloon fight :) Last but not least, Gracie Bug’s party outfit was a red tutu covered in black polka dots with a personalized onesie and matching ladybug hair clip, all found on Etsy. I had so much fun planning this party and despite the heat, it was a fantastic party! 

First Birthday Garden Party

For our daughter’s first birthday party we decided to host the party in our backyard. She has a spring birthday and it would give the kids plenty of room to run around. We started with the butterfly invitation from Tiny Prints and I scoured the stores starting in February for decorations or craft items. The baskets and garlands from World Market were perfect and we built the rest around those colors and designs. We took one of the baskets to the bakery and asked them to design a cake to match it. We entertain a lot so we had most of the serving dishes but decided to add some kid friendly non-breakable additions and some outdoor tablecloths. Since we had boys and girls we made sure we had lots of colors with some pink thrown in. We also had several ages of kids and lots of adults so we varied the activities and menu to match. We had lots of bubble toys, a tub of rubber frogs, a splash table and balls for the kids to play with. For the menu, we had chicken salad sandwiches, tomato tarts, melon balls, bug shaped mac and cheese, pbj sandwiches and ham and cheese sandwiches, chocolate covered pretzels and cheerios along with the cake and cupcakes. For beverages we had water, juice boxes, lemonade and raspberry lemonade punch. For favors we had bubbles and a rubber frog for all of the kids.