Hosting a Very Special Birthday Party

My little lady, Audrey, turned one on April 11th.  We are so lucky to have so many family members who have been so supportive over the past year that we wanted to invite everyone...all 60 immediate family members!  Our house can't accommodate everyone at once so we decided to break things up and hosted three separate parties.  Crazy, I know.

Here's how we did it.  Her birthday was a Thursday so the weekend before we hosted a Sunday dinner for my mom's side of the family, who all live close to or in the city.  The following weekend we hosted two later lunches for J's family and my dad's side of the family.  I weighed the pros and cons of the stress of hosting three parties with renting a hall or restaurant and I think if we had gone the 'one big party' way, then people wouldn't have had a chance to really see the birthday girl - and that's who they all came to see!  Twenty people per party was still a little tight in our home but we found a way to make it work.

To set the mood, I made all of her decorations, with the help of my sister.  A party wouldn't be a party without bunting!  Here's a picture of our little family.

And cake!

And more cake!  Actually, she really didn't enjoy her cupcake smash.  And I think I was the only one upset by it.  She loved squishing the icing between her fingers and had a couple licks but literally shuddered when she took a bite of cake and started to get upset.  I'm going to blame that on the fact it was so close to bed time and she didn't have the best nap. 

She was completely into unwrapping her presents!  We discovered at Christmas that she loves unwrapping gifts and is just excited about the wrapping, tissue, and boxes as she is about what's inside.  She loves finding clothes inside the box just as much as toys.  She was so lucky to receive enough toys to keep her entertained through to next year and outfitted for the summer, a huge thank you to everyone.

I was really ambitious and also decided to make all of the food for the parties, with the help of my sister, again.  I tried to keep things simple and make and prep as much as possible before hand so I could enjoy time with our guests.  Most of all, I tried to stay relaxed and go with the flow - no one wants a stressed out host! 

I am so happy she did so well with so many people over the three days and with us singing happy birthday to her.  A final wave goodbye to all of our guests and she was ready for a nice long bath and to be tucked in for the night.