Aubrey's 1st Birthday Party!

We had a great time celebrating Aubrey's first birthday!  I chose a "sweets" theme for our sweetie!  I was a bit of a procrastinator and didn't start really working on the decorations until about a week before and then that's pretty much all I did that week (besides the normal everyday stuff, of course).  I got several ideas off of Pinterest - no surprise there!  What did we do before Pinterest?!  Oh yeah, I used to use Google for stuff like that!

We decided that since Aubrey isn't the biggest fan of crowds of "strangers" in her house, we'd just invite family and a few of our closest friends....that was still quite a few people in our small house!  At first, she was very unsure and fussy, but after a while she calmed down and was ok (as long as mom or dad was holding her, of course).  She looked so cute in her birthday outfit that I ordered from my favorite Facebook/Etsy shop!

Once again, much like every other birthday party I've thrown (all two of them), my sisters and mom came to the rescue helping me get the food ready and set up.  I always feel like I have more time than I do and then it's almost party time and I haven't got all the appetizers and finger foods washed, cut, set out, etc.  I'm pretty much in crazy mode at that point!

So anyway, here are some pictures!  I took some of the decor and food with my 50mm/1.4 lens and then switched to my regular lens, forgetting to change some of the settings.  I asked Mark to take pics while we opened gifts and did cake, but I was sad to discover that those pics turned out blurry because of my mistake with the camera settings.  :-(  Mark felt bad, but it was totally my fault.  I was in such a frenzy that I just didn't think about it.  Oh well, at least some of them turned out ok!

WARNING:  Picture Overload!!  :-)

appetizer/dessert table

her monthly bear pictures (I cut the candy shapes on my Cricut)

Yummy cupcakes...from a box, of course!  I've tried homemade and they're just not as good!

The birthday girl's cupcake

I just happened to find these lollipops at Michael's in the exact party colors.  What are the odds?!

plenty of sweets to munch on

I found the idea for these candy cupcake toppers on Pinterest.  I just tried to open the link to reference it and it's not working so I can't say where exactly it came from.  They were easy, but took a little while to do.  I bought tiny styrofoam balls from Hobby Lobby and then wrapped them in tissue paper  At first I tried just twisting the ends but it didn't hold all that well.  I ended up tying them with fishing line.  I loved how they turned out!

I cut these out on the Cricut.

I got Aubrey's birthday hat and bib (and her adorable outfit) from my favorite Facebook shop, Sew Very Thankful.  She does great work and is so sweet and easy to work with.  I highly recommend Jennifer and have ordered MANY things from her as gifts.

Another Cricut creation.  This would not stay put and kept falling down.  I came up with the lollipops for her name.....I hope people recognized them as lollipops!  

I also found these on Pinterest (here).  These were easy too, but also rather time consuming.  I also made some to look like hard candy (without the sticks and tied on two ends) that I hung over the food table.  I thought I took a picture of those but can't locate it. 

Sweet birthday girl!  You can kinda see in her face that she had been crying.  She was  a little freaked out  by all the people, but she eventually calmed down.

Safe in Daddy's lap.

Not so sure what all the signing is about!

Mesmerized by the flame.

How cute is she?!

Wondering what she's supposed to do with it.

Just a tiny little taste.  She did not go all out with it.

She did dig in a little but didn't eat much.

The pictures from opening presents turned out the worst.  Most of them are super blurry but here are the best ones.....

This is my favorite gift she got....a quilt that my Aunt Jackie made.  The little girls on the squares were hand sewn by my Nanny Isaacks (Stephanie's grandmother).  She can't remember when she made them, but found them one day and decided to ask Jackie to make them into a quilt for Aubrey.  So special!!  We love it!

I'm just posting this picture to point out that giant scary baby picture on the side of that box, LOL 

She was not cooperative for pictures outside.

I took probably 100 shots to get this one of the cousins!

Family pic....again, probably 100 shots!

We had such a fun time celebrating our sweet birthday girl!  Thanks to all our family and friends who came to celebrate with us!