Maddie's 1st Birthday

Happy Hump Day! I thought it was time I finally posted the pics from Maddie's 1st birthday. I think I went a bit overboard, but if you know me then you know that is the only way I know how. I found a ton of ideas on Pintrest that I loved and set out to recreate a Baby Bites Garden Party.  It took four of us almost two days to bake everything and a couple of weeks to gather and plan; but it turned out wonderfully. I know Maddie won't remember this event, but I hope the photos and videos will show her how much we love her.

On to the pictures: 

Here was the dessert table.

Lots of "mini" desserts. 

Cake pops: lemon chiffon and strawberry cream. We used green flower foam with plastic green grass in the container to help the pops stand up.

Cotton Candy Corn: this was super easy to make. Just pop some popcorn, mix it with some almond bark and add some festive sprinkles. It was yummy too! The cupcake jars we found at Hobby Lobby.

Lemon Chiffon Baskets: for this we used Paula Deen's Lemon Cake recipe baked in the Kraft Ripple Cups from Garnish. After they were baked, we cut into the top, filled with a dollop of lemon curd and topped with whipped cream and a lemon wedge. We also tied a bit of twine around each for an added bit of charm.

Brownie Berry Trifles: The little plastic containers were purchased from Party City. We used a Ghirardelli Brownie Mix baked and then cut into bit sized pieces. We then layered chocolate mousse (made by mixing chocolate pudding and a tub of cool whip), and topped with a couple of raspberries. These were really good and really simple.

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes: These were also quite simple. We used a box of no-bake cheesecake and a can of cherry pie filling. We layered them in jars from Hobby Lobby and used a rubber band to attach the little wooden spoons. The spoons were purchased from Garnish. I stamped the text on them and used a hot glue gun to adhere the rosettes.

Candy Coated Rice Krispies: We cut these into heart shapes and drizzled candy coating over. The bucket was mod podged with scrap paper.

Candy Jars: The apothocary jars were purchased from save-on-crafts and filled with cinnamon sticks, pixi sticks, pink butter mints, and choclate filled puff strawberries.

Maddie's cake was a mini 6" strawberry cream with strawberry frosting. We used the extra for mini cupcakes and cakepops.

There4 was also mini sugar cookies on green dyed coconut, chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered pretzels.

We did have some non-sugared fare as well:

Veggie Cups with Ranch Dressing in the bottom:

Fruit cups

Orzo with Garden Veggies and Pasta salad

Apricot Chicken Salad and Terragon Chicken Salad cut into flower shapes.

Beverages were mini water bottles and Old Fashioned Lemonade. Paper straws are from The Party Fairy.

We also had littl take home favors that were little spades and rakes with garden animals on the end and bug catcher kits for the more daring.

And it wouldn't be a complete post without a picture of our little birthday girl!

Surprisingly, Maddie wasn't into the sugar at all. She barely touched her cake....and that was just to dump it on me! LOL. She dug into the fruit and veggie orzo though!

Here were the invitations - I made 30!

And here is the birthday banner I made:

I want to send a HUGE heart felt THANK YOU to the three people that helped us make the day so special. Miriam - I absolutely couldn't have done all that baking and preparing without you! Angie - what can I say, having you and Kayla there to help, laugh and play was absolutely perfect! And finally, my mom: who searched the internet and stores for weeks helping me to accumulate everything and even sewing the table cloths. You three really helped make it all possible and relatively stress free!

We love you Maddie!

Thanks for VISITING!