Lydia's First Birthday Party!

At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to throw Lydia a first birthday party. She obviously wouldn't remember it, and without family nearby, I wasn't sure it'd be a good idea. Add the fact that Matt had a long training, in another state, scheduled for that time, but without set dates for coming and going, and I really wasn't sure I could pull it off. What if he had to fly out and missed it?

But then we heard that Heidi and Mike would be visiting us for a weekend in May, well before Matt would be leaving, on the way to their Alaskan cruise. It was the perfect opportunity!

Quality time with Grandma and Grandpa 💖
They are on speaker phone with Great Grandpa Hill in this picture so L could say hi. :) 

Once their visit was set, I immediately switched into planning mode! I chose a unicorn theme after seeing unicorn balloons at Safeway and a friend's unicorn cake on Instagram. It's the perfect theme for a one-year-old: one horn, one year! Get it?

Everything came together really easily and I had fun planning all the details. I think I'm going to enjoy planning birthday parties for years to come! We even found unicorn party plates at Target in Anchorage when we were there the weekend before. :) 

Heidi and Mike arrived the morning of the party, and had a couple hours to spend with Lydia before guests came over. :) 

She's eating Cheerios here :)

We were all happy that she was friendly with them this time, because for the last couple of visits she's been in full-on 'stranger danger' mode (including almost all of our Christmas trip!!) But this time she grooved right in. :)

Meanwhile everything was ready to go for her party! I'd made a few dishes the night before but kept it pretty simple: a unicorn-themed brunch! The cake was definitely the main event. I ordered it from a bakery in Fairbanks and was excited to see that it came out exactly how I'd described it!

Almost all the guests came at once, right as it was starting, which was so fun! It was an instant party. We didn't count, but guessed that there were 30 people there. The party lasted 2 hours and was just perfect!

Jaysa reading Lydia one of her favorite books :) 

Charlee was LOVING the balloons!!

Everyone was raving about these unicorn chocolate covered strawberries that Sam brought for us. How amazing are these??

I can hardly believe she made them by hand! She is SO talented! (Alaska friends - she has a little business selling these, I can give you her info if you want!) 

After an hour or so, we all sang Happy Birthday and gave Lydia a little piece of cake. 

She wasn't especially enthusiastic, but seemed to like the frosting! :)

It was so, so great to be surrounded by people who love Lydia to help us celebrate her first year of life - and the fact that Matt and I survived our first year of parenthood! ;) 

After most of the guests left, a few girls stuck around and said they'd love to watch Lydia open her presents, so we did! ❤️

I think it's important to add that we told everyone, in the invitation, that presents were NOT necessary. So the fact that anyone brought a gift was above and beyond! 

Lydia was very interested in all the pretty tissue paper!

And then we had a funny little photo shoot with the girls, but it was clearly time to wrap things up! Ha!

We are SO grateful to everyone who came and made Lydia's first birthday party so special. It really turned out so well. My only regrets are that we didn't get more pictures of Matt, Lydia and me all together, plus one with her and that adorable cake. And one with Heidi and Mike!! But, we were enjoying the moment and didn't think of it at the time. 

I also wish I'd thought to invite a few more people who I later wished had been there (a one-year-old's birthday party seemed a little dorky so I tried to keep the guest list small, but now I really wish I'd invited certain other people, too). But what can you do! For a first go-around, I think it went well. :) 

Happy birthday, Lydia! We love you. :)