Braelynn’s 1st Birthday // Purple & Gold Party

One week ago today, our sweet lil babe turned 1 year old.
It’s impossible to believe, but there she is – definitely not a newborn or an infant anymore!

We hosted a “little” party for her on Saturday [I say “little” because anything involving my family is hardly “little” – we had 24 people here!] and she had such a great time. It’s so funny to say that – she’s one year old, how can I know she had a great time? But I honestly believe she loved every minute of all the attention! And, since Christmas was just a month ago, she was already a seasoned pro at unwrapping gifts, so she had a blast!

Everyone assumed I would plan a Disney party for my little girl – maybe one day I will – but I decided to defy the masses & plan something a little different! Braelynn got a beautiful purple sparkly dress for Christmas from her Auntie Ellen, so we planned her party around that dress: purple & gold! It was so much fun to pull together! And then, Saturday morning, we put her pretty purple party dress on, and because of the way it is made, it was scratching her terribly. SO, we changed into something else. That’s okay [we’re on the course to fix the dress so she can wear it!] even though I was really bummed she couldn’t wear the dress that inspired the whole party’s theme!

Did I mention that it was snowing? Yeah – Snowstorm Jonas rolled up the East Coast last weekend and delivered about 10 inches of snow Friday evening into Saturday! Yeah, we are just that awesome of parents that we ordered all that lovely snow for our daughter’s first birthday! Too bad she was just getting over a cold and couldn’t go out and enjoy it!

I am so so thankful for my amazing sister, Ellen, who took ALL of these photos!! I knew things would be too chaotic for me to have my camera out and adequately photograph the day, so I didn’t even try. It was so nice to be able to actually enjoy everything & everyone and be confident that I would have these memories to treasure! Ellen captured everything perfectly & I am so incredibly thankful for it!

Braelynn had her own special cake! So far in her little life, she hasn’t really had much sugar, so I didn’t want to overload her by giving her a traditional cake. I used this recipe & it actually turned out to be quite delicious [I ate most of the scraps!] I love how her little cake turned out!

Not too sure about all these people coming over!

Great-Grandpa stole her crown! She thought it was such a funny game!

Hey look! Us!

So, my Grandma started a tradition years ago that she makes a birthday sign & hangs it on a door or window for the birthday person to find the morning of their big day. She wasn’t able to make it to Braelynn’s party because she wasn’t feeling well, but she still sent over her birthday sign!

Present time! Braelynn’s favorite!

Loved her reaction to the Baby Einstein puppets!!

Cake!

I LOVE this! While Braelynn was digging into her cake – everyone was gathered around & their reactions were so priceless, I couldn’t help but take this panorama!

She wasn’t a super huge fan of the icing – I’ll be honest – I wasn’t either. The cake itself was great, tasted like a more dense banana bread, the cream cheese icing was a little “eh” though!

Uh oh, Daddy! A little too close!