Maddie's First Birthday Party

Maddie turned one on Valentine's Day!  I can't believe that a whole year has gone by since she was born!  What an eventful time we had a year ago!  You can read about her birth here, here, and here.  We had fun celebrating her birthday as a family on Valentine's Day (I'll post some pictures of that with my Project Life post next week), and we had a birthday party with the extended family on Saturday.  

Jim's family members are all local, but all of my family lives in South Carolina, and we usually have to miss out on a lot of family celebrations with them.  However, my mom and sister were able to come up for the weekend to help me with Maddie's party and to be here to celebrate her birthday!  They arrived late Friday night after the children were already in bed.  The next morning, the kids were both up around 6:00, and I came out to find them hanging out with their Aunt Nora on the couch.  Aunt Nora gave Maddie her gift that morning, and Maddie (and Drew) had fun playing with the new picnic set.

 Our house is very small, so we were very grateful that Jim's sister and brother-in-law allowed us to have Maddie's party at their house.  We arrived to find the dining room fully decorated for our little Valentine's party!

 I made Maddie a pillowcase dress to wear for her party.  I found the Valentine cupcake fabric at Hobby Lobby and thought that it was perfect!

 Maddie and Aunt Nora.

 We had a soups, salads, and breads for dinner (which I forgot to photograph!), and we opened Maddie's gifts.  Maddie ate a sucker while we opened the gifts.  Drew was my opening assistant.

Maddie received lots of fun gifts from the family.  Then, it was time for cake!  My mom made Maddie's smash cake and frosted it.  I had seen some similar cakes on Pinterest, and since we were doing a Valentine's theme for the party, I thought that the frosting roses would be perfect.  My mom used a 1M frosting tip to make the roses, and I loved how they looked on the cake

 and on the cupcakes!

 We stripped Maddie down to a bib and a diaper for her cake.

 She grabbed her cake right away and pulled it over to herself.

 At first, she just picked at the frosting quite daintily.

 Aunt Nora showed her how to smash into her cake, and then Maddie got busy eating it!

 She did a pretty good job of demolishing her cake.

 She was pretty proud of herself!

 Maddie's cousin, Lilly, just turned 4, and she loves Maddie!

We had such a nice evening celebrating Maddie's first year of life!  We are so grateful that God brought her into our family!