RC Squared Plus One: It's my party & I'll NAP if I want to!

This past Sunday we had a birthday party for our special little girl who is turning 1 on the 14th. I seriously cannot believe a year has gone by. She has filled our lives with so much joy and laughter and I couldn't imagine life without her.

We ended had a small party after much debate and I'm SO glad we went that route. I originally planned on inviting our WHOLE family which was close to 50 people and a few close friends too. That would have put us at about 65-70 people. For a ONE year old's birthday party. That's just a little too crazy for us AND for her. Instead we invited Charlie's aunts & uncles, her grandparents and our grandparents and we had such a great time. I'm not really into big birthday productions for kids. I never had that when I was growing up and I turned out just fine. I don't judge people that spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on their kids birthday parties but that will never happen with us or our kids. It's just not my thing. Plus, there is no way she needs hundreds of presents. She's one and we just don't have the room for tons of toys!

So back to little bugs party. It was at 2 on Sunday and the weather was beautiful. I spent the night before getting most things ready. Including this cute little chalkboard. I found the idea from Pinterest and added Charlie's details.

That morning I got up early and made sandwiches and got the kitchen together for the party.

The Menu included:

Different kinds of sandwiches
Chips
Pasta Salad
Veggies
Fruit
Cake
Ice Cream

I then went to pickup her cake which I ordered from the same lady that did our wedding cake. Her name is June and she's with JuLi's Creations and she's awesome and very reasonably priced. Check her out if you need some cakes or catering in the future! So, after I picked up the cake I took a trip to party city and picked up the balloons I had ordered the day before. They were SO cute and I was worried they weren't going to fit in the SUV but luckily they did :-)

Once I had the goods it was time to go home and wait for everyone to arrive. Charlie ended up taking a nap in the morning which kind of messed up her schedule a little bit for the party. She slept from about 9-1030 and wouldn't take another nap.........until her party. Ha!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. Most of them are her playing with her cake and not eating it. My kid loves vegetables. Put a cake in front of her and she doesn't know what to do with it!

The cake and Charlie's mini cake.