Let me preface this post by saying that for the first, oh I dunno, 8 months of Katie Wynn's life, I swore up and down to the hubs that we would not, I repeat, we would NOT, be throwing a huge birthday party for her first birthday. What's the point, anyway? All these Pinterest moms go ridiculously overboard for a party that their child doesn't even understand, and definitely won't remember in the future. Instead, I had said, we'd have a Saturday night cookout with whoever wanted to come over, drink some alcohol, and celebrate surviving the first year together. We'd probably even put her to bed early so we could really enjoy it. Ha!
But then, last May, we attended another friend's first birthday party where there was a tiny petting zoo and Katie-bug just loooooved petting all the animals. So I casually asked the girl running the petting zoo how much she charged and when she gave me a way-cheaper-than-I-would-have-guessed amount, my wheels started turning.
And you know what happens when my wheels start turning. ..
I went ridiculously overboard.
Katie Wynn had no idea it was all for her, and she will likely not remember it all, but I had an absolute BLAST.
And that's what's really important here, right? :)
By far the best thing I did for this party was to hire someone else to come take pictures. Kasey took pictures of KW last June and was so great to work with that I asked if she'd be interested in snapping photos throughout the party. She did a great job and got some fun shots but the best part was that I got to enjoy the party too. I didn't fret over snapping pictures of every detail or stress over missing anything (and I certainly wasn't sad about not having my giant camera hanging around my neck). I was able to actually visit with our guests, eat a plate of food, and enjoy my precious girl's big day.
I can't tell you how many times I've already flipped through all of Kasey's shots. I just love them all! It's going to be hard to narrow them down for this post, so prepare yourself for lots of pictures. And, it probably goes without saying at this point, but just in case, all photo credits go to Kasey McAlpin Photography.
As with every other party recap, I'll start with the details. I just love planning parties. :) I found three coordinating fabrics early on that I used as my jumping off point for everything else. There was no real "theme" except these colors (an aqua-ish blue and a coral-ish pink). I lucked into finding a whole bunch of stuff in these exact colors in the clearance aisle at Michael's.
Everything was set up in our side yard by the driveway. We drug over all of our patio furniture from around the house and pulled out every other seat we had to give our guests comfy places to sit and mingle. My dad and Matt built an awesome adult-sized lemonade stand (under my direction, of course) that we used as our concession stand (special shout-out to our moms for running the concession stand!) and served all of the food from it. The food was all easy peasy - hot dogs, chips, carrots and dip, fruit cups, cupcakes, and water ice. I had zero desire to try to get fancy with food, and I thought keeping it simple was better for a kid's party anyway, not to mention it all tasted great!
My decorations were all pretty cute (if I do say so myself), but the real stars of the party were the animals! We had a pony, a goat, two bunny rabbits, and two chickens.
The pony's name was Alexis which immediately reminded me of one of my all-time favorite rap lyrics, "She couldn't afford a car so she named her daughter Alexis." Name that song. Anyone?
The goat was a huge hit! She (he?) didn't have a name yet so I named her Spotty Dotty, like the lady bug from Fuzzy Bee and Friends.
Actually, scratch that. The REAL stars of the party were all the precious kids that came to pet and feed the animals.
Let's not forget the pony rides! All the kids seemed to love riding the pony; I don't think there were any tears from anyone. Success!
I had a few hay bales set up for pictures, too.
It's not a first birthday party without a smash cake, right? I really thought Katie Wynn would dive in and make a huge mess, but she was really pretty neat about it! She just had a few bites that she picked out with her two little fingers, and that was about it.
Since I still have a TON of pictures left to choose from, here are some of my favorite snapshots from the rest of the party!
71 pictures in one post...that might be a new record!
As you can see, the party was an absolute blast! I wish we could do it again next weekend. :)