Winter ONE-derland

Where has this year gone? Not only is Christmas just days away, but our Mamie-Girl turned ONE on Saturday!

I seriously think the years crawl when you’re growing up, but the older you get, the faster they fly! It blows my mind how fast our little girls are growing up!

I was on the fence this year about having a “big” party for Maybree’s first birthday. We did “big” parties for both Cooper and Annabelle’s first… (By big I mean we invited the extended family, not just our parents and siblings- family party)- I was leaning towards small family for Maybree’s first, but DW would have none of it. He said she was having what the other two had no matter what. It wasn’t her fault she was born around Christmas and such a crazy-busy time for everyone…we’d plan it, invite the extended family and whoever could come, would! Yes, sir. :)  So, that’s what I did.

We decided to do it on a Sunday afternoon. I chose the “Winter ONE-derland” theme and decided to serve cookies and cocoa instead of lunch or dinner…

Since we live in Florida, and the weather is as predictable as a rabid raccoon, cocoa got changed to slushy punch two days before the party. It looked like snow on our sunroom, but it was 80 degrees outside.

Maybree is cutting some new teeth and she has been REALLY fussy, so I was worried about her at her party. She did really good, though, considering you could tell she didn’t really feel good just by looking at her. :(  Poor baby, cutting teeth is hard.

I already had the tree set up on the sunroom. We always do a live tree in our living room, but I love having our few artificial ones in the other rooms in our house. The sunroom tree is one that my Aunt gave me a couple years ago and I LOVE it. It has three different kinds of branches on it and even has little pinecones. I think it’s the prettiest artificial tree I’ve ever seen. Plus it was pre-lit AND THE LIGHTS ALL WORKED. A Christmas miracle indeed!

I left the white mesh on it from AB’s party (I thought ahead on that one and planned white so I could use it for both…I just added some pink for AB’s Barbie Bash).

I found the big acrylic snowflakes at the Dollar Tree- I bought a few before the party, and then the week of, I went back to get more and they were sold out. OF COURSE. My mom came to the rescue and looked at another DT for me, and found the rest of them!

We hung small snowflakes (I mixed a few different ones I had found from Dollar Tree, Target and Hobby Lobby) from the ceiling around the cookie table and also hung big ones from the plant hangers.

I made a snowflake garland to hang on Maybree’s high chair and loved how it made her chair a little more festive.

It was really easy decorating…just some fake snow,  snowballs, snowflakes and the big tree.

The cookies spoke for themselves on the food table.

I do love a cookie.

Momma and I baked all day on Saturday…I wish we had counted how many dozen total cookies we ended up with. I know we had 9 different kinds of sweets and 2 savory snacks.

We had everyone help themselves to some cookies and punch then we  sang to the birthday girl!

Maybree’s Cake – I decided to take what I thought would be the easy way this year and just pick up a small cake for her smash cake from Publix. It would have been easy, had I called ahead and ordered it. Instead, the sweet Daddy to my babies was running all around Gainesville, before church, at 7:30 Sunday morning, trying to find a cake that would somewhat go with our party theme. He had to go to THREE different stores and finally at the last one found a little white cake with some poinsettias on it. He texted me a picture and I said BUY IT!

She didn’t seem to care what it had on it, as long as it had icing!

We did gifts after her cake (which she did not appreciate me taking away, thank you very much!). She was pretty interested in her presents and big sister helped her get them all unwrapped!

She got lots of fun and nice things! I was really happy for her – not because she needs ANYTHING- but because bless her heart, she gets all the hand-me-downs. It was fun to see her get some things that are just hers. I know that’s silly, but I can’t help it.

Our family was so sweet to come to celebrate with us. We missed the ones who weren’t able to be here, too. Family is so important and I want my children to grow up close to theirs. I want them to feel the security and love that comes from being a part of one.

It was the perfect little party to celebrate a little girl who’s love so BIG!

~amw~