Thea’s 1st Birthday

I cannot quite believe our little girl is now one year old! We wanted to do something to celebrate, but since both our families and many of our friends do not live nearby, it meant few of our closest family members would have been unable to travel or to make the date, so we decided to keep it fairly low key. Rather than host a full on children’s birthday party (which Thea and her similar age friends probably wouldn’t have understood or appreciated anyway!) we celebrated her first year with a small group of local friends and their children. Thea has a joint party with the other babies and parents from our NCT group planned next weekend too, so she’s definitely getting her money’s worth out of this birthday!

I am an ardent follower of the ‘wonder weeks‘ app that tracks cognitive developmental leaps in babies/young toddlers, explains what’s happening and even shows a calendar to predict when your baby is likely to be a bit of a pickle. (If you don’t have it, check it out here!) I checked the calendar on it a month or two ago and saw that there was a big storm cloud (signalling not-so-great baby vibes!) smack bang over Thea’s birthday week. Typical!

I was expecting her to potentially become overwhelmed with having people over, the extra noise and change of routine etc., but she was in her element! She was toddling around from room to room squealing and investigating, thrilled to be in the company of some older children (they seem to just love older kids, don’t they?!), she squeezed in a semi-acceptable-considering-the-circumstances 1 hour afternoon nap and she even tried some cake.

Us adults sipped bubbles and grazed all afternoon while the kiddies played good as gold…except the part where Thea pinched 4 month old Frank’s dummy out of his mouth and made him cry (soz again, Frank!).

Here are some pics from the day to share with you…

Thea’s party dress is from one of our fave online children’s boutiques, alexandalexa.com & the style is called ‘Zanna’ from label How To Kiss a Frog, priced at £40. It’s a lovely sugary pink with grey/black graphic rose print detail (though the website description states ‘Green Rose’). It’s a smock shape with a bow on the collar and ruched sleeves, in a lightweight viscose/chiffon type fabric. I absolutely adore it, she looked so sweet, teamed with a pair of H&M kids charcoal leggings and some pink socks…

(I wouldn’t under normal circumstances link to a pair of socks, but these are fab – they have little grips on the bottom, and since Thea started walking 2 months ago, we still have the occasional tumble on slippy socks or sleep-suit feet, so these are absolutely perfect for walking babies or toddlers, and they come in packs of x3 in lots of different colours)

Anyway, back to her dress..she looked adorable! My husband said she looked ‘like a vicar’ haha. Ignore him, he does not understand fashion! You can buy it here

I regret not taking a better photo of the food I made, ’cause I was really pleased with how everything came together and it was all very well-received! I did most of the prep the day and night before (it was snowing so we had a day at home – we even missed Baby Ballet as we normally travel there by train…I’m a rubbish #DanceMom!). The food was really for the adults…we had snacks and sandwiches for the kiddies but they were largely ignored as they were too busy playing! (Shout out to my trooper of a friend Claire who made all the sandwiches and endured an hour and a half of me and my husband yapping at each other as we raced against the clock, only for the cling film cover to not even get lifted! Thanks, Claire…you absolute legend)

It was a kind of ‘Deep South’/’Tex-Mex’ themed cuisine. Some of the things I made included macaroni cheese, chilli con carne, cheese & bacon potato skins, hot wings with blue cheese sauce, red cabbage slaw, armadillo eggs, corn on the cob and veggie crudités. I had planned on doing nachos too and even made some homemade guacamole that morning, but forgot to get it out the fridge, and we ran out of cheese anyway…d’oh! Everyone was bloomin’ stuffed though, so I definitely did my job right on that front!

If you’d like to try any of the recipes or know how I planned and prepared it all whilst looking after Thea, let me know and I’d be more than happy to do a separate post!

The colour scheme was pink and rose gold (my absolute faves, and I always refer to Thea’s sheen of reddish hair as ‘rose gold’, so it seemed apt!) The parts used to create the look were sourced from a few different retailers.

• Pink & Gold ‘Happy Birthday’ Bunting – Ginger Ray
• Pink & Ivory Pin Wheels (x3 assorted sizes in a pack) – Ginger Ray
• Rose Gold Straws – Ginger Ray
• Pink & White Chevron Napkins  – Ginger Ray
• Copper Geometric Paper Plates – Wilko
• Rose Gold/Patterned Pinwheels – Hobbycraft
• Rose Gold ‘1’ Balloon – Ebay
• Rose Gold Confetti Balloons – Ebay
• Lightbox – findmeagift.com
• Rose Gold/Cement Succulent Planter – Maisons du Monde
• Rose Gold Cutlery – a gift from my Mum, but found on Ebay
• Pink Geo Fruit Bowl/Basket – Cult Furniture
• Copper Light Fitting – John Lewis (but over a year ago now!)

As you can see, a lot of the decorations came from Ginger Ray – they do so many lovely, unique and good quality bits for parties etc., I had in mind the look I wanted to create with the pinwheels and I stumbled across them online during my search. I highly recommend! And yes, I paid for these with my own pennies…I just really like their products and wanted to let you all know if you haven’t already used or heard of them!

Last but not least….THE CAKE!!! OMG, the cake. I die. This insanely beautiful creation tasted as good as it looked. It’s a gorgeous unicorn (obviously) with a metallic horn, ears and eyes with a pastel rainbow mane. The lovingly made vanilla sponge filling with swirled funfetti, vanilla buttercream and lemon curd was sheer perfection. I say ‘was’, because it’s ALL…GONE. ALL OF IT! I may have finished it off for breakfast on Sunday….! Made to order by the amazingly gifted Slicentious Cakes

My only pre-requisite for the cake was that it was girly and fun, the rest I left up to Slicentious to surprise us, and oh boy…did she deliver! An absolute showstopper, so many compliments from our friends. If you live in Sussex and need a cake for any occasion (y’know, like…Tuesday?!) then HIT.HER.UP. You will not regret it. (N.B. This is not a collab and she did not pay me to say any of this – I am just genuinely astounded and over the moon with how it turned out!)

In case anyone’s wondering what I wore (you probably aren’t!) my black and white polka dot tea jumpsuit was from ASOS…looks like it’s sold out at the moment, but they have loads similar on their site. It was super comfy and only £40! There are lots like this around at the moment, I saw one from another designer at £189…so was a no brainer really. It was a last minute purchase on next day delivery (thank you, ASOS for saving my ass!) Easy peasy, and perfect for this weird weather that can’t make it’s mind up.

All in all, a lovely afternoon was had by everyone, especially the birthday girl who was completely distraught when our last guests left (including her fave ‘big girl’ friend 4 year old Molly who she follows around and ADORES – so cute!). She sobbed her heart out, and so that was signal for us that it was time for a bath, a bottle, a cuddle and bed. She went down like a dream, she must have been pooped!

So there you have it, thanks so much for reading! Hope you liked the pictures. I plan to do another post on Thea’s birthday presents shortly, because she got some really lovely things and I’m all too aware how ‘hit and miss’ children’s toys can be, but these all went down a storm!

Happy 1st Birthday, Baby Girl!

Jo X