Sunday, January 30, 2011

Allie's First Birthday Party

A month late, yes, but I'm finally posting about Allie Joy's first birthday party. Looking back, I feel like I should say that Adam and I 'survived' throwing our very first birthday party for Allie. What a whirlwind!

Since Allie's birthday is just 5 short days after Christmas, it is very important to us to make sure Christmas and birthday are two very separate and special events. For the first time, this year, we decided to adopt the tradition of taking down all of our Christmas decorations as soon as possible after Christmas. By the evening of the 26th, the Christmas season had ended in the Rieger household, and it was Birthday Central!

My mom was such an awesome help in putting together the vision I had for my baby girl's first birthday party. I'm not really into characters or themes, so we just put together some simple decorations while the house underwent a MASSIVE, wonderful, deep cleaning. It was hard to decide whether to host the party at our small house, or elsewhere. We opted to have it here at home, and squeeze as many friends and family in as we could. It was tight, but we made it work! Since her birthday is the 30th, we couldn't plan the party for the weekend before, because it was Christmas. It couldn't be held the weekend after, because it was New Year's. That made it pretty tough! The best option seemed to be having her party on her actual birthday, Thursday the 30th, from 5-7. All of these details are really just for this mama to come back and read someday. Here's the part most everyone is interested in: the pictures.
Some of the beautiful tissue-paper flowers my mom made!

Ballons = Party!

Super fun banner that I embroidered for the party :)
Smash cake, Cupcake Cake, and Cake Pops. Do you think this girl had enough cake?!
Cake Pops. Sheesh. They were a fun idea, but a lot of work! I secretly can't wait for an excuse to make some more and get more practice! :)



Allie's 'almost full' First Year picture frame...*tear*...

Allie Joy enjoying all of her birthday attention.
Not sure what to think about the fire on top of her smash cake, haha. 
Ohhh, yeeeahhh!

Memaw & Allie. This makes my heart smile.

I think she likes it!

The Birthday Princess
Happy Birthday, baby girl!


All in all, it was a great first birthday for Allie Joy. She got so many wonderful, fun things! We still have many toys still in boxes, so that we can get them out over the next year, and she'll always have something new! (This is also a big treat for mama and daddy, as these fancy new toys keep miss Allie occupied and entertained!) So thankful our baby girl is so very loved!

4 comments:

Bon&Bud said...

Tori, where did you get the frame that has all of Allie's first year pictures in it?

Jessica said...

She is adorable!! You did such a great job making her first birthday celebration special!

Tori said...

@Bonnie - I got it at WalMart, actually! $10.00, if I remember correctly.

@Jessica - Thank you! It was such a challenge, but so fun...like lots of things in motherhood! :)

Jessica said...

haha yes, I'm just now learning how challenging things can be at times! But motherhood is very rewarding - I LOVE IT!