Princess Party

For Adley's 1st birthday, we planned a pink princess party. I dressed Adley in some princess garb for her invitation photo. This was the verse we wrote on her party invitation:

A year has passed, full of love and fun

Now our little princess is turning ONE!

Two nights before the party, Aunt Sarah came over to help decorate Adley's cake. We were creating a pink castle cake similar to one that I saw on Pinterest. It was SO helpful to have Sarah's artistic mind to help me think through the shape of the cake. Sarah iced most of the cake as well since my attempts usually result in crumb-filled icing!

Sarah designed a few flags for the castle turrets.

At the end, we had plenty of leftover cake scraps, so we decided to "glue" the scraps together with icing and make a smash cake for Adley. I was so excited with how both cakes turned out!

I spent another evening prior to the party putting up some party decorations. My favorite decoration was this 1-year photo banner. It was amazing seeing how much Adley had changed from one month to the next. I also learned how to make tissue paper pom poms (from an easy pinterest tutorial) and used these to add splashes of color around our house.

Instead of purchasing a pricey chalkboard display, I created my own 1-year-old stats posterboard for Adley. It was fun thinking through some of her favorite things and her current accomplishments. We hung this poster on a wall in our entryway so our guests would see it right after coming in.

Our archway was just begging for a fancy pink entrance! :)

I used my Cricut (and, of course, another Pinterest photo) to make this festive banner for Adley's high chair.

I found a really cute "one" printable design on Etsy that I used to make Adley's shirt. The fun crown bow was from Hobby Lobby. Not surprisingly, Adley pulled the crown right off most of the time, but she kept it on for a few token pictures. :)

I used the same gold princess "one" pattern for some decorations around the house. This cute printable image was definitely worth the $2 I spent!

Cody and Jaden helped me decorate this wall by drawing some pictures of our little princess. I thought it was cute that Cody carefully counted out exactly the right number of teeth (7) to draw in Adley's mouth. These drawings will be fun keepsakes for Adley. 

On the day of the party, Mom and Dad Schleicher (who were still staying at our home) were so helpful with the final preparations. Dad Schleicher did a lot of sweeping and outdoor setup, while Mom Schleicher helped immensely in the kitchen-- chopping up fruits and veggies and setting out various snacks.

The white-chocolate covered, sprinkle-laden pretzels were called "fairy princess wands" when I found the idea on Pinterest. We just called them yummy! :)

All the kids at the party received a snack bag filled with a trail mix of sorts-- various salty snack foods (including pink goldfish!) and some pink and red M&Ms (hooray for Valentine clearance candy!).

My mom found these adorable plates from Hobby Lobby. 

Right before our guests arrived, I added all the final touches to the cake-- pink wafer cookie "bricks" around the bottom perimeter, wafer "windows" along the top, and all 5 turrets. Here in Houston, all the humidity makes these ingredients get really soggy if put on too early! The cake had sagged just a bit over the last day and a half but overall held up fairly well.

And with that, all the prep work was done-- we were ready to celebrate our little one-year old!

As everyone arrived, we asked our guests to sign their name to Adley's new board book, Today I'll Be a Princess.

Then, we asked our family and friends to fill out a memory book page, which we are sure will be a collection of memories that Adley will treasure for years to come. Each page contained sentence starters such as "I think that Adley is...," "I hope that Adley always remembers...," as well as advice for Adley and memories from Adley's first year. It was fun seeing everyone's unique perspectives and connections with Adley.

The next portion of the party was just some informal game time. I knew that Adley's brothers and all of her many boy cousins wouldn't really enjoy princess-related activities, nor did I really want to plan a bunch of structured games for the older kids since Adley wouldn't be able to participate anyway. On the other hand, I knew that all the kids tend to behave much better if they are kept busy, so this informal game time seemed like a decent middle ground.

We set up 9 yard games around our home that our family and friends were free to play as they pleased. The games were Lawn Jenga,

Washers,

Cornhole,

Ladder Ball,

and (not pictured) Frisbee Tic-Tac-Toe, Ladder Bean Bag Toss, a Matching game (with funny photos of Adley from the past year), an Obstacle Course on our driveway (with tasks such as spin around 5 times, hop on 1 leg 4 times, or sing happy birthday to Adley), and Pictionary.

We also set out our two Cozy Coupes and a couple other push toys for Adley and her other young friends and cousins. Everyone seemed to be (overall) happily occupied! We were so thankful that it didn't rain!

Right before dinner, we gathered everyone together for some Adley Competitions. We told everyone that we were going to give Adley five tasks to complete, and their job was to predict what Adley would do for each one. The individuals who predicted accurately would receive some pink M&Ms.

First, we gave Adley a handful of yogurt melts (her very favorite snack) and had everyone predict how long it would take her to eat them. Even though Adley loves these treats, it took her more than 30 seconds to finish the snack. I'm sure she was a bit distracted by all the cheering around her! :)

Next, we wanted to see which color paper (blue, green, or pink) Adley would touch first. Like a typical independent toddler, Adley walked right by all of the colors!

Daddy drew Adley back to the paper by placing M&Ms on each one. This worked like a charm! Adley loved her first taste of chocolate candy-- taken from the PINK paper.

The third competition was to see which toy Adley would play with first from three of her very favorites...

...and the octopus won!

Next, we gave Adley a tissue box and had our family and friends predict how many Adley would pull out of the box in 30 seconds. I'm not sure how many she grabbed, but it wasn't a lot because she was much more interested in eating the tissues than she was in pulling them out of the box!

Finally, we placed a pair of shoes on the ground and had everyone predict whether Adley would...

A. try to put the shoes on

B. put the shoes in her mouth

C. give the shoes to someone else

D. none of the above

The competition looked promising when Adley walked right towards the shoe and picked it up. However, she promptly dropped the shoe and walked off to find something better to do!

I love how all of the above pictures show everyone gathered around Adley, watching her and smiling. It was fun to have an activity that made her the center of attention on her birthday! Even without the competitions, however, Adley's cousins, friends, and brothers sure dote on her and treat her with so much kindness. She is one blessed little lady!

We ended the party with a dinner of sloppy joe sandwiches (one of Adley's favorite meals), beans, fruit, veggies, and of course birthday cake! We weren't sure how messy Adley would get with her smash cake, so we brought her entire high chair outside for dessert.

As soon as we gave Adley her cake, she went straight for the marshmallows, picked them off one by one and happily devoured them! Adley didn't eat too much of the rest of her cake, however, so she didn't get too overly messy.  

It was a joy to celebrate our little girl! We loved having so many family members present for Adley's big day.

We give God thanks for this growing girl who makes us smile with her deep giggles, her curious nature, her funny babbles, her bright blue eyes, and her loving hugs and kisses. She has brought us so much joy over the past year. Happy 1st birthday, dear Adley Grace!