Hannah’s Birthday

I can’t believe that 1 year ago Hannah entered our lives.  I can’t imagine my life without her, yet at the same time this past year flew by and I can’t believe she’s already 1! 

To celebrate – we had a party.  As I was preparing for this party I knew it was all for me and Hannah wouldn’t understand what’s going on; however, during the party I really think she knew it was a special day and she was getting a lot of attention and she LOVED it.

THE PREPARATIONS:

The Invitations

With the help of a creative friend and her Cricut, I put together these invitations and mailed them out.

The Outfit

Six months ago I saw a onesie that looked a little like this and I thought it was a cute idea for a birthday shirt.  I tucked that idea in the back of my head and once Hannah’s birthday grew nearer I got to work creating her birthday outfit. 

I’m sorry about the closed eyes – it was really sunny the day we took these pictures so I didn’t get any with her eyes open/not totally squinted.

I made her a tee shirt with a pink cupcake and the word “ONE” on it.  I made a coordinating bow for her hair and a big pink and white tutu.  She looked adorable.

It’s important to note that the last time I used a sewing machine I was in in the 6th grade making a square pillow for Home Ec.  This was a big deal for me.  My mom, who’s an awesome seamstress, helped a great deal.  But I will say that I didn’t just want to dump my project on her (although that probably would have been faster and easier).  I wanted to do it myself with her guidance.  I am proud to say I did a lot of the sewing myself too. 

The Banner

So, after having such great success making the outfit, I decided to tackle a “Happy Birthday” banner.  I wanted this to be gender neutral, fun, colorful, and good quality so I can use it for years to come.  Again, I went to my mom for help.  We found a blog that gave us “4 easy steps to a fabric banner”.  My mom took those 4 easy steps and turned them into 15 not-always-easy-for-a-beginner-sewer-steps.  The changes were great though and well worth the extra work because we ended up with a super cute, sturdy banner that will last forever.

     

The Food

For dinner we had Hawaiian Haystacks.   

We also had some yummy punch and most importantly cake and ice cream. 
I made 3 different kinds of cupcakes:

Vanilla with Buttercream

Devil’s Food with Chocolate Ganache
(but I thought the Ganache was gross so I scraped it off and threw some store bought frosting on top) 
Red Velvet with Creamy Vanilla Frosting

The Book
Ever since Hannah was born, Jonathan and I have been writing down cute stories and accomplishments as they’ve been happening.  I decided to print this out and add some pictures to make it a book about Hannah’s first year.

 

The Movie
This was a beast.  This was the bane of my existence for the month leading up to her birthday.  This was cause for much frustration.  This was my favorite thing that I did.

I got the idea because my sister, Wendy, did this for her son’s first birthday and I LOVED it.  I thought it was so cute and a great way to document the first year.  I made a movie consisting of hundreds of pictures and dozens of videos put with 13 songs telling the story of Hannah’s first year.  It ended up being 34 minutes long. 

The Party

The Guests
Mom
Dad
Grammy
Grandpa
GG (Great Grandma Jean)
GQ (Great Grandpa Queed)
Tom
Carrie
Lisa
Austin
Nana and Grandpa (via webcam)
Wendy and Max (via webcam)
Cheryl, Ryan, Lincoln, and Sawyer  (via webcam)

That’s right, we wanted everyone there so we had 3 computers set up so the out-of-towners could join in the fun. (The one on the right is Jonathan’s parents.  They could see and hear us but we couldn’t get their picture to show up on our side.) 

Everyone arrived around 5:30.  We drank punch, ate dinner, and visited.  At 6:30 we got everyone connected through web cams and we opened presents.  Hannah was spoiled and got tons of great gifts.  The best part was she was genuinely excited about each and every present.  She would flap her arms up and down and squeal with excitement.  She would pull the present close to her face and scream.  She loved every present.

After presents we headed over to the dessert table for cake and ice cream.

Hannah loved her cupcake and very daintily ate the frosting off the top.

After dessert we watched the movie I made of her first year.  Then we played “One Word Password”.  In coming up with a game for her party I wanted it to be themed around the number 1 since Hannah was turning one.  So, I tweaked the game Million Dollar Password to fit my needs.  At the beginning of each round I would draw 2 names out of a bucket.  This kept the game interesting as it switched up the teams each and every round.  The 2 people would come up to the front and one would stand with their back to the TV and the other would face the TV.  The person facing the TV had the job of describing the word that popped up on the screen to their partner.  The trick was, they could only give 1-word clues.  After the first clue, their partner had to take a guess.  If they were wrong, another 1-word clue was given.  This continued until the word was guessed.  Then they could move onto the next word.  Each pair had 45 seconds.  At the end of the round everyone was repaired and we continued to play.  Each of the words they were guessing were baby themed words.  It was a lot of fun and turned out really well.  Grandma Jean won the game.  Grandpa Queed lost.

It was so much fun to celebrate Hannah’s first year.  Thanks to all that came and helped make it special.  We love our little Hannah Jean and are excited for the many years to come.