Madi's 1st Birthday Party!

To celebrate Madi's 1st birthday, we decided to have a small party with family and close friends. Madi was SUPER excited about HER day and all the people coming over! After a great 2 1/2 hour nap in the morning, she was happy and ready to PARTY!!


To preface this party, may I begin by saying how silly I used to think parties for one year olds are. The kid doesn't really care if there is a party and they are certainly NOT going to remember any part of the party in the years to come. So basically, the party is always for the parents. However, after having Madi, and spending almost every moment with her for the past 12 months; watching her grow, develop, and learn many new things, her first birthday was DEFINITELY a day to celebrate! It's hard to describe the feeling that I had all day (it was very similar to how I feel when it's MY birthday), but I was just SUPER excited for it to be June 28th. With this said, it was VERY important to me that everything on her day go smoothly. I didn't want to feel stressed out or overwhelmed with anything! I made her cake the night before and even skipped my morning run to spend quality time in the morning with Madi. Thank goodness for all the help Spencer and I had in making this a special day for Madi (thanks mom, dad, Jocelyn, Lindsay, and Shaun)!!

Madi's guests began arriving a little after 1pm and they quickly headed outside to play.


While the kids played, the adults visited and munched on fruit kabobs (complete with mangos, strawberries, pineapple, bananas, grapes, and apples), chips, a delicious chili bean dip, salsa, and watermelon! Spencer used our video camera the whole day and got great coverage of the food, friends, and FUN. But since I was busy visiting and entertaining Madi, I forgot to take pictures of all those extra details. Luckily, I did get a picture of the cake table.....


With a closer look at Madi's cake- made by me and decorated by Spencer (with help from his mom:)


We decided to put Madi on a sheet, in the grass and let her "go at it" with her cake. Initially, I thought that she'd dive right in. However, she surprised us by being quite dainty. She first grabbed the elephant off the top, then began by taking a taste of the delicious pink frosting.


After only eating the frosting, and not really understanding that she could reach in and get some cake, I moved her to a table with her friends. I thought that maybe seeing them eating cake would help her understand how it should be done. Not really! She sure had a FUN time though! I think next time we'll just do a cupcake!


After rinsing off in the sink, and a quick outfit change, Madi was ready to open a few presents!


Since not all of Madi's friends were able to make it to her party, I thought I'd also include a picture of her opening a present from her friend Lexi that arrived earlier in the week (thanks Lexi and Lexi's mama- we miss you)!


With an early birthday party the week before, presents throughout the week, and a grand finale on Saturday, Madi was one lucky birthday girl! I was seriously sad at the end of the day when I put Madi to bed. I almost wanted to keep her up a little bit longer just to stretch her day out a little bit more. What a GREAT 1st year!!