The Little Bird Birthday Party

On Saturday, we hosted the first shindig in our new home -- Avie's first birthday party. It was so fun having everyone here to celebrate with us. But I have to admit that it was a stretch to get things into decent enough order around here to really pull it off. A huge thanks goes out to my mom and my mother-in-law. I could not have done it without them.

Seeing as one of the meanings of Aveline's name is "little bird," I took the theme and ran with it. I found cute decorations with little blue birds, and made some centerpieces with nests, bluebirds, and photos of Avie over the last 12 months. I also had a little bluebird candle holder that I found in Boone in the final months of my pregnancy, when Jarrett and I were really narrowing in on our name choice. It looked perfect on the "smash cake" I made for Avie. A four-inch, two-layer cake, made out of coconut flour, with a layer of raspberry preserves and topped with coconut buttercream frosting, and then topped (and bottomed) with dark chocolate shavings to create a nest for the little bird candle holder. Sadly, I managed to totally forget to photograph this cake, so what is in the videos will have to suffice. Bummer.

We served sausages, hot dogs, my mom's potato salad, fruit salad, a green salad, homemade macaroni and cheese, and chips. It was all yummy.

The kids seemed to enjoy the cupcakes, and Avie got to know her cake pretty well (which tasted quite good, by the way), but seemed to enjoying the frosting over the cake itself.

For party favors, I had small, wooden birdhouses for the kids to paint. We kind of crammed this event in at the tailend of the party, but the children seemed to have fun, and it was nice seeing all of the families sitting together, small hands being guided by larger ones.

It really was a fun time. See for yourself. (Note: The videos are unedited and, thus, long... probably most suitable for interested grandparents. I just don't have it in me to try to edit them at the moment.)