E's 1st Birthday!!

We have officially passed our first huge milestone as parents and celebrated our lovely daughter's 1st birthday!! In true Mexican fashion we threw E a ginormous fiesta complete with an almost life size Minnie Mouse pinata straight from Mexico. The day was overwhelming, exciting, frustrating, stressful and joyous. To say that we did it for her would be a lie. It was 100% a selfish endeavor brought on by several factors, the least of which is me wanting to put my college degree in Event Planning to good use. But nonetheless it was a fantastic celebration regardless of the fact that the guest of honor was not even the slightest bit aware that the entire extravaganza was for her .

Anyhow it truly couldn't have been a more perfect celebration and since so much of the day was inspired by pinterest I have decided to use the rest of this post to show you the details :)

As most of us know any party worth attending begins with a freaking awesome invitation. I stumbled upon something many many months ago from a little shop on Etsy. I pinned it and sent an email to the designer stating that I definitely wanted to buy her design, but that I was gonna wait until it got closer to her actual birthday (purchasing an invitation 6 months prior to her turning 1 was a little over zealous even for me). Much to my chagrin I went to purchase said "invitation" and the little shop on Etsy was CLOSED!!! I went berserk. Nothing else I found could even compare to how perfect this little invitation was. So I did the 2nd best thing and recreated the original design by myself in Microsoft Publisher. (If the original designer ever stumbles upon this post please take note that I owe you $15 & I am truly sorry I copied your original design, but you left me no choice). So anyhow here is a side by side look at the original invitation and my re-make of it.

I was extremely pleased with the final product. The gray bars are covering my address and phone number. Sorry, but I don't need the entire world wide web to know that much information about me. I downloaded the fonts from a few different online sites and then put it together in Publisher. I was able to get 50 custom invitations for $25 in printing costs from Staples. I could've done it for $0.00 if I used my printer at home, but I was out of ink and in a rush so Staples was the better option at the time. After I printed them I rounded the edges with a photo rounder punch and viola professional looking invitations. I also included a little diddy on the back encouraging people to stay and hang around for an "After Party".

Once again this is a prime example that this party was definitely more for us. Not that she didn't benefit greatly from it with all the wicked cool gifts she got, but truth be told I think Hector and I were celebrating the survival of our 1st year as parents more then anything else.

So let's move on. The remaining photos below will give you a good idea of what the rest of the party looked like. I hope they inspire you to throw an amazing 1st Birthday for your little one as well :)

Eliana's grandma made Mexican Sugar Cookies and we handed them out in little baskets as "thank you" gifts for everyone who came. 

I purchased some more Mexican cookies that just happened to have the E's initial all over them :) They were put on a cake stand and then placed by the toy basket for the older kids. You can never have enough sweets at a party. 

I spent $25 on toys from the Dollar Store to entertain all 20+ kids that would be attending the party. This was actually an afterthought to my original plans to just have the pinata as entertainment and I was sooooo glad I did it.  I placed all the items in our laundry basket, slapped on a sign that said "TOYS" and just set it in our backyard. It took less then 3 minutes for one of the kids to ask me if the toys were for them :)

Seriously all of this stuff should have cost like $100 if I purchased it from Wal-mart or Target, but thank God for the Dollar Store!!

We had paper lanterns hanging throughout the entire backyard as well as 100 feet of papel picado (pictured below). 

Papel picado are those little banners that you see decorating the majority of Mexican restaurants. I purchased mine from Oriental Trading for $13!! Seriously best decor deal ever. 

A simple and sweet sign I made to act as a good photo background when we sang her happy birthday and she tried cake for the first time :)

Yes, we wore matching outfits! I found my dress on ebay. It was a 1970's vintage lace mexican dress with hand-stitched embroidery. I LOVED IT! I got E's little dress from a local street fair.

The food for the day was all cooked by Eliana's Abuela. We had Barbacoa, Rice, Beans and Mexican Pasta Salad. It was seriously delicious!! And I included a little information about the tradition of Barbacoa as a meal for weddings and parties. 

You can't have a fiesta without Jarritos soda!

I told you we had an almost life size Minnie Mouse pinata :)

 

Some friends enjoying the delicious cuisine!

E and Daddy :)

This expression says soooo much.

We hung over 100 photos of E throughout her 1st year. Then encouraged guests to take whatever prints they wanted as they left. It was nice to see how much she changed over the last 12 months.

All in all it was the perfect day. I doubt we will do something this crazy again until she can at least understand what a Birthday Party is, but until then I will always look back on this day with incredible joy and thankfulness. It was in the simplest of definitions... A great year.