The Tolbert Family: Caroline's 1st Birthday Party!

We had an absolutely wonderful time on Saturday celebrating Caroline's first year of life with some very special family and friends! She was absolutely the star of the party (as she should be!), full of smiles and giggles the whole time. I have so much to share about our day, so I will just jump right in!
Here is a picture of one of the invitations that I made (with significant help from Luke on the formatting/printing)

It reads: "Satin and lace and lots of fun, Our little princess is turning ONE!"

Rather than choose a specific theme for the party, we just went with the color purple and satin and lace - inspired by her birthday outfit (which, if I'm going to be honest, I bought almost 6 months ago in anticipation for this day!). Here she is looking about as cute as any birthday girl I have ever seen!

I hope you enjoyed the the hairbow in that picture because she refused to wear it the rest of the day.

Oh well!

I do have to interject here, before I share pictures of the decorations, that I have an absolutely wonderful husband. I knew 6 months ago that I wanted to decorate in purple for her party, but only 2 or 3 weeks ago did I realize that that was going to look terrible with the green color in our dining room. Now, some greens go well with purple, but not this green. So, without hardly any complaining, Luke agreed to paint the room! We had been wanting to brighten it up anyway, so this gave us the perfect incentive! We chose a light gray color with a hint of lavender. I didn't quite have time to get the curtains made before the party, so stay tuned for a complete before/after picture of the renovation in another blog post!

Ok, now for the decorations!

Birthday banner (made out of a pretty purple/white fabric and white satin ribbon)

Monthly picture banner on the mantel

On the mantel are two pictures - a newborn picture and her one-year picture - with a sign in between that reads: "From here to here in just one year!"

As our guests walked in, we asked them to share a Scripture, a prayer or a memory from Caroline's first year of life.

The table...we had Caroline's favorite meal for lunch - pulled barbecue chicken - she really does love it!

The cupcakes...yes, they are dairy-free and egg-free and no one could tell! Truly, they were fantastic!

The bigger girls at the party loved coloring pictures of Caroline! How cool is this? Yes, I found the website on Pinterest. Click here if you want to make your own!

Speaking of the big girls, here they are enjoying their lunch!

Of course, the highlight of any first birthday party is watching the baby experience the traditional "Smash Cake" - and Caroline did not disappoint! This really was her very first taste of anything chocolate (or really dessert at all...) and she LOVED it!

First tastes...

Still thinking...

Yes, yes, I think I will have some more...maybe the whole thing!

And now, I will present to you, my cake!

This is fun!

Can we do this again tomorrow?

Even Grandma and Grandpa were able to be present via Skype all the way from Costa Rica for the smash cake!

After cake, all the girls (babies and big girls alike) retired to the play room!

And of course, we had to get some family pictures with our sweet birthday girl!

And one with Mimi, Papa, Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Allison

While Caroline is going to open her gifts from us and from my family on her actual birthday, she opened a couple from Luke's family while they were here on Saturday, so I thought I would share a couple cute pictures!

Caroline's new trick/game lately is pretending that everything is a hat! Here she is pretending the wrapping paper is a hat. Anna Kate was a little more interested in opening Caroline's presents than she was...