Happy Birthday Monkey!!

Yesterday, we had Monkey's first birthday party.  Given that she is only one, I know that I was way more excited than she was for this party!  I have been planning this for at least 6 months, and given that I probably won't have the time to do a party like this again, I had a lot of fun planning!

This party is brought to you by the Cricut, Pinterest and a little bit of my own creativity thrown in! :)

Since it was her first birthday and we have a lot of family in town, we decided to keep it to just family and we still had around 20 people here!  Lots of family = lots of fun!

Since she is a fall baby and fall is my favorite season, I chose a pumpkin theme for this party.

Here's the invite I made for the party

Decorations for the front door

Decorations for the mantle.  I took the tissue paper pom pom idea and made pumpkins and sunflowers.  I also used a picture from each of her month photo shoots to show how much she has grown in the past year.

Her birthday banner and pumpkin patch

I made her a pumpkin cake and a party hat.  I couldn't find a hat I liked, so I bought a party hat and covered it.  The cake cutter is from her JuJu, she got her for her to use at each of her birthdays and one day hopefully at her wedding.

Of course for a first birthday you have to have a smash cake!

Family shot before the party started.

The party girl in her usual face!

Monkey did an awesome job opening all her presents.  She was attentive and opened each one with me.  She got so many toys and fun things!

Uncle Brad hit the jackpot with his gift.  He found a stuffed dog that looks like Lucie and she LOVED it!!  She sat there screaming and banging her puppy up and down because she was so excited.  It was hard to get her to put the pup down to open the rest of her presents.

The last two presents she opened were very sentimental.  More for me now, but they will mean so much to her as she gets older.

Her middle name is from her great-grandmother on Nate's side.  Her name was Leora Pearl and she grew up being called Leora.  When she married Nate's granddaddy, he started calling her Pearl, so most people always thought that was her name.  Before we were even pregnant Doc told me about Grandma's full name and I tucked Leora away in my mind to use if we ever had a little girl.  So, when Monkey was born we decided to give her that middle name.

That's a long story to say that Ga-Ga found one of Grandma's old bracelets.  It has Leora Meyers engraved on it and they believe it must have been a wedding present because it has their wedding date engraved on the back.  What a precious heirloom she has from her namesake.

The last gift we opened was a drawing from her Ju-Ju.  Ju-Ju has been taking art lessons for about 3 years.  I didn't know that she spent all last semester drawing our sweet little girl.  My mother would tell you that she is not an artist, but we would all tell you otherwise.  What another sweet keepsake she will have to hold on to.

Monkey had to tell everyone thank you for their gifts.  She clapped and smiled as her way to thank everyone.

After presents, it was time for cake.  I didn't think the cake would be a big hit since she still doesn't like things that smoosh.  But we thought we would try anyway!  She also didn't like wearing her birthday hat, but we had to get a few pictures in there!

Her cousins did a great job distracting her so we could get a shot with the hat and the cake!

 Here is a collage of her not enjoying her cake!!

What an amazing celebration of the first year of life for this little Monkey.  She has been a joy so far and it was a joy to watch her loving every minute of her party!

Happy birthday sweet girl!  Mommy, Daddy and Lucie love you so much!