Party Time: Bubbles and Bubbly

Our baby girl turned one last month, and we celebrated with good food, good company and a smash cake. We went with an easy bright, colorful theme with a focus on one of Adeline’s favorites and one of mama’s – Bubbles and Bubbly.

For the invitations I opted to not send out paper invites and just do it all electronically. I used Paperless Post and found it to be easy and very affordable. When you are a new customer you get 25 coins, which “paid” for most of my invitations. It’s not a free service, but with this promotion I ended up spending only a couple dollars. I really loved using their invitation tracker. It was much easier to get a final head count than having people email or text me directly. I will consider using electronic invitations again in the future!For food, Marcus made three huge briskets (we have been eating brisket leftovers for a week straight) and y’all, they were on point. We also smoked mashed potatoes and served this broccoli salad. For dessert we ordered cake batter cookies from Three Bowls Bakery. I recently featured them on the blog – read their story here.The smash cake above was from HEB’s bakery and was just around $10. Even small cakes can get pricey, so I thought this was a win! I wanted a simple white high chair for the photos and this inexpensive Ikea one fit the bill perfectly. It has already come in handy when we’ve had friends with babies over for dinner.Most of the decorations (balloon signs, banners, etc.) were from the Target Dollar Spot. Going with bright colors made decorations really easy to find. The Dollar Tree was also a go-to for party essentials like plates, silverware, napkins, etc. To reuse our chalkboards we repainted them this chalkboard paint and then wrote on them in these colorful chalk pens. We’ve used these same chalkboards again and again for parties – they’ve been a great investment! I asked people to write a wish for 10-year-old Adeline, which I plan to put into a time capsule for her to open on her 10th birthday.

We did a little baby photo booth made from a basket from my living room, a blue table cloth staple gunned to the fence, a tassel banner from Target and a bunch of balloons tied to the handles. It made for some pretty cute photos!The biggest joke of the afternoon was attempting to do baby races. They look pretty cute at the startling line though!My outfit was perfect for the colorful theme! It’s from Lilly Pulitzer. They have a big sale twice a year, which is when I snagged this fun romper. I’ll try to post about it on the blog next time it comes around!We are so thankful to all our family friends who came to help us celebrate Adeline’s first birthday (and us surviving a full year of being parents). Our little girl is so loved, and that is really all we could ever ask for. Shoutout to everyone who is doing life alongside us, even those that are far away. We love you!Can’t forget the dads!Looking for party ideas for an older crowd? We hosted my sister’s couples shower last fall at the house – check it out here!