"Our Little Cupcake is Turning One"

...Come in and have some fun!  Maddy's First Birthday Party was a huge success.  Yes, I am exhausted and worn out, but at the same time feeling very happy about the turn out.  All of the perfect people were here to celebrate our little muffin (cupcake for the day) turning one. I dreamed about this party for almost a year, planned in my head for the past several months, and actually pulled it all together in a month. Then after a few short hours its over, leaving behind is lots of special memories, pictures, some videos and some special gifts for Maddy.

Party Set Up

Theme: Cupcakes

Sign on the door welcoming guests

Colors: Red, Pink, Teal Blue, Lime Green, Brown, & other bright colors

Food: We ordered Chik-fil-A chicken nuggets and mixed fruit. Fruit was served in cupcake liners.  Raspberry Chipotle Meatballs, a veggie tray, and my famous spinach artichoke dip.  Little sandwiches for the kiddos were cut into cupcake shapes with cream cheese and strawberry preserves on them. Little packets of Goldfish grahams were there for little ones, too.  Juice boxes, Mott's for Tots for little ones and Carpi Sun for older kiddos.  Simple drinks... tea, a few soft drinks and beer in a tub outside for grown ups and Cupcake wine.

Food for the Kiddos (moms & dads, too)

Decorations:
All decorations were inspired by cupcakes.  My mom put together lots of cupcake garland.  She strung cute cupcake liners onto thread to create this cute masterpiece. The garland hung between arch ways in our house.  Cute and colorful cupcake cookie jars and other cupcake things decorated the mantel above the "cupcake table." I used my new Cricut to create a Happy 1st Birthday banner, an I am 1 banner for her highchair, and a banner with all of her 12 months photos from her first year. 

Cupcake garland hung night before the party

Cupcake Table with Maddy's 12 months banner

Happy 1st Birthday

Where Maddy with eat her CUPCAKE!

Favors: Girls left with cute little pigtail bows with little cupcakes in the middle. Boys left with stacked cupcakes in mason jars.  Both favors were accompanied by a cute little tag thanking the guests for coming!

Pigtail bows in the pink pale on the left/ Mason jar cupcakes on the right

The Cake: We had three dozen homemade cupcakes. One dozen vanilla, one dozen strawberry, and one dozen chocolate. All of the cupcakes had a simple swirl butter cream icing. Sprinkles in the party colors were available for guests to decorate their own cupcakes. Even the little ones got to participate. Maddy's smash cake was a giant cupcake just for her!

The Party 

Maddy and her outfit! Maddy wore a personalized onesie and bloomers made by my friend Katie. She also wore leg warmers with a matching bow sewn on each one and a bow in her hair made by Katie.  Her Loli made her tutu. 

 Fun with friends and family...

 Bubble Machine and Bubbles were a big hit...

Maddy's Cake...

Decorating Cupcakes...

Blessed with 1st birthday gifts...

My own chair from Loli

My own car from Nana

Maddy had so much fun at her 1st birthday party.  She was truly happy the entire time.  (She was even a little sick, as you can tell by the snot running from her nose in some of the pics. Hope she didn't pass anything along to any of her friends.) We are so blessed to have had our family and friends celebrate Maddy's 1st year with us.  I'm a little sad to see the first year already over, but excited to see her little personality come out even more.  
We love you Maddy Muffin and hope you had a great 1st birthday and party! 

I attempted to share the beginning, middle, and end of her Cupcake party with you. Hope you enjoy!  Maybe, this can start my party planning career... or maybe not.
Love, 
Sarah

Happy 1st Birthday

Happy 1st Birthday to our Madelyn Paige... our little Muffin... our Maddy girl!  Wow!  I can't believe it has been a year.  I still remember the days leading up to her arrival and the hours leading up to delivery very clearly. 

Our Maddy girl has blessed us with a year of love and joy! I never knew I could love a little person so much and in such a way. She has also brought lots of happiness to us this past year.  It is amazing the growth a human goes through in just one year.  A year ago we were waiting for her to take her first pee and now we are waiting for her to take her first steps. Then we were worried about jaundice and now we're worried about bumps on her head from falling.  Here little personality has also come out.  I have a feeling she is going to be a social butterfly.  She loves to smile at people in public and give them little grins and sometimes a special wave.  She absolutely loves animals any shape, size, or color... real or fake... and especially dogs.  She has a true love for all dogs!  Her favorite color is red. I know what you're thinking... how do we really know.  Well, I've done several choice tests with her, she always picks red! She is not a picky eater. Hopefully, it will stay that way.  She loves to be with people at all times.  She will follow us around the house where ever we go.  She is a blabber mouth with lots to say, but doesn't know the words to express her thoughts yet.  I can't wait to see what she learns and how she grows this year!


Maddy is also very blessed herself.  She has lots of grandparents, both biological and non-biological.  They all adore her and give her lots of love!  She is also blessed with many uncles and aunts, related and acquired ones. While mommy and daddy are at work, she is well taken care of and is loved like she is part of the family.  

Maddy's Stats

Height: 29.75" (73%)

Wight: 18 lb. 8oz. (11%)

Head Circumference: 17.72" (48%)

Can you say model?  She is looking to be tall and skinny. It may not last for long, given the height of her parents.  She could always be a face model. She is gorgeous!


To celebrate her 1st birthday her grandparents came over for dinner and a little cake. Maddy decided she was too old for a second nap on her day of turning 1.  She was quite the crank before she even got to dig into her little piece of cake. Once she was able to get a hold of that cake she was much happier, until it was gone and the plate was on the floor.

There will be more celebrations on Saturday with her big cupcake bash. Stay tune for major pictures and details of the big event!

365 days...

Its amazing what can happen in 365 days.  This month I keep thinking back of what I was doing a year ago at this time.  Maddy was not here yet, but she was on her way.  At this point, I believe we had the final touches of her room completed, our bags were packed for the hospital, and we were doing some last minute assembly of baby things. Well, now I believe most of that stuff we put together is already disassembled and put away.  We are now preparing for our little newborn to be ONE!  We are assembling new toys and feeding her just about anything we eat ourselves. There has been a lot of discussion about her transition from formula to milk.  And my favorite part... the big party. Our party planning is in full swing. With the help of my talented mom and talented friends I feel like I have accomplished a lot, but there are definitely some missing pieces still.  Party planning is not my full time job right now. (Even though sometimes I secretly wishes it was!) Maddy's party theme will be cupcakes... this is in an attempt to keep some simplicity.  We also thought it worked because we call her "Muffin" and we can't have a muffin themed birthday party. So, here we have it... "Our little cupcake is turning One!"  See you soon with more updates about her 1 year picture session, our 3rd anniversary, and her party!

Where has the time gone?

That is a good question! Life has flown by me and I really can't complain.  I don't really know what we've been doing that has made this last three months so busy.  I guess I could blame it on having a full time job, which makes me tired and then behind on everything.  I really don't know how people do it.  (Sometimes, I feel like I'm drowning.) The facts are that our Maddy girl is just growing up so fast and is getting cuter by the second!  There really isn't one complaint we can have about her.  (Just about her lack of BMs.)  She turned 11 months on Christmas Day.  I will update on our Christmas with our families in the next couple days. Here is a little taste of our Maddy Muffin...

11 months old

P.S. It is really hard to get a good shot of her, because she just wants to crawl away!

Maddy's Photo Shoot

Maddy had her second photo shoot with her photographer, Jennifer Bellah, about a month ago.  We love how Maddy's newborn pics turned out and we felt the same this second time around.  Jenn is so easy going and makes beautiful pictures! Here are some of our favorites...

They turned out awesome, considering Maddy's mood that day.  She usually loves every second of life, but that day she decided to not always wear her smile.  I still love them!

That's Life...

Well, we've just been livin life!  As you can tell, I'm no longer off. We've been back in the swing of things now, for a month and a half.  I myself have been figuring out how to be a mom, a wife, and a teacher all at the same time.  So far I have found it is not easy! Doable... not easy!  Especially, when your sweet little red head is just sooo cute! Lots, lots, lots, and lots has happened since my last posts.  There is no way I could finish this in one sitting if I told you it all.  The most important thing is a Maddy Update! 

Maddy turned 7 months on August 25

Then she turned 8 months on September 25

Can you believe it?  Madeyln... Maddy Girl is 8 months old!  She is growing up so fast.  She has so many tricks and her personality is really starting to shine through.  She is obviously a very happy girl.  Loving life is her favorite thing to do! She is still very easy going and sociable.  Her new tricks include... army crawling or carpet swimming, attempting to drink from a sippy cup, trying her hardest to put puffs in her mouth, and selecting her favorite color out of a group of toys.  Yes, she can do this.  We've discovered that Maddy's favorite color is now red. I know our house is red and one of our college colors in red, so you would think that we persuaded Maddy or brain washed her into loving red.  She loves red all on her own.  We figured this out because she flipped out when she saw a Clifford stuffed animal.  From then on, we've noticed that if there is a red toy in a whole bunch of other toys she will go for it first.  Today, I did a test for a friend. I lined up three of Maddy's stuffed animals. Her lovey doggie she sleeps with, the Clifford, and her Aristocrat. Then, put Maddy a few feet in front of them.  She crawled straight to the Clifford, proving she LOVES red.

Last Sunday, we visited Dewberry Farms with our friends. 

Lots more Maddy cuteness and Haywood details to come.  Stay tuned... I will try to do better.