I used to always write party posts with all kinds of details, but I’ve slipped up in the past year or so. I hosted a Mickey Mouse birthday party for Jude last fall, and I’m pretty sure I never shared photos at all.  I also hosted a black-and-white wedding shower for my cousin, and I love the way the tablescape turned out, but again, I am not even sure I took a photo at all!  My party posts are by far my most viewed and most frequently pinned entries, but I don’t make it a priority much these days.

I couldn’t let this one go by without sharing a few though.  It was so much fun to put together!

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A little background on all of this…. I used to dance and spent something like four nights a week in a ballet studio until I graduated high school.  I have dabbled a bit in college dance classes and even adult ballet classes in recent years.  I LOVE ballet, and while I hope that Norah will share that feeling, who really knows if she will.  I figured I’d throw a ballet party before she was old enough to object.  Ha!  I also had her pictures taken a few months ago with my old tutu as a prop for the same reason.

So there was really no question for me when I began thinking of a theme for her first birthday.  The weather was atrocious on Sunday afternoon, and I was so grateful for our guests making the trip in spite of buckets of rain all night and day.  The details turned out beautifully!

I served fruit salad in disposable champagne flutes I found at Hobby Lobby.

And we served caprese bites on party picks.  I ran across some fluffy ones while browsing at Target one day and decided they were perfect.  I just used marinated fresh mozzarella and small tomatoes.  I used this handy free printable I found on Pinterest to label all the food, and I bought a few yards of nylon netting (super cheap!) and gave each dish a tutu.

I thought chocolate-covered strawberries were a perfect choice since strawberries are in season now.  In addition to that, we had finger sandwiches you can see a bit in the background – sunbutter and jelly for the kids, chicken salad, and cucumber.  I forgot to take photos of the drink station, but along with the sodas and water, I made some of this pretty pink punch, and it was a hit.

I adored these cupcake toppers I found on Etsy, and I stuck them on both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.  (This Ina Garten recipe, by the way, is my absolute favorite for chocolate cupcakes.)

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I glued a bit of pink ribbon around my cupcake tower, and we were good to go.  Norah loved it!

On the table in our foyer, I placed treat bags filled with cookies from a yummy local bakery and tags that said “Thanks for twirling with me” with a photo of Norah.  I also bought Tallulah’s Tutu for guests to sign.  I love that this book is all about how ballet is hard work and not just pretty costumes and stage time.  The illustrations are adorable, too.  It made for a nice sentimental souvenir for little Norah to cherish one day, and we got some sweet messages from our guests.

About two days before the party, Scott got an idea to put together a cd as a favor.  We heard so many nice things when we did this a few years ago for Jude’s train party, and dance songs are everywhere.   So he took this on as his project, and there are so many fun songs on there – from the Beatles to Whitney Houston to the Rolling Stones.

I fell in love with this idea on Pinterest, but when I attached my matted monthly photos, they were too heavy.  Of course this was ten minutes before the party, and I was frustrated, so Scott took over and gave our guests this little way to look at photos.  I wanted to display the monthly quilt pictures I’ve taken, and this worked out well.

Lastly, we strung some paper doilies and added a ton of pink and white roses (Thank you, Costco!) and it was complete.

The Birthday Girl had fun, and unlike her photo shoot a few weeks ago, she actually ate the cake!

Her birthday outfit – which she also wore in her one-year photos – was created by this Etsy shop, and I love it so much.  I intend for her to wear it out this summer.

All in all, it was a fun party with a ton of pink and a lot of family and friends with us to celebrate!