Astrid's first birthday - part #2

Astrid's birthday dawned early and cold. She had already opened some presents from Great Aunt Sue the previous afternoon and decided presents were good! On her birthday morning we opened the card and pressies from mum and dad. Yay, more noisy wooden toys (gee she has good parents). Then breakfast and off for our swimming lesson with Karin and Hannah. After getting home and having a sleep her Granny and Grumps had arrived, back from their big European adventure. Cue more presents and general fun. After an afternoon of sleeping (kinda) and playing with her new toys and dancing to her new Elmo, while mum cleaned the house in preparation for the party, she was off to bed for a good nights sleep while the grandparents, and Uncle Mikl assisted with all the assembling and decorating of the food.

Party day arrived and we had a good morning turning the house into a pink, red and white birdie extravaganza. Astrid gave us at least an hours sleep and got up and dressed in her party outfit, just in time for Auntie Triona to arrive for more presents. Then all the guests started arriving and the fun began.

Let's just say Astrid enjoyed her birthday party! I hope everyone else did too (they seemed to). It was great that so many people could come to help her celebrate being one year old!! Especially those that travelled from interstate. Astrid certainly enjoyed trying all the food (her shirt proved it by the end of the day) and chatting to all the guests, even if sometimes it was from the safety of mum, dad or grandparent arms. Generally, she survived the few hours whinge free and partied on, powered by sugar and food colouring. Crawling around in her fluffy skirt was very exciting and it was good being the centre of attention (or more importantly, eating everyone's food). I don't think I got to eat much food because a certain baby stole it off me every time I tried.

She liked playing with all the kids and babies. The kids enjoyed exploring the house, alpacas and toys. Everyone ate lots of food. Fun was had, cake was cut, happy birthday sung (she really didn't know what that was all about), and cake eaten. Then it was time for everyone to go home and Astrid to reluctantly have an arvo sleep. Upon waking she discovered a big pile of presents (or more importantly paper and cardboard) for her to destroy. A week later, and we are still discovering all the new toys and books that have appeared. So many new things to explore!

Only 51 more weeks and we can do it all again!

Astrid's first birthday - part #1!

The theme for Astrid's party was birds and owls. Her nursery is decorated in a bird and owl theme and I thought I'd continue it for her first birthday party. We went with a colour theme of red, pink and white.

The food: since we are unable to do anything simply in this household the food had to match the theme. For the savoury options we had:
* Home made mini quiches with bacon & cheddar and caramelised onion, mushroom & brie.
* Mini frankfurts (these were for the kids but the adults stole most of them).
* Mini pizzas - ham & pineapple and mushroom, onion & capsicum. We made some of the pizzas as mini bird shapes and they were a hit with the kids (and the babies it seems).
* Mini sausage rolls (again, I think the adults mostly stole these off the kids).
* Trays and trays of sandwiches. Yes, Lorraine does not follow instructions and 2 trays of sandwiches turned into about 6!!The hot food disappeared into hungry bellies and even a fair percentage of the sandwiches got demolished. I noticed several kids running around covered in tomato sauce and pizza topping :)

The sweets were mostly bird and owl themed. We had:
* cookies & cream cupcakes with oreo owl faces (note to self: these look cute but it took 4 of us about an hour and a half to decorate 24 of them!). It is also not possible to neatly split about a million oreos for the faces without a lot of wastage and swearing. Lucky they looked cute.
* choc-owl cake pops. These should have come with a warning about how much sugar they contained. Sugar stuck together by some sugar, covered in sugar and chocolate! Annoying and fiddly to make but they looked cute.
* Mini lemon & white chocolate baked cheesecakes with fondant birds on top. These were pretty easy to make and tasted fairly yum.
* Bird and Owl sugar cookies with pink glaze. Just when you need more sugar and food colouring, out come the cookies!
* Choc-peanut birds 'nests' with spotted eggs. These were cute and yes I did spend hours sifting through the jelly bean jar to pick all the red, white and pink jelly beans out to make the eggs.
* Pink and white marshmallows (for the kids that hadn't had enough sugar).
* Oh yeah, there was some fruit too.....


The cake: I had made some stuffed owls to go with Astrid's nursery. I had made the pattern from scratch and used fabric for her nursery theme and stuffed them with our alpaca fleece. I decided to make a cake version for her first birthday cake. Mr owl looked pretty cute and even resembled the stuffed versions! Anto did very well with his fondant application. However, I clearly didn't think through the concept of red fondant, a bunch of kids and babies and white furniture though. Oh well, they had fun! Astrid managed to eat most of her piece riding on Grandpa's shoulders which resulted in him wearing red fondant.


The decorations: Red, pink and white pom poms were the main decoration (those suckers take ages to fluff) and we just colour coordinated with red and pink napkins and red cups and plates. We stuck pink 'flying birds' up on the glass around the dining room and these were fascinating for the kids to poke. All the food was served on white platters. The kids (and some of the big kids) took home their weekly sugar provisions in white take away boxes with the bird themed labels.


The birthday girl's outfit: A red fluffy skirt, a birdie top and matching tights. She was very cute and loved prancing around in her skirt.

One year..........

Nine months of vomiting. Eight months of heartburn. Three months where I couldn't walk because my pelvis didn't work any more. Three and a half weeks of prelabour with constant contractions and little sleep. Fourteen hours of drug free labour and you were here.......Our cute little baby out in the big bad world.

So tiny and helpless but you quickly grew and learnt about your parents, your family and your home. Now it's exactly one year on the outside. One year of nappies. One year of breastfeeding. One year of tears, tantrums and vomit. One year of making it up as we go along. One year of never knowing how long you will sleep for or I will get to sleep for. One year of having someone totally dependant on us. One year of gorgeous smiles, giggles and cuddles. One year of watching you get bigger, stronger and more beautiful each day. One year of watching you learn and explore. One year of being your mum and dad.

Happy first birthday Astrid Élodie.