Avonlea's First Birthday

We had a great afternoon celebrating Avonlea's first birthday. I cannot believe this sweet girl has been in my life for a year, man, the time flew!! I look back on this year and thank God for gifting me such an incredible gift as this sweet daughter of mine. Truly, she is a joy. 

I wanted to celebrate Avonlea with all our family around her, commorating her life in a special way. But I also didn't want to do anything fancy...so I opted for a family party that was real casual. I threw most of the decor together the night before, and woke up early the next day to head to the farmers market to pick out the prettiest bouquet of wildflowers! They were gorgeous and became the focal point...their cherry colorful blooms lighting up each room with celebration! 

My inspiration for Avonlea's party decor came from my love of Rifle Paper Company florals!  I hung this garland above the food table, put out the Rifle Chatbooks I had made for Avonlea, and the crowing jewel was the ADORABLE dress my mom made for Avonlea using this Rifle Paper Co. fabric. She looked so adorable:) 

I also made my first gluten and dairy free cake! I was really nervous as I've never made a cake from scratch before. I had a picture in my mind of making a pretty layered cake with berries on top. I searched Pinterest for the perfect one, and found this recipe here. I totally picked the recipe based on the gorgeous pictures of it (which is probably not the best way to pick a recipe), and the night before had visions of a total Pinterest FAIL! Fortunately the cake was a total success!! So deliciously moist and flavorful....I loved it so much I nearly ate the whole thing myself haha! My mother-in-law also made a bigger funfetti cake for the masses to eat which was great! 

Avonlea thought opening presents was fun...I think she was more enthralled with the tissue paper than her gifts, but she seemed excited regardless! People were so generous, thanks fam!! She was NOT sure about blowing out the candles on her cake. The entire time we sang to her she was looking around super confused at what was going on! Why are all these people looking at me? haha! She wasn't too into the cake, she preferred the strawberries on top more (which I am SOOO fine with, hehe!). 

Kevin made a little slideshow video to music of her first year of life, and we gathered around the tv to watch that! So amazing to see how much she's grown! I made an Avonlea trivia game that people filled out and then everyone guessed the answers. Questions like "when was Avonlea's due date" and "what is her actual birthday" and "what was Avonlea's height and weight when she was born?"....my father in law won! Nice work Mitch!! 

All in all it was a beautiful day spent soaking in the sunshine with the people we love, eating yummy foods, and celebrating one very loved little girl. But I do have to laugh because I think Avonlea's favorite part of the party was watching the dogs play fetch in the backyard! Oh well!! Happy birthday little one!!