Avonlea's Ballerina Fairy Birthday Party

Avonlea turned five and to celebrate we hosted a Ballerina Fairy party! It was as magical and "all things pink" as you might imagine, haha! Avonlea, of course, picked the theme, and then I just ran with it using things we had at our house. The party was mostly family members, but Avie invited a few "fairy" friends as well. I asked all the girls to come in their own ballerina tutu's, but then found super cheap fairy wings, flower crowns, and wands on Amazon and gave them to each little girl upon arrival. Their joy and excitement was contagious! 

Everett's First Birthday

{I love this picture above of my dad holding a phone so Everett can FaceTime with my brother, who had to work out on the farm. He was LOVING it!} 

How is my baby already A YEAR OLD!!! 

Goodness me, life has flown... Everett William we love you so much!! 

 Despite the quarantine, we had such a fun day celebrating our sweet boy. I made the BEST paleo cake (like really, everyone loved it...recipe here) and my parents and a few other family members came over. It was so lovely to have a small group just love on him so directly.

He busted out his new walking skills to everyone's delight, smeared cake all over his face, laughed and smiled as he opened his gifts, and just generally made all our hearts melt.
What a gift children are:)

Here is a little something I wrote about his birth on IG...

Exactly one year ago, at this very time, I went into labor AT THE HOME DEPOT....emotionally scarring the poor college aged Home Depot worker. “Ma’am!! Are you ok Ma’am??? What do you need Ma’am??!!!!!” ⁣
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⁣“I need you to stop calling me Ma’am and help me sit down!!!!”
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⁣We rushed to the hospital and soon after the most beautiful boy was in my arms, healing a place inside of me with pure unadulterated love. ⁣
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⁣I kid you not when I say I didn’t see his eyeballs for 3 days! The 👏 boy 👏 could 👏 sleep 👏 (I kept asking the nurses if he was ok, especially when I pulled him out of the womb and he curled up peacefully in my arms and didn’t make a peep for an hour. ) ⁣
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⁣And that has been his story, the sweetest most docile good natured human on the face of the planet. ⁣
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⁣Which is saying something, because as I shared...⁣
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⁣The few months leading up to his birth were some of the hardest of my entire life, mentally and physically. ⁣ ⁣
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⁣And my biggest fear was that all my anxiety and stress would permanently damage Everett. ⁣
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⁣But his very name was an indication of his life...⁣
⁣Everett....brave + strong ⁣
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⁣He has literally tackled life with a smile, bent and flexed with every day tasks with a grace I’ve never seen in a baby. ⁣
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⁣With his toothy grin, and loving hands, he has blessed me just beyond. When I look at his face I see the grace of God. ⁣
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⁣Happy birthday beautiful boy!! ⁣
xoxo 

Breakfast in Bed // The Tradition Series

If there is one tradition I want to share with you from my own life, it's this one. And since today is my birthday, it's the perfect time! My parents were pure genius to start this tradition in our family, and every year I look forward to it with much anticipation. Here's how it goes…

Each year on my birthday, I would wake up to breakfast in bed. The night before, my mom would ask me what I wanted to eat for my special day. As a child, she would take me to the grocery store and let me pick out any cereal I wanted (which was a big deal because we usually were not allowed to eat sugar cereal, so of course I gravitated towards the most ridiculous cereals like cookie crisp and cinnamon toast crunch! ha ha!! Go crazy, I know!). As I got older, I'd usually ask for Swedish pancakes! Every year the food always went atop a special red plate that read "You are Special"!! 

The morning of my birthday I would be woken up to my entire family (parents and siblings!) all singing happy birthday. {I usually woke up before that, soooo giddy, but would pretend I was asleep!} My parents would carry the tray of food with candles lit, and my siblings would come bearing all my gifts in their arms! I'd eat a few bites, and then someone would drop a present in my lap to open! It was such a fun morning, and set the cheerful and celebratory tune for the rest of the day! 

Since being married, Kevin and I have tried to carry this tradition on. It is absolutely one we plan to start doing with our children as well. I cannot think of a better way to tell a child they are So special and loved, than to start their birthday focused on them, brining cheer and happiness to their bedroom! The fun part about this, is that even when it wasn't my birthday, I LOVED being a part of my sibling's and parent's special days! 

As I mentioned above, for most of my teen and adult life, my special birthday breakfast was always Swedish pancakes (which is essentially a crepe!). When I found out I was gluten and dairy free, I gave up eating crepes. But just recently I found an AMAZING paleo crepe recipe that I wanted to share with you. These paleo crepes are the easiest things to make, and are perfect for a special morning! 

Paleo Crepes: 

Five eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons honey
dash of salt

Mix all ingredients together and pour on hot skillet with coconut oil. Cook about 1 min on each side. Cut up fresh berries to top the crepes, and then drizzle a little pure maple syrup over them. Perfection!

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!!