A 1st Birthday Ladybug Bash!

Hello friends! I hope you all had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving. Sorry I was M.I.A. last week. This lady was taking care of 2 sick babies (pink eye, ear infections and a wicked cough) AND lets just say diligently preparing for the 1st Birthday of our favorite little gal.

We had an AMAZING holiday weekend, the kids recovered and we enjoyed lots of family time! We relaxed and did TONS of prep for the birthday fun! Thanksgiving will now forever be a double bonus for this family as it marks the birth of our little lady! Last year (2010), my water broke at 3:00 AM on black Friday. It was an interesting day to be giving birth but we couldn't be more thankful for our little Thanksgiving treat!

We celebrated her 1st birthday Saturday with family and friends and had a wonderful time. Q was her ADORABLE little self! She REALLY seemed to understand that the festivities were for her and enjoyed being the center of attention as we all expected! We had lots of fun making her day extra special with a ladybug theme that I probably took a little too far.... but when else can you be ridiculous with a theme if not at a 1 year old's birthday EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

Here is a little of the fun in review:

A BIG ladybug cake

Her special birthday outfit (I'm so happy with how it turned out)! A shirt with ladybugs crawling on the shoulder and a big bedazzled blue 1 and the CUTEST bubble hem layered TUTU!! (can you believe I found that fabric!! and at 40% OFF!!)

Q and her friends had a blast playing pin-the-dot on the ladybug, she honestly LOVED playing this game, we left it up and she has been non-stop sticking and unsticking all the dots.

A little ladybug cake too, just for the birthday girl. Along with SCRUMPTIOUS ladybug chocolate covered pretzels!

Some special decorations, made by the best biggest brother around (and lots of help from Momma).

LETS GET MESSY!!! The red frosting was interesting, looked a little gory but still ADORABLE! She dove right in!

AWESOME gifts from our loved ones. We are so blessed!

What a great day! We are SO thankful for our little spunky, go-getter, firecracker girl!

STAY TUNED: later this week I will give you the how-to for the cakes, pretzels, t-shirt and tutu!

That's my Shiny ~

J