Claire turns 1!

My sweet Claire celebrated her first birthday on Sunday. How is that possible? I felt like I was pregnant with her only six months ago. Time flies! The little cricket started walking on March 21st so I was thrilled that I would be able to put her in a party dress. (Up to this point I have avoided putting her in dresses since they make crawling VERY difficult). Since Amelia had celebrated her 3rd birthday the week prior at a small, low key family affair, I decided I would throw them a joint birthday party and invite all the families in our detachment (since we are a close bunch).We hosted the event at our local community center since our home is too small to accommodate everyone. This is the inspiration board I made when I started thinking about what kind of "theme" I wanted for her party. I decided to carry the rainbow theme over from the cake Amelia and I had made a few weeks prior. Thanks to my beloved pintrest, this is what I came up with:

I didn't end up making the cups of milk with the sprinkles and the fabric banner , but I enjoyed creating the rest of them,

I had all sorts of ideas of ideas for the cake, but decided that cupcakes would be easier. Sometimes simple is best. I decided in advance of this party that I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew (as they say). Entertaining large groups usually stresses me out, but this time I didn't feel stressed in the least.

Rainbow fruit tray. Nathaniel's grandma made this lovely work of art.

The darling hedgehog that Nathaniel carved.  That poor man spent a great deal of time chopping up vegetables and fruit.

One of my favorite things (which I didn't get a close up of) was the the little individual servings of veggies and dip in the cups below. I (red) pepper (orange) carrots (yellow) peppers and (green) celery. I couldn't think of any blue or purple vegetables that would work.

I made the pizza dough the morning of the party (so that it was super fresh) and then Nathaniel's Grandma and I rolled them out as our guests arrived. We laid all the pizza toppings out on a table and let people make up their own masterpieces. Once completed, they handed them to us and we tossed them into the two awaiting ovens. We had asked everyone to bring a pizza pan or two so it was quite efficient.  I love how one of our guests used his dough to make a cal zone. Brilliant.

I loved watching people make their pizza's. Everybody has such unique tastes.

Once the masses had been fed I loaded my pizza dough with feta, artichoke hearts, cheese, mushrooms and parmesan. Delicious!  Nathaniel used the remaining ingredients to make up two pizzas which we ate for dinner the next day. Yummy!
 

The generous gifts....

My sweet girl and her "first" cupcake. I think most of it ended up on the floor. :0)

The little "chicky" cake pops.

This is a very blurry picture of the gift bags. They contained rainbow crayons, a rainbow coloring sheet, skittles, and rainbow colored licorice.

My beautiful clean up crew. Thank you ladies.

The candy necklace stand. I forgot to take a picture of the candy before it was all gobbled up. All that remains are some fruit loops and my "example".