hadley's hot air balloon party

Last Saturday we celebrated one year of Hadley with a party!

Hadley's first year went Up, Up, & Away!

The forecast was calling for chilly temps and I was pretty worried since the plan was for everything to be outside.  Luckily it warmed up a lot (despite the early frost - yikes!) and the sun shone down on us all morning.

It might have been a little windy.  The balloons got ditched off the tables pretty quickly, but oh well.

I love to plan a party, but I am NOT a game organizer, so for the kids I took the easy way out and rented a bouncy house.  Hadley didn't get in too much, but Asher and the other bigger kids thought it was so fun!  (after everyone went home I got in too and they were right, it was a blast - haha!)

Since I made so many of the decorations I decided to keep the food simple.  I saw this idea for a gourmet hot dog bar on Jess' blog and thought it was such a fun way to elevate a simple hot dog!  We had hot dogs, homemade chili sauce (made by my Mom and got RAVE reviews!), veggies, a rainbow fruit platter, and chips.  Just when you thought summer was over the W's brought BBQ back.  woot!

Oh and there was cake.  Of course.  :-)

Every party needs a bit of drama and ours surrounded the cake.  I ordered this cake back in August and when I picked it up Friday afternoon it was perfect.  Exactly like I'd envisioned!  Well, on Saturday morning I checked on it and the top layer had shifted backwards - nooooo.  The woman who made it was out of town so I had no choice but to roll with it.  I was seriously bummed about my awesome cake (and centerpiece) being messed up, but the party was still great and everyone thought the cake was so cute.  

I made Hadley's "Happy Birthday" sign - it's fabric and I'm hoping it will be her sign for as long as she's living here.  :-)

One of my favorite decorations (bought from Etsy) was this sign that I used for a photo montage.  It was perfect that "Growing Up Up Up" has 13 letters - newborn through 12 months.  yay!

With all the excitement I completely neglected to get a family picture with the birthday girl.  Very bummed about that.  :-(  I'm glad I snapped a few of her alone though!

Miss Hadley loved her smash cake and was actually more gentle with it than I was expecting.  

Asher helped her get started - what a great big brother.

We asked for no gifts, but you can see how well everyone listened to that request.  ha!  So grateful for generous friends and family.  All of the kiddos got sent home with hot air balloon favor filled with bubbles, fruit snacks, a rainbow lollipop, and a twisty straw.  Kind of random, but the kids liked it.  :-)

It was such a wonderful day.  I'm so grateful for Hadley and love that we had a chance to celebrate her beautiful life!