ONEderful World First Birthday Party

It's hard to believe, but our sweet Addie Jo is already one! Crazy to think it has been a whole year since she joined the world- a baby girl- the sweetest surprise. Addie made it just before the pandemic started, but that didn't mean she escaped a pandemic birthday. Even though we were unable to host our usual large shebang like we did for Eli's first few birthdays, we knew we still wanted to celebrate our precious girl. If you're looking to plan a "ONEderful World" first birthday, or even just a pandemic first birthday, here are all of the details!

I knew that I wanted to do a fun little theme and play on words for the party. Eli had a "Onesie" Party, which was super fun, and you can check out all of the details here. I wanted to bring along a lot of the fun elements from his party, like the time capsule and One Second Every Day video. But I also wanted something new for Addie. Addie moved into the same nursery that we had for E, and it is travel/world themed, so I figured why not use the decor from her bedroom to plan around a theme? (This is my favorite new mom hack for bday parties. We're planning a Dino-FOUR party for E using his Dino decor, and he had a Three-Rex Party last year!) 

I have also always loved the lyrics to "Your Song" by Elton John, so I wanted to incorporate those into the birthday theme, making it "How ONEdeful Life is When You're in the World". So it was a nice mix of "one", the world, and gratefulness for our sweet girl. I was able to get a dear friend's daughter to write the lyrics so I could frame them. I went with the original lyrics for this piece so that I could keep it in Addie's room beyond her first birthday. They turned out so beautifully! 

I wanted to keep the decor pretty, but simple. I was thinking rose gold, pale greens and blues, and some gold. I found a super reasonable "one" balloon banner on Amazon that also came with six cute confetti-filled balloons that Eli and Addie loved playing with. (Just be careful, we popped them after the party and confetti went everywhere)! I also ordered a tissue banner from Amazon that honestly took way more time than it probably should have for me to put together, but I did love the final result! I may use it again for future birthdays! I also did a simple monthly photo banner and a wrote out a few of Addie's "stats".

Other than that, I gave the theme and my ideas to the ever-talented Hailey the Cake Lady, and she ran with it. She made the most beautiful and delicious smash cake for Addie, larger cake for guests, and amazing sugar cookies. If you are local to KC, you should definitely check her out for any of your baking needs! The last thing I did was tie in a bit of our theme through our meal, which was for immediate family only. Since we can't really travel the world right now, I labeled food from different countries! We did chips and salsa (Mexico), pizza (Italy), Greek Salad, and Asian Salad. It was simple but kind of fun. 

Because of the pandemic, we chose to do a FB Event and then "go live" with Addie's smash cake. It was super fun, and a way for people other than our immediate family to see Addie dive in to some sweets. That girl doesn't mess around! It was fun to see people comment on there and family from out of town were able to participate too! I also used the FB event to share a link to a "virtual" time capsule form, where people could fill out what they normally would have done in person. Then I just took the results and recorded them on the time capsule time sheets to add to Addie's time capsule for when she turns 18!

Finally, I did keep up with my One Second Every Day app, so you can watch Addie's below! I shared it in the FB event as well so people could view if they wanted. I love having a little moment from each of her first year. I did one for each of Eli's first three years, so I will probably do the same with Addie.

All in all, it was a good, simple, and fun celebration with our sweet Addie. Hopefully "pandemic birthday" pivots will end soon, but for now this was a great way to celebrate our little lady. Life truly is wonderful with her in the world! Happy Birthday, Addie Jo. You are prized and precious! 

Currently,

Kelsie