Ava turns one

Our little butterfly turned one! 

We celebrated today with close friends and family. 

I loved her dress! 

Ava opened her presents, smiled, mingled with family she doesn't see often and was content to sit and play with a new puzzle. She's such a sweetheart. 

We served light appetizers along with the sweets. Avocado, corn and black bean salsa and savory cheese truffles. Fruit cups, chocolate covered popcorn, icy cherry punch, turtle cake and cupcakes were also served. 

The set up. my tissue balls are looking a tad bit used. they retired after this party. they've been used at least three different times and tossed around by certain manly people in this house that don't understand their fragility. :) 

Chocolate butterflies atop cupcakes. They look complicated but I just took pre-colored chocolate from Guittard, melted it down, poured it into the 3-d butterfly mold I found, and when they were cooled, put the two halves together. I broke quite a few along the way, but they of course lay flat to mold and then when you put them together they stand up. If you don't have the right amount of chocolate they don't fit together right. The cupcakes were a yellow cake mix (King Arthur) with homemade buttercream icing. I had a little ganache left over from the turtle cake, so I added that to a few as well. The kids loved them! 

cheese truffles. 

turtle cake. caramel sauce in between chocolate velvet cake batter  frosted with chocolate ganache. the recipe was adapted from Southern Living. All I did was make it gluten free. You can't go wrong with southern cooking. But did you know, that you can substitute baking powder for baking soda??? Yep. Found that out. You just add 3x as much powder for the amount of soda called for. 

chocolate covered popcorn. not almond bark people. chocolate. I used Skinny Pop for the popcorn. Worked like a charm--already popped and there's no un popped kernels to dig out once it's cooled. 

The birthday girl and her wings. they lasted for about 5 minutes. But, since it went with the theme I had to get at least one picture. 

These are butterflies made out of pretzels and chocolate. look close and maybe you can tell. :) I saw the idea on Pinterest, but didn't add the colorful candies and sugars in time in the wings, and so they are kinda plain. They were gone though at the end of the party, so I'd say, they still tasted good. :) 

I'll confess. I was icing this cake at 2:00 and the party started at 2:30. It's not as pretty as the other girls' first birthday cakes, but you learn by the third child that the smash cake just gets thrown away after it's destroyed so it doesn't really matter if it looks good or not. :) That's really all just for show. 

this pretty ribbon served as a way to display more of Ava's one year pictures and allow guests to pick their favorite to take home after the party. they had to walk by it to get out the front door. I found the little butterflies at Michaels and just had to use them.  I was not responsible for the upside down yellow butterfly....ahem, Uncle Ben. :) 

This punch is filled to the brim with sugar, but most punch is. Icy Holiday Punch from Taste of Home. Super yummy. 

A close up view of the flower clothespins. 

This is one of the only pictures with Ava wearing her headband. She prefers her head bare. That goes for barrettes, headbands, hats, hoods...anything.

Present opening time!

I have to point out the hanging dress covered in felt butterflies, made by Grandma S. So cute and theme appropriate. :) 

I wanted to get a picture of her wearing her butterfly wings and fun headband....but I had less than 20 seconds of that before she started ripping everything off and tangling herself up. So we had to get rid of the wings. And she spent the rest of the day like she's pictured above. 

there's a lot of pros to being the youngest, but having older sisters around when you're opening presents isn't one of them. I'm not sure Ava will ever get to do something all by herself. 

woo hoo tissue paper!

Time for cake. 

"Just give me my cake already people!"

"Happy Birthday Ava!"

She was very dainty with the cake and icing. Just picked at it. 

I had the entire paparazzi there just in case. I should have gotten a picture of everyone crowded around our kitchen watching her, filming her or taking pictures. 

Getting a little tired of the cake.....so we cleaned her up and let her go entertain the adults. 

A note to myself: (because I'm sure everyone else already does this) for heavens sake, take the picture with the birthday girl before the party. Every time I wait until the end, because I forget and I'm doing 800 other things, the kids are spent, cranky and in my kids' case, attached to a bottle. 

So our baby is one. Bittersweet for me because I'm not confident we'll have another, but so glad that she's healthy and happy. 

Sarah