Someone had a Birthday!

So last year was Daniel's 30th Birthday and I went all out with a fun themed party and food! Here. (All only after giving birth 9 days earlier!) Well this year we...I kept it a little more low key. I had just thrown a huge party for Norah and was out of town in Missouri for a week so give me a break! ;)

I did however manage to get lost in downtown Grand Rapids looking for a Dairy Queen to get Dan the best ice cream cake out there!

And I did manage to rustle up a few friends to come over and rock out to Rock Band!!! (Sadie, how'd you get in there???)

It was a modest party but a fun one. We are blessed to have so many great friends :)

Happy 31st Birthday Daniel!!!

Off to Grandmother's house we go...

So our annual summer trip to Grandma and Grandpa's was a little earlier than expected. Daniel had his quarterly trip to Argentina last week so Norah and I hopped a ride to Missouri with Grandma and Grandpa! I always love visiting home and I love it even more now that I have Norah. I took her on lots of walks around where I grew up and was like, "this is where I would swim all summer long, this is where I would ride my bike, this is where I got my first kiss...." Okay, maybe a little too young but it's still fun to pass the memories on :)

While home, we made a trip to Sedalia to see Great Grandma and pay respects at the cemetery (honoring Memorial Day weekend). Norah got to play with second cousin Libby, so adorable! 

Norah also got to play with cousin Avery all week! I see these two causing a lot of trouble in the future! 

When we weren't visiting with old friends or meeting Grandpa for lunch we were outside playing in the water table. As you can see, that's all she wanted to do! Good thing that was her birthday present and there was one waiting for her back in Michigan! 

Thanks grandma and grandpa! We had a BLAST!

"Breakfast at Norah's"

I posted pictures of Norah's party on facebook a while ago, but for those "party nerds" like me out there here they are again with the ooey-gooey details :)

The theme was "Breakfast at Norah's," loosely adapted from Audrey Hepburn's movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I wanted the capture a Parisian flare with bits of "Tiffany blue." But other than that, it has no real similarities with the movie :)

I had the invitation framed and set out all her monthly photoshoot sessions for display.

Party favors were simple little goodie-bags filled with candy.

I also strung up other pictures of Norah over the past 12 months for everyone to "oooh and aaah" over :)

The napkins were a great find! They were the last thing I bought and matched perfectly with everything else.

I made these adorable water labels, "Norah&Co." for drinks.

On to the food! These are fruit and creme puff skewers (Pinterest lovers will start to recognize a few of these).

Croissants with orange butter, nutella and strawberries n' cream for spreading

Homemade blueberry mini muffins

Lavash rolls and French macaroons

The infamous crepe cake! My mother (bless her soul) made crepes all.day.long in the various sizes for the perfect crepe cake!!!

There is this sweet little bakery near our house where I ordered Norah's cake. It was the prefect size for her to smash her little fists into and was super yummy too!

Here it all is folks! Month's of idea jotting and planning put into action!

Here's the birthday gal in her LBD!!!

We had over all Norah's little "friends" and played games in the backyard, opened presents and ate ourselves silly on all the yummy food. But if I had to guess her favorite part, it was probably her first taste of sugar!!! Yes, it was really the first time she had ANY sugar, chocolate or sweets in general. It was fun to watch her dig in, but I will still be pretty strict on the sugar in-take. I'm that mom :)

Yup. She liked it lol.

So the first birthday has come and gone! Everyone's telling me to have another one so I can start planning another 1st birthday....I think I'll just start planning the 2nd birthday ;)