Happy Birthday Clara Deer

My little deerie Clara turned one last week and don't you worry, I wasn't caught unprepared.  I threw a giant family party with a theme I'd been planning for basically all of her life.  The inspiration came from these birch tree paper straws:

I fell in love with them on Pinterest one day last year and I knew--it had to be a woodland theme.  So I saved out all of my forest creature and toadstool ornaments after Christmas last year instead of sending them back to the attic.  And I picked up a few things here and there.  Like a crazy kitschy pinecone and squirrel cookie jar I spied at my parents' cabin. 

I wish the party hadn't been on a darkish, rainy evening, so my pictures were a bit more picturesque, but you'll get the idea...

For dinner I requested Taylor to make his amazing shepherd's pie because it's full of rosemary, and what's more foresty than that?!  Yum.  Jessie brought spinach salad and my MIL Mary Anne and SIL Melissa both brought amazing homemade bread.  We served our favorite sparkling lemonade in mason jars with the birch straws. 

I  made both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, both with my vanilla bean butter cream frosting.  Always a winner.  I pretty much die about the little deer and toadstool toppers.  

 Besides all of my kitsch, I tied some perfect red dottie balloons to Clara's highchair, and re-used the doily bunting from Dan and Marisa's rehearsal dinner this summer.  I didn't get a great shot of it (great, I'm so delinquent,  I'll never be featured on a party blog ;), but it hung all through the dining room.  Very fun.

I have to say, this was maybe my most favorite party to date.  First of all, it was so amazing and fun to have so many family members there--great-grandmother, all four grandparents, great aunt, aunts, uncles, oodles of cousins, and best friends.  We are so lucky.  Plus, I adored the decor because most of it just kind of happened--it was all about one of a kind, unique, vintage, collected treasures.  It was all so sweet.

Clara was hilariously demure and hardly ate any of her cupcake...

but she made sure to feed some to me.  (I die about her expression in this photo.)

I knelt down next to her for quite a while to watch her with her first cake and just felt so complete and joyful and blessed.

It's a zoo around the Blue House most days, but a happy one.  And we are so thrilled that Clara is a part of it.

xo
anne

sources:
Birthday Crown--Little Blue Olive
Deer and Toadstool Cupcake Toppers--Layer Cake Shop
Red Dottie Balloons--Shop Sweet Lulu
Birch Tree Paper Straws--hopefully coming soon to Penny and Tillie