We have a ONE YEAR OLD! This little girl is so happy! She smiles and giggles at everything. She is also soooo “Second child.” She is a little dare devil, laughs when you tell her “No,” throws tantrums, and loves to attack her big sister. We are excited to see what this new year with Raya brings!
I purchased this invitation template from Etsy. I edited the words to fit our theme “It’s A ONEderful New Year.” Once it downloads from Etsy you can edit everything in Canva for free. The download link takes you right where you need to be. Once you have made the changes, either download onto you computer to print or order directly through Canva.
It was box cake, but this specific box cake my family and friends rave about. It is a great flavor but I also pull it from the oven as soon and the toothpick comes out clean. Sometimes this means towards the end I take it out of the oven and put it back in several times. It can be tedious at the end with all the “In and outs.” I do this because I get so many comments on how moist it is. I am sure my homemade frosting also helps lock in moisture and adds even more great flavor.
All the cake accessories were a packaged deal, except the “1” candle and the tiny pink balls (I had these left over from my oldest daughter’s Bubble Guppy party). I used natural food dye for the frosting. The food coloring I used was supposed to be red, but instead turned out a light pink. It might reach a red color if an entire bottle of dye was mixed in, but I wanted the pink.
If you are going to stack cakes make sure the top of the cake is leveled. Cake tends to dome while cooking so you will need to cut the rounded part off.
When decorating the cake you will first need a crumb layer. Spread the frosting all over the cake and it will not be pretty, but once the frosting hardens (I put mine in the fridge for a little while) then you can come back and spread on the pretty layer. You can smooth it out by dipping your icing spatula in warm water.
For food we made smoked deviled eggs. This was a first for us. My husband’s co-worker was the one that convinced us to try it. They tasted great. The deviled eggs and chips were the side dishes to our sliders.
We made the well known ham and swiss poppy seed sliders, and we made pizza sliders. By the time the sliders were coming out of the oven guests were arriving so I did not get a photo of the sandwiches. I will link the two recipes we followed; just click on the slider images below.
Additional things I want to note:
We have nice taupe fabric chairs in our kitchen, and while my daughter knows to eat over her plate and not touch the chair with her dirty fingers, I did not want to have to micromanage the other kids at the party. I purchased black chair covers. They fit my dining chairs great even though they are meant for folding chairs.
The table cloth I purchased was only $1.00 at Target and it has pretty scalloped edges on the sides.
Her birthday outfit is from Amazon. It fit true to size but her legs were not chubby enough to keep the socks on. The outfit does come with the dress, bow socks, and headband.
I purchased the backdrop from Amazon. That was really it for decorations. I did have a fun idea to go with the New Year’s theme, but the weather did not cooperate. I have large cardboard numbers that we cut out for first day of school photos. I was going to stake those numbers in the yard as a count down. Start with #10 at the end of our driveway counting down to our front door. Once you opened the front door I would have had a light up Number 1, but it snowed and I did not want the cardboard numbers to be ruined.
Oh my gosh, Raya’s first year birthday pictures are absolutely adorable! I can’t believe you made the cake, you’ve got some talent girl!