My sweet baby girl turns 1!

So I promised a blog post about my baby girl's first birthday, so here we go!  I guess first thing is first...technically my baby girl is not so much of a baby anymore, which makes this mommy so sad.  Its crazy how fast this first year has flown by.  Its exciting and sad all at the same time.  We love seeing her grow and develop and learning new things, and its so exciting, but with every new thing that she learns how to do on her own, its just a reminder that she is not our tiny baby anymore.  So onto the birthday festivities...

We had her BIG birthday party the weekend before her birthday due to lots of other things going on during the weekend of her birthday.  Now I've been planning this birthday party pretty much since she was about 6 months old...no joke!  I decided to go with a butterfly/garden party birthday theme.  Her nursery is butterflies and flowers and birds (cheerful and happy) theme and as she has gotten older, she has become very fascinated with the butterflies on the wall, so it just made since.  Plus a lot of the party decorations are now serving as room decorations!  We had issues with the guest list because it was HUGE, but there are so many important people in her life and we wanted all of them to have the opportunity to celebrate with her and us.  I did a lot of the decorations myself, spending weeks on tutu table skirts that I saw on pinterest, and making table decorations, etc.  All in all, I'd say the party was a success and Ali had a blast!

Here's some pics from the BIG party day:

On Ali's actual birthday, Brandon and I took her to the pool for the afternoon and then we went to Yaya and Papa's for dinner (really to celebrate Father's day), but we had to have another smash cake for Ali since it was her birthday too!