Kendall's 1st Birthday Party

We had the pleasure of celebrating our daughter, Kendall's, first birthday this weekend. The past year has flown by and watching her grow right before our eyes has been the most amazing experience. Her personality is blossoming more and more everyday, and her curiosity is too. She loves people and observing the world around her. She is seriously the biggest joy and I cannot wait to see what this next year will bring for our sweet little angel.

To celebrate Kendall turning one (and Nic and I making it through our first year of parenthood) we decided to throw a small get together. We invited our family and a few friends over for lunch and lots of treats last Saturday. Our nickname for Kendall is Kendi and we think it is so adorable that some of our younger nieces and nephews pronounce it "candy" so that inspired me to do a candy shop theme for her birthday party. Then when I found these adorable candy party themed invitations on Tiny Prints I knew I was going to have so much fun putting this little party together.

To keep the candy theme going without going too over the top on decorating or food I decided to make a small candy bar that would double as the party favor. I ordered custom lollipops from Oriental Trading that said," Thank you! Love, Kendall". The lollipops even had her photo on them! I bought a few different types of bulk candy and displayed it al in glass vases and jars that I had around the house. I wanted to have pink and white stripes be a common theme so I found some cute striped fabric at Hobby Lobby and had my mom create table runners out of it. The other little decorative touches were a hanging candy wall going along our staircase and I wrapped our front porch pillars in pink streamers so that they looked like candy canes.

Above is the hanging candy wall that I created to use as a backdrop for photos. I bought yarn from Hobby Lobby on clearance for 88 cents and a big bag of salt water taffy. My mom and I strung the candy while watching Empire haha. It maybe took 30 minutes to create and cost $4 so I was very happy with how this DIY project turned out. (and if you notice two pieces missing it is because my husband ate them before I even had a chance to take a pic).

That was really about all of the prep work I did! I ordered most of the food from Costco and set it up buffet style on our kitchen island as I usual do when we're entertaining. I had seating inside and outside which worked wonderfully since the weather was gorgeous. The cake was ordered from a local bakery, Dippidee, and then I did all of the decorating which was very convenient for a couple reasons. 1. I am really not the best baker and this ensured the cake would taste wonderful and 2. Decorating is the fun part of cake baking and I was able to do it in only about 10-15 minutes!

We really enjoyed spending the day with so many people that are special to us and celebrating our little girl. Kendall actually really enjoyed herself and I am sure she will love looking back on the photos of her little party when she is older. I hope you enjoy the photos below! As usual I did not get as many photos as I would have wished. I need to do a better job of getting group photos (I basically only have pics of us and my sisters family, whoops!)! If you have any questions about party planning or entertaining feel free to shoot me an email lea.leydsman@gmail.com.

Have a wonderful day!

pink & white striped mylar balloons: Oriental Trading

bulk candy: Oriental Trading

custom photo lollipops: Oriental Trading

table runners: Hobby Lobby fabric

cake: Dippidee

table cloths: Bed, Bath, & Beyond

my dress: Vince via Nordstrom (I'm wearing a size small)

Kendall's dress: Crewcuts (runs large)

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