The Peytons: Caroline's Winter Onederland

"Our little snowflake has grown so fast,

It's hard to believe a year has passed."

The first week of December I had a little first birthday celebration for Caroline. I had it on a weekday morning and she was napping most of the time, so truth be told, it was more of a mommy brunch party. But with everyone's multiple kids and busy schedules, it felt like the perfect way to celebrate her. It was a winter onederland theme with fun snowflake decor. Snow flakes all around and 'snow' on the tables...

Baby girl's first year in a picture collage... When I was printing out pictures for this, I got so sentimental and sad about how fast it feels like she grew up. It feels like I have such few pictures of her when she was a teeny tiny baby... part of that was because I don't have all those images on my computer, but the other probably larger reason is because she just wasn't teeny tiny for long. And although precious, it was such a busy time with the holidays last year and the other two needing attention, and the lack of sleep, and it just all goes so fast! I can't believe our precious sweet Caroline is already one. She is so fun right now too that I just don't want her to grow any more!

Her birthday hat and bib...

Our yummy birthday brunch... We had a donut tower, mini quiches, muffins, croissants, scones, yogurt parfaits with granola, cupcakes, decorative jars of marshmallows and yogurt covered pretzels and of course mimosas. I planned WAY too much food but most of it got eaten and it was really fun to treat some of my closest friends to brunch. I planned the party on a morning when Ainsley and Bailey had school and Ainsley had such a hard time understanding that there was only going to be adults there and only a few tiny babies. She kept commenting on how the food didn't really look like baby food and was concerned that all of Caroline's baby friends weren't going to like it. Haha!

When Caroline woke up from her nap she was surprised to see a house full of big people. She was very serious and calm about the whole thing. She wasn't ever upset by all the unfamiliar faces but she wasn't her normal smiley self either. She would just give a sly, almost smile every now and then.

And true to form, she was shy. When I wasn't holding her, she was right by my side, even hiding in or behind my legs. The older two never did this and I find her timidness so endearing.

After a few minutes of letting her adjust to everything, it was time to sing happy birthday and let her smash her cake. Again, she was just very calm and took everything in while we sang happy birthday to her. I didn't light her candle because I promised Ainsley and Bailey that they could be there when she blew out her candle for the first time.

She has had small bites of cake and icing before at both mine and George's birthdays and I know that she likes it... but this morning, she wasn't really into it. All she did was play around in the icing a bit but I don't think any of the cake made it to her mouth. She was just too busy quietly watching everyone else.