Ruthie's First Birthday

etsy link

Today we had Ruthie's birthday party. I really can't believe she'll be 1 in one week...time has flown! The party them was Winter Onederland (thank you pinterest!) and I ordered her invitations off of Etsy. We had some friends and family to our house to help celebrate and the birthday girl was all smiles!

I was so thrilled with her outfit. My friend Jill appliqued the shirt for Ruthie and I made the tutu and bow. I found the tights at Belk (they are tights material but don't have feet and instead have a ruffle at the bottom...they're adorable).

We were running around before the party getting everything ready (we were up late the night before getting ready and then Ruthie was ready to party at 2am so we were dragging this morning!) and I completely forgot to take pictures of the setup so I snapped a couple as we were starting to clean up. I went with a silver and blue color scheme and I was thrilled with the results!

When you walked in we had a table set up with Ruthie's birthday book for everyone to sign. For those of you who haven't seen one of my birthday posts before, each year we pick a book for everyone at the party to sign. The girls love reading the messages from their friends and remembering who was at their party. Ruthie's book was The Little Engine that Could and I picked it because to me Ruthie is the little engine. She is so little but so determined (ie. learning to crawl out the doggy door so she can go play outside iwht her sisters!).
On the dining room table we had that adorable little silver tree from Hobby Lobby that Emmie begged me to get and a bowl filled with blue and silver ornaments. We had snowflake plates and napkins. For the food we had fruit, sandwiches cut I the shape of snowflakes, sausage balls, parmesan crisps, and cupcakes!


We had vanilla cupcakes with a white chocolate snowflake on top. The snowflakes ended up being a bit creative but each snowflake is unique right?


For our beverage we had a hot chocolate bar! It was so fun! We had chocolate syrup, whipped cream, chocolate chips, and marshmallows.

For party favors we gave everyone hot chocolate mix and a silver ornament (you can't see them too well on the tree and most of them were gone by this point but they were sparkly and fun).



I took so many pictures of this sweet girl...she just loves the camera!



Love the tutu effect!




Singing Happy Birthday!

I think we managed to get all of the kiddos in this picture and I love the expressions on everyone's faces!






Ruthie was pretty unimpressed with her cupcake. She ate a few bites of the icing but that was it. She's been my only one that didn't scarf down her cupcake!


After everyone left we let Miss Ruthie get a nap...she was so glad to get in her bed and take a little snooze!
Our family stayed at our house after the friend party and we celebrated our December girls with them! After Ruthie woke up we opened presents with the family. Emmie and Ellie had a great time "helping" Ruthie open her presents. Ruthie was not interested at all in opening presents but did enjoy the new toys!

Ruthie loved her new books (thanks Leslie!).


Emmie was excited to open her presents!

Ellie and Ruthie snuggling with the new baby doll. Ellie was such a good sport about the fact that she didn't get any presents. I have been so impressed with her maturity last week and this week when Emmie and Ellie were getting presents. She did go outside to swing in the middle of the present opening but she didn't make a big deal about it at all....just headed outside quietly.


We spent some time visiting with our family, which was so nice and we had a delicious dinner that the grandmothers put together for us (which was a HUGE help for me!).

Ruthie loves to look at books and Uncle Blake and Aunt Emily were more than willing to snuggle with her!

Hurray for birthdays!


Funny story. If you've been around Ruthie you know she is a Momma's girl through and through. She's just starting to warm up to Paul. Well Ben, whom she hasn't seen since July, came in the door and picked her up and cradled her in his arms and she just chilled there...she almost fell asleep. We couldn't believe it!



Emmie got to wear the coveted birthday hat!


Ruthie has so many toys and clothes so instead of a present for Ruthie we asked our friends to bring a present for a little girl we know who has had a really hard few months. We wanted to help make her Christmas extra special this year! We were so overwhelmed with the outpouring of love for this sweet girl. We had so many friends that didn't come to the party but still sent a present and we have 2 boxes full of toys and clothes to donate to her family.


We had such a wonderful time celebrating Ruthie's first birthday and we're so thankful for all of those who have loved on Ruthie and us this year!