Polly’s 1st Birthday

A week ago (Friday) we celebrated our little princess turning One! One whole year of Polly, I mean seriously where has that time gone . It has by far been the best but quickest year of our lives and we have enjoyed every single milestone and mainly watching her grow into her own little character. She really does fill our hearts with so much love and we love her unconditionally. In fact I now realise how much my Mum loves me as the love I have for her just cant be described she is our world.

Look how tiny she was.

As her birthday fell on a Friday this year, we all got up and had breakfast and then opened some of her presents. Even at this age its still overwhelming for her and after opening several she soon enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper more rather than the toys etc. Our main present for her was her playroom. I know it sounds crazy turning a room into a child friendly room at the age of one, but it was our old dining room that we never used, so its nice to store all her toys in one place.

20170804_065420 — Here are all her lovely gifts, not all from us I might add. But we did get her the Ikea kitchen which we have painted and jazzed up a bit ourselves. I have had a lot of messages on Instagram about her kitchen so I might do a separate blog on that soon.

She loved messing about and playing in the Playroom that morning. Although her kitchen is big for her its something that will last a lot of years and will grow with her.

Her lovely vest and headband were from Instagram. Remember I’m not the best at all this blogging so unsure how to tag the businesses but if you follow us on Instagram you will see the tags and links to their pages. The vest was made by the lovely Ruth of “Handmade by Ruth loved by Jacob” and her headband from “Sweet and Berry”. I loved her Unicorn headband but she doesn’t like much on her head if she can feel it on there so it obviously didn’t stay on too long. We then took Daddy to work and picked up my Mum and off to Colchester Zoo we headed.

We have been to this Zoo once before in the Spring but I can see how much Polly has grown since last time as she was following the animals around and pointing at them and trying to chat away to them. So cute bless her.

Now she can stand well and is trying to walk it was nice we could put her down for a bit and she feels more independent and closer to the animals etc. Although she has taken her first few steps alone she isn’t quite there yet.

We was also so lucky enough to feed the Giraffes which she adored as we was so close to them. They really are gentle giants.

Screenshot_20170813-094604 — I think its safe to say Polly enjoyed herself and we was very lucky with the weather too.

Polly’s Birthday Party

Now I know why we don’t host parties anymore as they are always a bit stressful and you put so much effort into them for everyone to enjoy and then their over like a flash. I think because it was Polly’s first birthday I wanted to go all out. I love organising a party and had ordered a lot of the décor months back as like to be organised and know those things are taken care of. I had also ordered all the food from M&S because I didn’t have the time to be making sandwiches first thing on the morning of the party. But I did make all the cupcakes and her birthday cake but was nice the rest was all taken care of and actually I think we had plenty of food. The night before me and Andrew stayed up late finishing off all the final touches. We melted chocolate melts and made Unicorn bark for the little ones for party favours. Andrew stuck all of Polly’s monthly pics onto a frame so everyone could see how much she had changed and as I finished piping her cake, Andrew finished cutting out all the photo props.

If you hadn’t guessed by now the theme was Unicorns as its very current at the moment so plenty of pieces to buy for it etc. Also because Polly doesn’t watch lots of telly she isn’t into a certain character yet, so Unicorns were perfect. I also attempted my first Unicorn cake.

It was just all vanilla sponge but I did thinner layers to colour each layer to get a rainbow effect. I also forgot to cut the cake there! Oops.

We hired a little room where I actually used to go to playschool at so knew the owners and it was just the perfect size room for what we needed. We also hired Soft Play which was perfect to keep the little ones busy, as for Polly I must have only seen her a handful of times as she was off having to much fun playing.

I also loved our little DIY Photo both area where people could take their own pictures and we got a couple throw away cameras in which they could do so. Just waiting for them to come back tomorrow hopefully to see how they have turned out then I can pop them in her scrapbook. All the props were from Etsy and you can print off as many times as you like. As for the chalk board that was handmade from the very talented Alice of “Pretty Little Maison” on Instagram.

Was really pleased how our food table came out. Again the twirl garland was from Instagram “Whirling In Wonderland” as well as the cake topper and cupcake toppers, pink unicorns were from Lucy of “Lucy Rose Gifts”. Andrew also did a good job on his board of “12 months of Polly” and we’ve kept it in her playroom for now.

I’m so pleased I hired the Soft Play which I found via Facebook, as although their wasn’t loads of children there it kept them very entertained.

The adults had lots of fun too. There was plenty of beer for the lads as well as soft drinks and tea and coffee for the ladies.

It definitely wouldn’t have gone as well as without the huge help of two of my dearest friends. Firstly to thank Devon, who came all the way from Essex that morning to see Polly and play with her while we finished getting ready. Then helped transport a lot of the food, decorations etc to the venue then helped us set up before having to get off to a wedding. She is such a diamond friend that distance between us doesn’t mean anything!

Secondly a huge Thank you to Sarah. Again she came early to help transport all our goodies. She washed, dried, polished every piece of china and cutlery we needed. Made me brownie, strawberry skewers with marshmallows. And kept me calm while I was flapping around like a headless chicken! She was also on it with the cleaning up of everything while I said goodbye to everyone etc. Literally another Gem right there.

They say you learn who your friends are once you’ve had a baby and I believe this is very true. These two just love Polly like she is part of their family an that means the world. We never had Polly christened, mainly because were not actually that religious ourselves but these two would Definitly be God Parents so for now Fairy Godmothers instead.

Here are a few of my favourites. Polly kept going after her party right until bedtime. She really is the life of the party. As when we got home she just wanted to play with all her presents in her playroom. And lastly her time capsule…