When a girl is having a birthday, two big questions arise.  1) Is there such a thing as too many ruffles?  2) Is there such a thing as too much pink?  Of course, the answer in our case was “Are you kidding me?!?  NEVER!” And so began the Pretty in Pink birthday celebration for Berlin’s big day.  I’m a girly-girl at heart, I love pink and I also figured there are only going to be so many years where I can pick the theme for my kid’s party, so when my girl looks this good in pink, I just couldn’t say no.

I started with the paper doll invitations from Martha Stewart and then continued to use them throughout in the decorations.  Not surprisingly I had tons of pink patterned paper to use for their dresses and then we also used that to coordinate the lollies and pom-poms that we hung from the ceiling.

I desperately wished  my Silhouette Cameo had come in time to do all the work of cutting them out, but this time around I had to do it the old fashioned way.  I thought I’d never be done cutting out round heads, so of course I recruited my mom to help.  She’s amazing!  The trick to printing the party info on the dresses was that I printed the outline of the three girls on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of cardstock, then glued the dresses on, then ran them through the printer again before cutting the girls out.  It worked like a charm.

Of course the menu consisted of pink food:

• Red Grapes atop Pecan Rolled Goat Cheese
• White Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
• Pink Candied Pretzel Sticks
• Strawberry Cake Pops
• Peanut Butter & Raspberry Jelly Sandwiches
• Cranberry & Turkey Tea Sandwiches
• Pink Circus Animal Crackers
• Pink Lemonade
• and Pink Sugar Cookie Lollipops with a bag of Pink Jelly Beans for favors

The cake was a three layer lemon cake covered in ruffles of pink frosting, also from Martha.

One of the things I’d seen on Pinterest and fallen in love with was a pettiskirt for little girls.  I knew I wasn’t going to plop down the $75 to buy one, so I decided to make one (in pink, of course) for Berlin to wear at the party.  It was so much fun and I loved how it turned out.  I even learned a few good lessons (unfortunately, some of them after the fact…yes, there is a difference between chiffon and nylon chiffon) but it was frilly and pink and she looked gorgeous in it, especially with the cowboy boots from Marmie & Grandpa Dan!

The rocking chair she’s sitting in is well over 100 years old and was given to me by my grandma when I was a little girl.  It was so fun to be able to pass this down to her.  Every girl should have a place to rock her babies.

Luckily, my mom, Marmie, came out the week before the party and helped with all the baking, decorating, and pink-ifying that took place.  I literally could not have done the party without her.  Although, if I work her that hard every time she comes, she may start opting out of a trip to see the grand kids, so I might need to tone it down the next time.

Berlin loves her daddy, no doubt about it.  She is starting to pick up a few words, she says Mom, Uh-Oh and “mmmm” means everything from the sound a cow makes to “more” to “tastes good” to “I want that”.  But the thing she says clearly every night when Kyle walks in the door is “Dad’s home!”

Big brother Kade loves his sister and was more than happy to “teach her how to do it” for all the new toys.

I love this girl!

How did one year fly by so quickly?!  How is she old enough to give kisses and make faces and play games?  How can this tiny of a person have so big a personality?  How are we so blessed to have her as our daughter?  Thank you God, for this beautiful precious gift!