Tenley's First Birthday Party

Saturday we celebrated Tenley's first birthday with our family.  I found the sweetest invitations on Etsy so we decided to go with a Princess theme.

Princess Tenley came dressed for the affair.  I bought an iron on transfer that said 'one' and put that on a plain white shirt. Then I made her tutu out of tulle and one of those stretchy crocheted headbands.  The crown headband was found on Etsy.  All of this went together to create her pink and gold color scheme.

Most of the guests heeded Princess Tenley's request to come dressed in their 'royal best' and we provided crowns and tiaras for everyone.  We had good sports and all wore their crowns!

I made lasagna roll ups, cheesey garlic bread and a lettuce salad for supper.  Easy and delicious, plus it was something I knew the Princess would and could eat. Of course for dessert we had birthday cake and ice cream.  I found the cake topper on Etsy also.

I decorated Princess Tenley's throne with a few balloons and a simple garland I made with tulle and ribbon.  It matched her tutu I made.

Tenley loved having 'Happy Birthday' sang to her!  We had been practicing singing to her for a couple days prior to her birthday so she wouldn't be overwhelmed by all of us singing at once.  Even with practicing over and over and over again for months I knew Tenley wouldn't be ready to blow out her candle - luckily she had a very capable big brother (Tate) to help her with that!

I think Tenley really liked her cake but she was quite the lady and kept the mess to minimum. :)

After eating cake it was present time!  Like all one year olds, Princess Tenley wasn't quite sure what to do with the gifts.  Tate showed her a few times how to unwrap or pull out the tissue paper from the bags to see what was inside.  She opened a gift from her Great Grandparents Maier first and was totally fixated on it! Trying to get her to open another gift was quite the challenge! She was smitten with the 'talking' book!  I was just fine with that, it showed how much she loved and appreciated the gift!

Finally we were able to move on to the next gift.  Again, fixated!  She really knows how to drag out the gift opening process, ha ha!

Tenley ended up receiving a tea set, a Leap Frog picnic basket, books, clothes, and my personal favorite - a Raggedy Ann doll. My niece was super sweet and gifted Tenley her old princess castle and fairy house!  What a sweetheart!

After that it was time to play with all of those new toys, read all those new books!

On Tenley's actual birthday we had our own little celebration here at home.  Andy insisted I make another cake so after supper we had more cake and ice cream.  We gave Tenley her gifts, she seemed to understand what was inside that pretty paper more this time!

Aiden, being the best big brother ever, gave Tenley a giant PINK teddy bear!  It's bigger than Tenley is!  He saw that pink bear the day we found out we were having a girl and knew he wanted to spend his own money on it for her.  He's been stashing it in his closet for months! Such a sweetheart!  And of course, Tenley loved it! She gave it a big kiss!

Tenley Louise, age 1.  Happy birthday, Pretty Girl!