Ella's First Birthday Party

I can't believe it's over! Yesterday went SOOO fast. We had a fun-packed day of party craziness - Minnie Mouse syle. I was so excited for this party I could hardly wait for everyone to get here - and neither could Ella!

I think this picture is hilarious. She's sitting there with her party balloons like "what in the world we doing?!?"

So the long anticipated cake situation. If you follow the blog, you know about the test cake I did a few weeks back. The icing is and was my enemy. I got all freaked out about doing that cake for her actual party (What if it didn't turn out!) So....I compromised with myself. I made cupcakes and left icing the "big" cake to the professionals. Turns out, we didn't even NEED the cake - I had enough cupcakes. I think they turned out super cute & everyone said they were delicious. I used a new frosting recipe with marshmellow creme (super yummy!) If I have to make future cakes, I will be using this recipe - it was super easy to make & spread perfectly.

Cute right?! I used pre-made fondant for the mouse cutouts! (but I wish I would have had time to frost pink bows on these!)


(this is the "professional cake" with my cupcakes)

I also baked & frosted Ella's "smash" cake. I made buttercream frosting for this one, which was more difficult to spread, but I did my best!

Enough about the cakes, let's see some party pictures!!

Wait - where are your ears?!?!

Okay - that's better!!

Everyone attending the party had to wear the mouse ears for pictures with Ella. It was a lot of fun & everyone was a good sport about it.

A few pictures of Ella opening gifts. She wasn't too into having to rip the paper, or really do much of anything related to the gift opening. She had some pretty comical expressions throughout and was sort of frustrated with the whole thing. But, she's been having fun checking out new toys.

Happy Birthday to you....happy birthday to you....

Ella ate a bunch of icing (so it must have tasted good!) but she needed some help to start digging in the cake. Once she got rolling though, it was pretty interesting. She basically started to shovel cake out. A few times she'd get handfuls of cake and then squeeze her hands as hard as she could.....really nice & messy!

Mom...I have sticky stuff on my hand - will you get it off?

Ahhh.....a full tummy & utter exhaustion led to a mid-afternoon nap....

And then, some playing!

I think Ella had a good time! We did too! Now we're looking forward to June 2nd to celebrate with her on her actual birthday - day. :)