This Chick Is Turning One! {madeline’s first birthday}

Our little girl turned one this past month, the time flew by and life with her has been sweet. Since we were expecting our little guy at the end of February, and Mad‘s birthday is on the 11th, I knew that if I was going to have a party for our sweet girl, it would need to be SUPER EASY and REALLY low key. This past year, to my husband’s delight Chick-Fil-A opened in our town. Since I had worked with the new owner on the Walnut Creek Half Marathon, I thought it would be fun to support their business and that it would fit the bill for easy.

Since I never imagined my little girl’s birthday would be at a fast food restaurant, I wanted to make it as nice and “classy” as I could, without over doing it. Theme wise, Chick-Fill-A easily lent itself to red, white and black with a cow print. Here is how it ended up!

I used paperless post for the invites, they had a cute one with cows on it. Since we invited upwards of 70 people, this made it easy to track guests. The event was an open house, people could come and go as they pleased, bring their kids, have a bite of breakfast and some coffee, chat and play some of the guessing games. I sent out an itinerary a few days before letting them know when we would sing and do the candle, when we would do a game and when the Chick-fil-a Cow would make an appearance. I thought this would help people judge their time a little better. We also had a book out for people to sign for her. Hopefully this book will follow her and special people will sign it throughout her growing up.

For the food, we used their catering and had the chicken mini bites and cinnamon clusters. There was also a bowl of clementine’s out for people to help themselves to. We had chocolate milk and coffe available as well. It was a good amount of food and it tasted really good too. If you haven;t had their breakfast you should try it, they do a good job at a reasonable price.

Decorations were pretty easy, I used a red table cloth, cow print balloons, and had a banner that I bought on this etsy store. I didn’t use all the animals, just the cow. I also had 2 prints made and had in an 8×10 frame on the table. One was M is for Madeline and the other was a birthday celebration one. Another touch for the shower was the favors. I made cellophane bags with red vines in one, and gum balls in the other. We also put the 4 foot red ropes in a galvanized bucket, with the bags on top for people to help themselves. They were really colorful and youthful and a fun touch, I thought. I also had a little activity for people to participate in. I had 3 jars, one with mixed sizes of gum balls, one with assorted sizes of licorice and one with goldfish crackers; people had to guess how many were in each jar. It was a good activity for that many people and it looked like people enjoyed themselves.

The party was really fun and it was great to have so many people there to celebrate with us. In someways I think that a first birthday is more of a thank you to all of the people that encouraged us, prayed for us, brought us meals, and gave us great council in our first year of parenting. Madeline will never remember the day, but it was really nice for us as parents to have a way to say thank you to those that have been a blessing to our life over the past year. The time was really fun and it flew by. The best part of the day was being able to pack up and leave and not have to clean up or have to have had everyone over to my house to celebrate. The party was a win! Hopefully I can get the files up that I used for the party sometime.

Happy birthday sweet Madeline, Mommy and Daddy love you so much and we thank God everyday for your sweet personality, curious nature and the joy you are in our home. We know that you will be a great big sister and we pray that you will grow up strong and love the Lord, just like the song that we sing to you every night. You are the little girl that made us parents, which has been one of the best blessings from the Lord. Daddy and I love every minute of our life with you and we look forward to the ways you will make us laugh, make us pray, and strengthen our faith.