First Birthday Party, Healthy but not so Green

Baby Girl enjoying her naturally sweetened 1st birthday cake. I wanted to make sure we didn't give her sugar on her birthday just because that was the thing to do, because we don't give her sugar any other time. Yes, I am a little bit of a health nut mama. The cake was really yummy though and you can find the recipe here. We did the sugar free applesauce and banana cake. And for icing we did cream cheese and 100% pure maple syrup.

Eating dinner! Turkey dogs, watermelon, and banana! Yum!

Some of the decorations. A 12 month photo frame, her giraffe (for our Safari theme) and some photo albums of her newborn session and her one year session. I took her one year session and they turned out great!

Some of the decor. I wish I would have been thinking more eco-friendly with the decor. Most of it was paper so I suppose that is good, but there was a good bit of plastic too. We did use all of it again a few weeks later and we saved it in case we want to use it for the next girl. Hopefully I can get in tune with my inner craftiness and make my own decorations next time! We got the decorations from First Wishes and it was a Pink Safari theme!

Our baby girl blowing out the candles on the adult cake from Whole Foods. That whole sheet cake was around $35! What a deal and oh so yummy with great ingredients!

Having fun playing with her cake!

Opening up gifts! We are trying to start a tradition of having people donate to a couple of different organizations instead of bringing gifts. This year we chose Life Choices of Memphis and Young Lives (youngLife ministry to teen moms), and a few people chose to donate. We still got a lot of toys that we are very thankful for as well. In the future I think asking people to bring tangible things to donate may go over better. I hope as she gets older she will want to continue doing this. We will do our best to encourage this! Her life is a gift from God and I hope she will desire to bless others with her life as we celebrate her birthday every year.

Her adorable safari outfit that her Mimi made her. That is a hat that goes with it too, but it was a cool overcast May day so we were inside most of the time. Isn't she cute?

Our family of three on baby girl's bday!

Happy Birthday baby girl! We had so much fun celebrating with you! Huge thanks to Papa John and Grammy for letting us use their house! And thanks to all the family and friends that came to help celebrate!