For anyone that doesn’t know me, I just love throwing a good party. I love little details and I love hosting my friends and family at the house. So yes, I’ve been pretty excited about throwing my favorite girl a birthday party since at least Month 6.

I didn’t really select a theme… the only real guideline I had was that I was desperate to see all the tiny girlies in pink tutus. I don’t know about you, but I genuinely believe that there is not much cuter than babies draped in tulle.

The other big thing was that I wanted to have the party in the backyard, BUT, did not want to BBQ. BBQ’s create more heat (Hello!! It’s July!, hazard (babies and curious hands), and work during the actual event. It was important to me that Mark and I got to really enjoy our guests and our time with the little princess.

SO, with all of that in mind, we turned our backyard into an awesome little party venue, adorned with tissue paper pom-poms, pink beach balls (I ordered these sames ones from Rakuten, but can’t seem to find the ones I purchased for $14.99 including shipping) and an awesome (and inexpensive) DIY canopy. I made the cutest little tutus and rustic flower crowns for the 4 girls, crowns for the boys using gold leather I bought on Etsy that had a very “Where the Wild Things Are” vibe, and flower crowns for the adult ladies.

I’ll post separate blogs for DIY tutus, flower crowns, leather ‘where the wild things are’ crowns, and party canopies.

We also brought in a woman to do a little song session with the kids. She’s someone who used to work at my husband’s grade school and was SUPER affordable and wonderful!

For food, I made BBQ Chicken in the Crock (I skipped the corn starch/chicken broth step… but probably wouldn’t do that again), Tortellini Pasta Salad (SO DELISH!), Red Cabbage Cole Slaw (I can’t find the recipe, but don’t worry, I didn’t like how this turned out), Watermelon Salad, and then had dips/vegetables/fruit/chips/cheese/crackers/etc. I bought the cake and cupcakes from the store and made rice krispie treats.