Eleni's Birthday!

 My cute neice Eleni's birthday was May 5th.  We celebrated her 1st Birthday on Saturday.  Carly did such a cute job with the party!  She of course baked some AMAZING things (she is an amazing cook and baker.  Her blog is carlyskitchen.blogspot.com if you are interested).  I helped her get ready by making little tags for each food item, the big "E" for her cake, the "Sweet Shoppe" sign, her party headband, the Salad, and I made the banner that is strung across the hutch for part of Eleni's birthday present.  It was so much fun helping Carly plan and I was so impressed with how great it turned out!  Good job Car!

Cute little Leni getting excited for her party to start!

Car setting out the food before the party

Daci and Eleni playing with a balloon before the party

Daci was soooo excited for the party all day.  She kept yelling "Happy Birthday, Leni! Hooray!"

Leni looking at all the fun food and decorations for her party

The complete decor.  Isn't it amazing!  Oh, and look at the beautiful paint color!  It took her  a while to find the PERFECT Robin Egg Blue paint color, but I think it turned out great! And doesn't it make the party that much better?!

The banner I made Eleni for her room, it worked perfectly with the party decor though so of course we had to use it! (Click on the image to see it larger)

Some of the food: Izze drinks, party favors of sixlets and candy melts, jars of taffy and animal cookies, Carly's homemade cupcakes and Eleni's Birthday Cake (also made from scratch by Carly)

The other end of the table had a jar of jelly belly's, strawberries and lime curd (another Carly specialty!), Salad de Maison, and Chips and artichoke dip

The Cake and cupcakes

Check out that amazing cake!  She did each ruffle by hand!

Close up on the taffy and animal cookies

Jelly beans

Strawberries and lime curd, salad de maison, artichoke dip and chips

Then came the present opening!

Carly's best friend since she was two lives in Milwaukee.  She and her mom drove down for the party!

Lindsey and Eleni

Daci gave Eleni the present she got from her. She had a really hard time letting Eleni open it by herself :)

After about a minute of patience, she decided she was just going to rip it open for her :)

Daci had a hard time not getting jealous of Eleni.  She wanted to open the presents and play with all the new toys.  She got up in the middle of the present opening, ran to the corner and started bawling.  We all just laughed at her.  It was pretty funny. "Its not my party and I'll cry if I want to!"

Love this pic!  Carly and I purposely wrapped all her presents in matching wrapping paper  :)  We put Leni on top of the big one and snapped some pics.

Daci and I

When it was time to sing to Leni and watch her dig into her cake we got both sides of the families on skype and face time.  Micah has his parents on facetime on his iphone and then is recording the scene with Carly's iphone!  Thank goodness for technology! (PS She is still working on picking a wall color in her main room, which is why there are stripes of paint on the wall :) )

We got Rick's family on Skype

Eleni was so happy when we were all singing Happy Birthday to her!

She wasn't cautious at all!  She just dug right in!

She mostly just played with it until Carly gave her a little taste.  Then it was all over from there.  She went to town on that cake!

Afterward they took her straight up to the bath.  Then something scary happened.  She broke out in red hives all over her body!  They had to call the doctor and give her benadryl and everything!  Kinda crazy.  Luckily Eleni was just as happy as could be as it was all going down.

Me with the Birthday girl once she was all clean.  Love you Lenikens!