Charlotte's 1st birthday

We had an incredibly sweet celebration of our big girl last Saturday, with family and friends in attendance.

I did very little prep work ahead of time and basically took advantage of my parents' presence here on Friday to buy everything and get it all set up in time. (Thanks, parents!) We were very fortunate to use the junior high room at our church for the party. It was incredibly convenient for setting up AND I know where all the furniture goes so I could easily get it set back correctly before church on Sunday morning. Win!

The party was held during Charlotte's best time of day-- after her first nap and before her second. We made brunch foods such as fruit salad, muffins, soup, egg casserole, chicken salad, and banana bread. When I say "we made," I basically mean my mom and friends helped make. Ha. Looking back, I don't think we had quite enough food, so that's something I would go back and change if I could. It was hard to predict how much people would eat at the lunch hour and I definitely underestimated. We probably should have had bigger portions of the main dishes (like egg casserole and butternut squash soup).

Charlotte played with her little friends and people sat around and visited. We didn't have any specific agenda besides eating and singing "Happy Birthday," so our guests mingled and supervised the kids playing on the floor. Charlotte had this incredibly serious and surprised look on her face while we sang, but fortunately, she didn't cry. :)

Our girl was tuckered out afterward; she napped for over two hours!

A BIG thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate our babe. We had a wonderful day!

(Also-- I feel that her hair has gotten about 100 times curlier since her birthday 10 days ago!)