Happy 1st Birthday Lily!

Happy 1st birthday to our sweet and precious Lily!!!  I cannot believe it's already been 1 year since our little dragon baby was born!  For her birthday, I wanted to be extra special so I made sure I made almost everything myself!  I made French Vanilla Mini Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Frosting, Oreo Truffles (thanks Natalia for dipping them!!), Cheesecake Brownies, and 6 types of Macarons (rose, mango, lemon, macha green tea, vanilla, and raspberry)!  Since her party was held at the pavilion in front of our house, I made her a display cake instead of a real cake because I didn't want it to melt in the heat.  The display cake is decorated with royal icing piped along the outside so that when it dries, it hardens.  The rest of the decorations are made of fondant.  We ordered a mixed berry cake from Givral, that wasn't decorated since we were just going to cut it up and serve it!  

Lily had a special Smash Cake session a few days before her birthday so we can capture her first time eating cake!  Also, this is convenient because not only do we get super nice photos from it, but it allows Lily to get all frosted up and covered with cake goodness, and then we can hose her down and not worry about time or keeping her party guests waiting while we do so!   I made her cake myself, it's French Vanilla with swiss meringue frosting.  The inside of the cake is 6 layers, with each layer being one color of the rainbow!  I embellished her cupcake cake with some fondant flowers and a butterfly on top.  I added gold trimming to the flowers and butterfly for some added elegance!  We actually did a second smash cake session because we wanted a more white and brighter background, so her second cake that I made her had normal buttercream frosting since it was softer by nature and we hope it'll stick to her face better =P. When we first put her in front of the cake, she literally just ignored it and kept crawling right past it and towards us!  haha.  It's so funny but it made sense since she has NO idea what sweet deliciousness sat right in front of her!  So we had to help her along and took and frosting and put it in her mouth.  She loved it!  However, she didn't "smash" the cake or grab it herself.  She's quite a diva and we ended up having to break apart the cake ourselves and then feed it to her haha.  A few times she did seem quite excited and waved her arms in the air and rubbed the cake all over her arms...Overall, it was a lot of fun memories to watch her enjoy her first birthday cake!!  Thank you SO MUCH to our photographers Drexelle at D. Park Photography, Janet from Purely Capitvating Photography and to Mieng Saetia for taking these beautiful cake smash photos!!!  The turnaround on these photos were amazingly fast and we appreciate all the hard work and accommodations you've made just for our Lily pad!!!  Thank you!!!

Words cannot describe how I feel about our little angel being 1 years old.  She is the joy of our lives and she deserves the very best in everything.  All our hard work, late nights, exhaustion, and stress is all worth it to see our baby have a great time and have a huge smile on her face the whole time!  She also already watched her first Disney movie, only 1/3 of it, and it's The Little Mermaid.  She loves to sit on my lap with and watch while chomping away at cheerios from her snack catcher!  I just watch her in amazing at how she's slowly becoming a little toddler, and I just can't get enough of how cute she does every little thing!  I love that her forehead crinkles every time she takes a bite of her cheerios, more like stuff her mouth with 3-4 cheerios, and how she gives me sweet kisses on the cheek, and how she knows to say "mom" every time she wants something!!  This first year has flown by and so much has happened with so many memories.  She's even has a career as a baby model and has made a good amount towards her college fund already!  We can't wait to see what other adventures Lily has in store for us.  Each day is a blessing with her and we cannot ask for a better life than this!  Happy 1st Birthday our sweet baby Lily!  We love you to pieces, forever and a half times double infinity!!!

UPDATE:  Thank you to D. Park Photography for capturing Lily's 1st Birthday, our party got featured on Hostess with the Mostess, check out the article HERE!