Cosette’s First Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated our daughter Cosettes’ first birthday. She is our third and final baby which made it especially bittersweet, making us cherish the time with her being little that much more. We are definitely thankful for our sweet kiddos!

Thus far we have just done smaller birthday celebrations with family putting a little extra emphasis on the first birthdays. I really only get a couple of birthdays with each kid to decide on the theme myself before I’m more or less told what it should be. When our son turned 3 it was football themed, 4 was PJ Masks…….all I can do at that point is embrace their independence.

Soooooo as one of my last birthdays of moms choosing I knew what it had to be – Peter Rabbit. I have always loved Beatrix Potter’s books and characters, they are just so sweet and heart warming. The décor I had in mind included lots of flowers and garden touches and characters from her book with a spring feel. 

Since Easter is coming most stores have out their Easter inventory so that made it a lot easier to find what I needed as well. If you’re looking for some spring/Easter décor, tablescape or meal inspiration this could work for that as well! It was such a joy to prepare for this party.

I like to choose a special outfit for the first birthday that I will save in each of their memorabilia boxes for them. My mom has done special outfits for us or if she’s unavailable I generally turn to Etsy. There were a lot of cute options for Peter Rabbit theme that were geared for girls. Sometimes the Peter Rabbit things seem like it’s for a boy so I had to look just a little harder but ended up with several options. I decided on a romper from Zadabug since shes not walking yet and it’s hard to crawl in a dress. The shop lets you customize a name to embroider on it and Peter wears a pink jacket, so sweet. Since we are in Michigan and it is chilly still she just wore white knit tights under it and had a pink cardigan if she needed it. I also got the matching birthday banner from them, it was to cute to pass up.

The Etsy shop glamhatter is where I got her custom birthday crown from. I also ordered Georgias’ first birthday crown from there and she does a great job.

Pinterest came to the rescue for food ideas for sure. We had crescent rolls that I baked in cylindrical shapes and used orange food coloring to make look like carrots. Josh made an “eggless egg salad” filling (we limit our dairy/egg intake) to put in them. I made and colored the crescent rolls the week before and froze them. We just quickly reheated them in the oven before the party to save time and that worked out really well.

We also had a BLT pasta salad ( we substituted for vegetarian meats) from True Roots cookbook, various veggies, fruits, ranch and hummus dip, chips and crackers. I found the fruit puree squeeze packs that Starbucks has with Peter rabbit on them, it was an easy, cute and kid approved option to have sitting out. 

For dessert we had strawberry shortcake. I made my mom’s pound cake recipe but I used a Nordic Ware rabbit cakelet pan which was a fun addition to the décor as well. I’ll definitely be using this pan during Easter and spring time. There were also cream puffs and chocolate eclairs sitting out as an extra sweet. 

Pinterest also came in handy for deciding on décor! The last couple of birthdays I have made a balloon arch which is my go to thing now I think. It looks so impressive but is inexpensive and easy to make. That being said, it’s only easy to make because I got one of the electric air pump machines to blow up the balloons because you need so many for the arch. On a side note, I had planned time-wise to have my husband inflate all the balloons for me while I did other decorating so then I could just assemble the arch. Welllllll guess what, my very sweet, helpful and willing husband evidently does not know how to tie a balloon!!!!!! I literally watched him struggle for 5 minutes before realizing I was gonna be on my own with the whole balloon situation. We laughed about it ( eventually) and I told him with 3 kids this is a skill I’m gonna need him to get proficient at……..next birthday is October so he has a deadline!

I bought a lot of the Beatrix Potter characters in stuffed animal form to use on the tables which doubled as Cosettes’ birthday presents. On Etsy I also found a vintage Jemima Puddle Duck bank for her. Our current house does not have much counter space so I ended up with more ideas than space to use them. 

Our local super store chain, Meijer had cut Pussy Willow branches that fit in well. I also got a few spring/gardeny type flower arrangements from Costco as well as some pink tulips. My mom it usually my florist but since she was out of town I knew I needed to have it be something I could mostly plop in a vase and have it look nice. The rest of the décor centered around different fruits and vegetables you could find in a garden. So purple and green heads of cabbage, brussel sprouts, mini watermelons, eggplant, bell peppers, artichokes and radishes. 

 I do want to interject though…….nothing goes completely as planned or meets all of our expectations and hopes – I had a couple vegetable/flower arrangements I was hoping to try that never happened, I hadn’t changed out of my pajamas before the guests arrived because I was getting flowers in vases still, Cosette didn’t want to keep her adorable birthday crown on for a picture………..nothing is perfect but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. The kids won’t remember any of that little stressful to me stuff and I am learning to let things slide, and I’m glad I did because overall it turned out how I was planning and we had a special first birthday for our sweet girl and wonderful family to enjoy it with us. All of the big things were in place.

Cosette is a sweet girl and we cannot wait to celebrate more birthdays with her and see how her and her big sister and brother grow. We pray everyday for God to lead them on His path, keep them close to Him and help us be the parents they need us to be.

If you want to see my Pinterest idea board you can find it on my Housesaladino pinterest page. The board is titled Cosette First Birthday.

I’ve linked most of the things from the party below including what she got for presents.