her 1st party.

So are you ready for my party rant? :)

Sunday morning, party day, Ronnie and I prepped the food sides and dessert (my first time making cake pops and they actually came out SO GOOD!) All was good and running smoothly until right before we had to leave. Let me break it down for you...

• 1:15 - Shit. V is still napping  (and you know you never wake a sleeping child).
• 1:30 - V decides to finally wake up and I still need to get her dressed.
• 1:35 Ronnie leaves to the park to take my boxes of décor, food, etc.
• Did I mention we were supposed to be at the park to set up the party at 1:30?
• 1:40 I get V loaded up and ready to leave. HOLYEFFSHIT! My keys are in my purse. In Ronnie's car. Immediately call Ronnie and he races back.
• 1:45 Ronnie shows up, literally throws the keys to me and races back to the park.
• 1:55 We finally arrive to set up for our 2:00 party!! Fun times made even more awesome when 10 of your 30 guests are already there!! AGH!!!

(And in case you were wondering why we didn't set up much earlier, it's because we only had the pavilion from 1:30-5:30. Thirty minutes to set up would've been plenty - had we been on time.)

Then. THEN. None of my decorations would stay put. The weather was great but it was windy and even windier under the pavilion. So...

• More than half of the décor had to stay in the bins, including my adorable favor bags.
• My cake pops wouldn't even stand up (And more than half were eaten within the first half hour. WTF.)
• My picture frames had to be taped down (classy)
• The kids were gone at the play area most of the time so the piñata never got hit.
• I took oh, about 5 pictures (Still waiting on some from family) 
• V had to wear a jacket covering her adorable shirt, for almost the entire party (oh and in the mad rush I'd misplaced the special headband I had ordered just for that day!! agh)

That's all fine though. The part that upsets me the most is that *I* didn't take more pictures. It's hard when you're running the shindig and even harder when the whole afternoon felt so rushed ya know? So no pictures of the little details, favor bags, none of the food table and hardly any of me WITH Violet. It was just a crazy time and I'm curious to see what pictures my family actually captured! The few I have are ones that I took with my phone and some that my friend took, mostly from across the room because she didn't want to butt in while we were with family or other friends. (SILLY.)

womp womp. Not the dessert table I'd planned on but it did the trick.

the party // love this one of her // Checking out the piñata that never got hit

Girl never wanted to be put down. See?

She finally wanted down when she saw a "big kid" playing. She's loving big kids lately.

So my party didn't end up Pinterest worthy like I'd hoped and nothing went as planned BUT we had a good time, our guests had a good time, Violet got a lot of love and gifts and it was fun for what it was.

But let me just say - I'm glad it's over.

I'm grateful we did it for her 1st because it's a big birthday and a fun one to celebrate but from now on, NO PARTIES. At least not until she starts asking for them. Birthdays will be just a day spent with her and maybe some friends and any celebrating we do will be at our house with just immediate families. I think the fun (and stress) of this party was enough to hold us over for a while ;)

I feel guilty for bitching so much! Please tell me I'm not the only mom who feels this way about parties?!