Chloe's Birthday Party

I can't believe my baby is a year old now! We celebrated with a big party for Chloe. I had the idea of a Japanese theme since I had her (we all know I've been obsessed with Japanese cherry blossoms lol), and while we were in Japan I got a few more ideas and since then I've been collecting even more ideas for the party. But I didn't really start putting it together until the beginning of January and then actually began working on all of it until just two weeks before her party. Those two weeks before her party were a little rough too, because Jed was working 24/7 (literally he didn't come a few nights) on his senior project. I even had to go help him a few days/nights with it, so it was kind of a chaotic time and my little sister's birthday was a few days before the party so I was busy doing things for her too. Unfortunately, I had to scale back on some of the things I had planned just because I couldn't get all of it done in time. But it all worked out and I was able to do it on a small budget (which is always a great thing) because everything was borrowed and the supplies were all on sale.

I wanted to do a Japanese theme since my family has tons of decorations and outfits that I was able to use for the party and when we move I won't have access to them anymore. My friend, Tory, also had a ton of extra decorations too. Plus, we bought kimonos while we were in Japan and needed an excuse to use them. :) I decorated the apartment with cherry blossoms (Jed even bought me plug in oil scented as Japanese cherry blossoms for Christmas just so I could use it for the party). The idea I wanted for the party was a Japanese cherry blossom viewing picnic. In Japan there's a tradition of going to view the cherry blossoms and people still wear kimonos and eat some of the traditional street food. (side note: Chloe means blossoming... perfect huh?)

I made some of the traditional food (I cut out a lot of the hard core Japanese food, just because I didn't think everyone would eat it). I made labels for everything in Japanese with the English translations underneath. I made cranes to hold the labels for the food and drinks and tiny cranes for toothpicks for the food too. For drinks, I got Japanese sodas along with bottled water that I made labels for. Jed and my brother, James, did an amazing job making all of the yummy food. Tory also lent me a gorgeous wedding kimono that I used as the backdrop for the food table and I glued cherry blossoms onto branches I got from a guy who was pruning his trees up the street from us.

For the rest of the decorations, I bought some pink and white lanterns, and decorated the white lanterns with flowers. My brother, Robert, let me use his samurai helmet and my mom let me use the emperor and empress dolls. I also hung the picture Robert drew of Chloe of when she was five months old outside. It was such a beautiful picture I just had to use it as a feature. Tory also had a curtain divider that we put up as another fun decoration.

We also had some extra kimonos so some of the guests were able to dress up if they wanted to.

We had lots of family that made it to Chloe's first birthday. Most of my family was there along with Jed's sister's family. And of course, we had lots of friends and kids too. (We need a bigger place lol)

I made Chloe's cakes for her party. The big one was a chocolate cake with cherry filling and my grandma's lemon custard and was covered with a chocolate truffle frosting and fondant cherry blossoms I made. It says Happy Birthday "Chloe". The smaller cake was a chocolate cake filled with caramel and a strawberry buttercream and covered with ganash and more fondant flowers. Tory also had the miniatures of the emperor dolls so I didn't have to make those myself like I was originally planning on doing :)

Chloe was so cute when she got her piece of cake. Jed put a fork on her plate so I could feed her, but of course we wanted to see her just dig into the cake herself. So Chloe goes and it looks like she was just going to go fists in, but instead grabbed the fork and tries to cut the cake and feed herself. It was her first time using a fork too! (I guess I should let her try to feed herself more often) She was so dainty about the entire thing, but it was so precious and she was a mess.

We had a great time at her party. Thank you everyone who was able to make it such a special day and help us celebrate Chloe turning one. We missed those who weren't able to attend too. And a special thanks to Tory for everything I borrowed to make it such a fun party and to my amazing sisters in law who provided pictures so we can always remember this special event.