My baby girl, Nora, is turning one and to celebrate, we hosted an intimate gathering of 20-ish people at my parents house in Seattle. Deciding on the theme for the party wasn’t too difficult since Nora is such a dainty little princess who eats her food one bite at a time and can seriously rock a tutu. So we chose the equally dainty butterfly for decoration and the colors that look best on her, pink and purple. Check out her party!
Nora wore her fuzzy pink crown for the entire party and yelled at anyone who took it off and she, of course, wore a pink tutu dress to fit the special occasion. For decorations, we went to Party City, the ultimate party store for kids and adults, and purchased pink and purple plates, napkins and cups covered in butterflies and flowers and bought extra bright pink cups and plastic silverware to top off the look. We did have to buy some blue cups so Zach would drink from them since he won’t eat or drink from anything pink. “That’s for girls,” he says.
For lunch, we served pizza, macaroni and cheese, a big bowl of caesar salad, watermelon, strawberries, cucumbers, and snacks. The food wasn’t necessarily pink and purple, but you have to feed the crowed, right? When everyone was finished with lunch, the pink and purple really came out!
First came the five layers cake, made with homemade cake batter, food coloring and Duncan Hines whipped frosting. For the original layer cake recipe, click here. Inside were luscious layers of pink and purple cake stacked between vanilla packaged frosting. You can make your own frosting if you don’t want the cake to be too sweet. I suggest making homemade whipped cream and adding vanilla pudding powder to thicken it up.  Â
I actually matched the cake and it wasn’t on purpose! I mean, I did make the cake and knew exactly what colors were in it so I subconsciously could have put on my pink and purple shirt to match.
We sang happy birthday and blew out the large purple #1 candle with Nora. To be honest, I’m not sure she had any clue what was going on around her. She just wanted to eat. 
Along with the pink and purple layer cake were vanilla cupcakes with more Duncan Hines whipped frosting and each was topped with a fondant flower or butterfly in pink, purple, orange and yellow. To make the shapes, I purchased Wiltons Ready-To-Use Rolled Fondant in neon colors at Michaels, rolled each color with a rolling-pin and cut out the fun shapes using fondant cutters. You can also use small cookie cutters if you don’t want to purchase fondant cutters, but I know I will use them again.
And then Nora ate! Thank you to Aunty Francine for shoving a cupcake in to her face for laughs. Nora enjoyed every last bite of that cupcake while all of our guests chowed down on dessert.
Happy 1st birthday Nora! Your Mommy, Daddy and big brother Zachy love you so much. 
