A year ago on Valentines Day was our first full day home from the hospital with our baby girl so it only seemed appropriate that we share her with everyone a year later and celebrate a year of loving her with a tea party! A tea party that was completely overboard I might add- just like her mommy and daddy’s love for her! 
I had worked for months at collecting tea cups, putting banners together, becoming Etsys number one consumer, and finding vintage serving platters at Home Goods and multiple antique stores!! 
I will say it’s one of the most fun parties i have ever thrown! Oh Lola thank God your a girl!!
In the last few hours of prepping it finally all came together and we exhaled… kind of… I never really exhale until the second people are walking in the door- theirs always something else to be done right?
…And we just had to have a photo session teaching Lola what a real tea party is all about before her guest arrived!!!
… and she’s off! 
Oh well we got the basics down and Lola was ready!
At 3:30 it was party time and Lola and I were frazzled, humbled, flattered and overwhelmed to welcome ALL of our guest!
Here’s a few shots of Lola’s decorations… I could not thank Lou, Brittany- our sweet nanny, Kayla and Krista, my mom and sister enough for all the help getting it to come together for our girls big day!
I had searched for a wooden spindle high chair for months literally all over craigslist, antique stores facebook etc. and the week before Lola’s party Brittany found this one for me AND picked it up for only 25$ a WIN!!
I was so bummed about Lolas chalkboard sign we got off Etsy… It turned out adorable but I had to guess on Lola’s weight by putting both of us on the scale and I went with a good “20lbs”… So I emailed all the information to the girl and the day after it came to us we went to the doctor to find out Lola only weighed 17 pounds and not 20… oops! 
We had the living painted the week before Lolas party to match the den Alex had painted earlier last month! I’m loving the brightness of it all and we decided to go ahead and dedicate the living room to being a permanent “Tea Room” in honor of Lola :)
Here’s Lolas tea table that was Ana’s when she was younger- you can imagine how much I loved having it as a center piece to Lolas first birthday party!!
It was quite the hit for the girls to have a “real” tea party!
I had mommoms full tea set out on the bookshelf that she gave to Lola before she passed and she also gave us these fancy stirring spoons- she was quite the fancy one! 
This sign (above) was the one that did me over… I had torn a ton of cute vintage scrapbook sheets of paper to decoupage it with weeks before the party but had not hung it up yet….
So the night before the party about 3am I was literally a zombie hanging it up… a very dumb zombie.
Oh these signs!!!!
Which makes us LOVE our signs and banner ten times more from Whitfield signs that Dana made- and not just because we didn’t have to make them!
I absolutely love it and Dana helped the designer match our invitations perfectly!!
The tea cart below the sign was also Mommoms, I was obsessed with it when i was younger, she always had it in her dining room filled with after dinner drinks and cookies that we would rummage through after each of her famous meals! It’s fancy too and from Italy! We love it and are so happy she picked us to have it for our own families’ after dinner goodies now!
If only it had come with a bottle of Limoncello! ;)
The fireplace held the banner that represented Lola’s month by month pictures!! 
Mom got Lola this adorable plate for her birthday (amongst MANY other things) so i quickly whipped it out before guest arrived to use as a decoration! 
These blocks are typically in Lolas nursery, I made them while I was pregnant with the girl just a few weeks before having her but i had to pull them out since they matched her theme so well! 
I felt like the den was neglected of tea party decor just before party time so Alex helped me with these windows from our attic by stapling some pink fabric behind them to “Lola-fy” things up a bit!
I love how they turned out! 
I set up a table in the living room as a “Lola table” where guest could sign her guest book which was a “The Year of Lola” book filled with pictures and milestones from her first year!
Daddy had a few surprises for me up his sleeve on Lolas big day too… he learned how to “press” copper and made a longitude, latitude bracelet for me with the coordinates of the exact spot we met and got engaged at on the beach!
He also made this charm and bangle for me with Lolas name and all of our initials!
It pays having a talented Daddy Lou! 
I absolutely love this tea cup holder mom and I found at an antique store and JJ found the cutest tea cups about a month ago at a photo shoot in Newnan and literally talked the person into selling them to her!
Lola you may not know it yet but that is LOVE ;)
Mom also found these cute letters for me to spell out “Lola Is One” and i sent Tara outside to spray paint them pink an hour before the party started… whew! 
I just love how it all came together! 
I think mom and I bought ten bags of these frosted animal crackers to fill up the vases… now what to do with them…. Tucker… Milly! 
Between the banners and the “Princess Popcorn” favors mom and I were delirious by the time our heads hit the pillow that night… ok… that morning!
Speaking of which…. this was our “We Survived” bar! 
Ok, ok back to the party!! 
Lola was getting so excited to see everyone! 
I have literally won the friend lottery with these girls! Never in my life did i know or expect to have such sweet generous and supportive friends shower our baby girl with their love constantly! Lola may grow up thinking she is the most loved little girl in the world (with more aunts than most) thanks to these sweet friends!
Kayla and Lance came over early on accident and I put them to work “throw that in a closet, put this here, shove that there”. Lance says i was in “Jen party mode”…. good boy Lance!
We were SO excited and so flattered and humbled that my sweet sweet friends from Statesboro hauled their hubbies, kids and selves ALL the way to Atlanta and sacrificed a romantic valentines day together to instead- be with us to celebrate our girls first birthday. It honestly brought me to tears before Lolas party just knowing how much of an effort everyone went through to be there for her.
I love doing life with these girls!
I often joke that these three, Harper, Emery and Kailey are Lolas only friends! Ok so it’s not a joke but what do you want from a baby who stays home with her nanny all day and her only neighbors are widows 60 and over!?!?
That’s ok, the three of you are all she needs and baby Wilkes coming in August!!
Aunt Tara and Harper taught Lola well- next thing i knew she was tipping her head back to “sip tea”!
Our spread included the most southern tea party must haves that we could think of.. Chicken salad bites, pimento cheese, sweet tea, pralines and cheese straws!
Lola and Gigi, were hard at work baking and cooking for days!
Uncle Andy and daddy had Lola cracking up! 
I love this picture of everyone taking her picture…. sums up her first year very well!
Tucker and Milly were so excited for Lolas big day! We never put them outside for ANYTHING that is simply to benefit us but our house was literally shrinking the more everyone arrived and to my surprise they were more content than ever sitting out on the patio!
Lola of course had to keep going to check on them with her daddy, she swears they are her babies!
So we decided before doing cake we better get a “good picture” in case she ruins her outift with cake- ha wishful thinking!
Pulling my hair, daddy’s face and oh wait Hey TJ!
98464747 pictures later and this was the best we could get!?!?!
Yes sadly only about 5 were salvageable with a one year old who is not cooperative when doing the whole “1,2,3 smile Lola”!
That tongue! I would have been better off giving her her paci! 
Well there you have it…. wait what?
You didn’t see a cute one with her smiling?
Yeah well, me either!
Let’s call it quits and settle for none of us looking! 
Time for CAKE!!! 
Is this moment really here!?!?!
Thankfully my child was extra “child like” that day so anytime where I could have been the slightest bit emotional Lola decided to be emotional for me! 
Shocker… this whole sing and cake thing didn’t go so well either!! 
Note to self…. probably should have practiced sitting in the high chair before birthday party cake time…. she wasn’t used to the new chair, had never seen a cake before and their was over 30 people singing to her starring at her and taking pictures!
The perfect recipe for….. a meltdown!
Bless her heart she could barely see over the cake!
Can we get a “it’s my party and I’ll cry if i want to!”
It’s ok Lola, it was a bad idea anyway! Let’s move on to presents! 
The first present from my grama, cousin Jessica and aunt Doreen had a ton of confetti and party wrappings in it! I think if we had stopped there it would have been the best birthday present of all for Lola! Ha
I have been out of the loop with kids parties for a while apparently! I forgot how excited they get and come crowd around the presents to watch the birthday girl open them! It’s the sweetest thing! 
Lola was starting to get the hang of it! 
EVERY baby doll Lola opened she had to give them a hug! Even before they came out the box! 
We were almost done and then Lola hit a wall!
Bless her tired heart! 
Exhaustion and happiness for Lola, Happy First Birthday sweet girl! 
We finished up the last few presents and Lola had just enough energy to do her “Thank you nod”! 
Then I present to you- the after mass!! 
Lola thought she had made it through but we had one more event! I had struggled and struggled as to what to do for an activity for the kids on Lola’s birthday… pin the tail on the teapot, painting teapots and in the end my true colors came out… a pinata!!
So we bundled her up and headed outside! 
The older girls were so excited!! 
The girls were so excited but had no idea that when it breaks you actually run to it and not away from it! 
Now that all my sweet mom friends completely hate me for sending their kids into a sugar coma before sending them home- yup it’s time to wrap this party up!
Good bye pics with everyone! 
Lola was obsessed with Cara and JJ’s glasses! 
You know when you start to get passed tired and a bit delirious…. that was our poor girl! 
Lola just loved having both of her cousins at her party!
We had to test out our new kicks from Ney Ney our fashionista!
If you don’t believe me see for yourself! She has her own boutique now which I am so proud of her for opening!!!
Go to www.bleublushboutique.com and as Ney says “you’ll be blushing in style!”
That is SO a wrap! Our girl had NO nap (does any kid really nap when you really need them to? I swear it’s a thing with Lola!) and she was tired out but did so good on her big day!
Could it be true!?! We survived and kept a newborn alive a whole year!?!?!
Couldn’t have done it without this man by my side!
Just as we all started to clean this little girl started to panic…
So we promised her a cupcake for tricks!
Would you believe Lola started crying when Milly ate the cupcake!?!?! She
She literally has a fear of CAKE! She’s a mess that girl!
The party was over and my baby was fast asleep! So we headed out with our over night guests’ - Stephanie, Joe and Tara to Mexican for margaritas'!
Oh these boys… you know how i mentioned when Lola gets tired she gets delirious… she gets it from her daddy!
They are too much! Then we went home and literally crashed!!
That following Monday we had a snow day and since you know i didn’t have it together enough (or come out of my denial that the party was over and i really did have a one year old now) to take her decorations down we decided it was the perfect day for a little photoshoot with Lola in her birthday dress Gigi got for her!
So we decided while were at it, why don’t we have another try at the birthday cake thing…. 
Top is (obviously)before she saw her cake… below is simply from seeing Alex walk into the room with her cake! 
Oh yes total melt down round two and her daddy has a video- click below!
Well thanks for hanging in there if you made it this far- an overload of pictures, happiness, tears and my blabbering but let’s face it what else do you want from an emotional mama who is now the proud owner of a ONE year old!
We can’t wait to see what this year brings us with you sweet Lola! Lola we know you won’t remember it but your daddy and I had enough fun for you on your big day and I believe everyone else did as well! 
So until we can get our thank you cards out…. thank you to all of our friends and family. Honestly, from the bottom of our hearts you have no idea what it means to us that you were able to spend the day with us!
We are truly blessed!
Cheers to many more tea parties together!! 
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