Emilia’s First Birthday

Last weekend we celebrated Emilia’s first birthday in San Diego with family and close friends.

This is so completely cliche but I can’t stress enough how quickly time flies. This year has felt like a whirlwind, from an unexpected eleven day stay at the hospital after Emilia was born, to experiencing postpartum depression that I didn’t experience with my first. It was also a major adjustment for me to be a stay at home mom, in a new city with no family and friends that we can rely on. It was literally THE HARDEST YEAR OF OUR LIVES.

But despite that, it was by far THE MOST REWARDING.

Having a second child is magical on so many levels. And having a family of four with one boy and one girl has been a dream of mine since I could remember. I always envisioned myself with the family I have and my dream literally has come true.

Watching Gabriel become such a good big brother and be so overprotective over Emilia is the most precious thing ever. It makes my heart melt and I pray that they will remain close their entire lives.

As exhausting and chaotic and messy having kids is, I would not trade this life for anything.

We decided to have Emilia’s birthday party in San Diego because that is where most of our close family and friends are. It was a small party with about 25 adults, 8 kids and a ton of food! If you’ve ever been to a Filipino party before, you know what I’m talking about! It rained pretty much the entire weekend but we caught a break on Saturday during her party and actually saw the sun peek through for a moment.

We dressed Emilia up in the cutest pink dress tutu dress that I purchased on Amazon. It’s pink and gold with the word One written on the front. It was only $10.99 which I thought was a great deal for her birthday attire!

I also purchased all her decorations on Amazon mainly for the convenience and lack of time.

To decorate the area where she would “smash” her cake, I got this gold foiled Happy Birthday banner for $10.99. The quality of the banner is really great, very sturdy and it didn’t look cheap at all. It could definitely be used multiple times.

I also purchased this DIY Party Garland for $9.95 which FYI was a huge pain to put together but turned out really cute! As well as this gold foiled number one balloon kit for $9.59 and a 20 piece pink and gold pom pom and hassel garland for $24.89.

All the decorations turned out really pretty and it was perfect for our Princess theme.

Speaking of Princess theme, her cake was a red velvet princess cake with a crown on top that we ordered from Sylvia’s Cakes. We also got her a smash cake that was vanilla flavored and no baby girl’s party is complete without cupcakes. Everything was really good but my favorite (as always) was the red velvet cake.

We are so happy that we got to spend Emilia’s first birthday with family and friends in San Diego. She won’t remember it but we’ll have the hundreds of photos we took to show her how special her day was.