Hello Lovely!

It’s official, Arya & Ayla are one year old! Just thinking about how quickly their first year has flown by has me quite emotional 😭... It seems like just yesterday we were bringing them home from the hospital. Now, they are taking their first steps, blabbing to one another in the wee hours of the morning, feeding themselves, & acting like independent young women. Okay, they still need me for just about everything, but they aren’t nearly as dependent as they were just a few months ago.

I am so thankful to be their mother. I cannot even imagine my life without them & as hard as it has been caring for the two of them at the same time, I would not have it any other way. I know Omar feels this way too! There is a saying that goes: I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow 💕. This perfectly sums up the way we feel about Arya & Ayla. To celebrate their first year & our continuously “blossoming” love for them, we decided to throw a floral/garden themed birthday party! Keep scrolling for some of our favorite photos & to see how the girls reacted to trying cake for the very first time!

We catered an assortment of sandwiched from our local Panera Bread & one of my best friends Emily put together a delicious salad. Thanks Em, always a lifesaver!! ! I ordered more than double the amount of sandwiched I though we would need, & they were such a hit that there was not one sandwich left by the time the party was over!

I used a mixture of real & artificial flowers to decorate the space! One of my favorite little details are the wildflower seed packets we used as our party favors, along with the letter board you probably recognize from the girls’ monthly photo updates! Shoutout to my brother’s girlfriend Heather for getting the letter board set up so quickly 🙌! I was rushing to get all the final details finished before our guests arrived & she stepped in to help!

All of the desserts were from our local Whole Foods Market! I special ordered their berry Chantilly cake, without the berries on top, & decorated it with fresh roses. I have personally never been a big fan of cake, but this was hands down one of the best cakes I have ever had! The Chantilly frosting is so light, nothing like the thick sugary buttercream I am used to seeing on cakes. My mom gifted all of the cakes & cupcakes to the girls as part of their birthday gift, which was incredibly generous 🙏! Thank you mom (she’s in the green blouse below)!

We ordered smaller versions of the berry Chantilly cake so the girls could each have their own to “smash”. I absolutely love the salmon shade of the roses I placed on top! Fresh flowers are such an easy & relatively inexpensive way to decorate cakes. Also, how stunning are the peachy pink roses some of our dear family friends got for the girls? They almost look like peonies with the ruffle edged petals 😍. Does anyone know what type of roses these are? I would love to get some more!

I had never made a balloon arch/garland before, but had my mind set on creating one for the girls’ birthday party… If it hadn’t been for my mom’s help & encouragement, I probably would have given up about three hours into the process.. It took me a total of five hours to make this darn garland, but I think that was because of my technique 😅. With that being said, it was totally worth it, & after watching a few instructional videos on YouTube, I feel like it will go much smoother the next time around. We used this balloon garland kit & this air pump (at least we were able to save some time inflating the balloons, my mom was able to inflate all the balloons in about 30 minutes with it)!

We managed to get a few family photos that weren’t totally blurry! The girls were moving around like crazy because they were having so much fun & did not want to miss out on any of the action!

This was the first time we had ever given the girls cake, & I was so curious to see 1. If they would even like it & 2. What they would do with it! Arya, in her typical fashion, dug right into her cake, while Ayla just poked around skeptically. She is so much more dainty than Arya & it cracks me up. Here are some of their cake smash photos, as well as a few we took while singing happy birthday!

Ayla was a bit skeptical & so delicate with her cake! The only reason she had frosting on her face is because Omar tried to get her to eat a bit & totally missed her mouth! 😅👇

Arya wasted no time & quickly began disassembling her cake! She didn’t eat very much, but managed to get cake bits & frosting all over her face, dress, & the floor in the processes. 😂👇

What a perfect day! I hope the girls had as much fun as we did celebrating their first year of life! I don’t think they will ever truly understand how much we love them until they have children of their own.

Thank you to everyone who joined us & helped make this day so special! We are beyond blessed to have such wonderful family & friends!

Yours Truly, Victoria

Here are Arya & Ayla’s monthly photos I took throughout their first year, as well as one of the beautiful newborn photos taken by Petite Studios (she is the best)! I am so happy I documented their growth & will always cherish these photos! Enjoy!

I tried finding links for all of the decorations we used, as well as the girls’ dresses & mine! You can click on any of the images below & you will be redirected directly to the source. 👇

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