Two days ago, on October 4th, Clementine Eloise turned 1 year old! It seems like I should be used to how fast time goes by but this past year has absolutely been the fastest of them all.
Ever since Clementine was tiny, I dreamt of a clementine themed first birthday party. I daydreamed about different decorations and foods. And in my mind, it was all perfect. But as the months went by, and our calendar filled up, I realized how difficult it would be to plan and execute an entire party during this busy season. So I decided that we would just do a little cake smash photo shoot with all her siblings watching and cheering her on.
Party Details: I collaborated with Fancy Free Finery for Clementine’s cake topper and headband. The colors that Katie (owner of FFF) chose were perfect and truly completed my vision!//The romper is a thrift store find from a few years ago. The tag says h&m.//Shoes are from Starry Knight Design.//And the clementine felt garland is something I had custom made by Hooray Everyday before Clementine was born.
Of course my “easy” photoshoot wouldn’t have been complete without last minute driving around to stores to get supplies. But in the end, everything turned out how I pictured. Well, except Clementine’s reaction–which I’ll get to in a minute.
Being the classy baker that I am, I splurged on a box cake mix and icing in a can for her cake. I dressed it up with the finest of faux greenery and rested my masterpiece upon a wooden (I think it’s supposed to be a base for a DIY clock) base. And of course, topped with our beautiful cake topper from Fancy Free Finery.
Oh yeah! The balloons! The balloons were basically the inspiration for the whole thing. After finding inspiration for our gender reveal from the Oh Happy Day instagram feed, I scrolled through their pictures and it gave me the idea to make a clementine with balloons. As far as I know, they have never made a clementine so there were no instructions. But it’s obviously pretty easy and doesn’t require a DIY. The hardest part was just keeping the balloons stuck to the wall because their weight was a bit heavy for the tape. 
This picture of her walking/running away pretty much describes her personality currently. She’s still about 50/50 with walking and crawling but she loves to practice her walk. And she finds that the best time to practice is when I’m trying to get pictures of her. So that’s fun.
It may not show on these first pictures as much, but Clementine was actually sick on her birthday. She was one of the unlucky few in our family that got hit with the stomach bug. I could tell she was not acting like her normal self but it became pretty clear when she threw up later that day. Poor baby girl! I’m glad that we managed to get a few happy pictures of her though!
The picture of Clem with her parents, taken by Kai ^^ It totally cracks me up because she wanted nothing to do with it.
We actually started taking pictures in the high chair but she kept crying. So then we attempted on the floor. Then she kept crawling away. Since she had just woken up from a nap and hadn’t had any real food, I ended up feeding her a bit in hopes of her destroying her cake afterwards.
I did manage to capture a few smiles. But overall, she did not enjoy the experience. The one chance I give her to go crazy and make a mess–and she is not interested at all. She hated being messy.
After a little bit, we gave her a fork and she cheered up for a couple of minutes…
Until she finally realized that, nope! She didn’t enjoy this all. Cake smash fail! But I got some adorable pictures…so is it really a fail? You decide!
This past year with Clem in our lives has been the best year! We have loved having her sweet personality in our home, making all of us smile daily. We are all 100% obsessed with her. I have a hard time imagining her being a big sister but I know she will grow into her role beautifully. To the little one year old who wakes me up every morning by saying “mama, mama, mama,” we love you dearly and we’re so blessed to have you in our family!
If you want to read Clementine’s birth story, click HERE.
These group shots with the kids are sometimes the most difficult to get, but always my most treasured.
We went to a family camp with our church this past weekend and ended up coming home with sickness. Thankfully the stomach bug has only hit a few (so far) but the allergy/asthma issues that are sticking around are becoming a bigger issue. I had to spend a couple of hours of Clementine’s birthday yesterday at the doctor with Liam as he received breathing treatments. We came home with a nebulizer and a jittery kid from getting medication around the clock. Poor kid. But hopefully we’re moving past this and we’ll be back to a healthy household soon!