Madison's Hawaiian Luau First Birthday

I thought that maybe I should post Maddy's first birthday party before she turns 3 this year! :) If your looking for fabulous pictures...this is not the post. I was still in the Marine Corps then and we were living in 2 locations. I had a home on base during the week and drove 2 1/2 hours every weekend with Maddy to my real home with hubby in Phoenix. Maddy and I did this for 22 months! So some things just didn't get done.
Maddy's first birthday was a Hawaiian luau at our home. We had approximately 90 people in attendance. Many members from my family flew in from the East Coast.

I didn't take most of these photos but thank God my niece grabbed my camera! I hope this next picture isn't too graphic....why is the knife in the pigs back like that?? Anyway, we had a Hawaiian caterer and you must have a pig roast, right?? The kids loved this....I actually thought they would be scared but especially the boys thought it was so cool!



I filled the pool and spa with blow up beach balls and animals (dolphins, alligators, fish) that I found at $ Tree. I know.....no pics....sorry! If you look real hard you can see a blue dolphin on the left side...click on the picture to make it bigger....see it. I bet we were still blowing up all of the rest when this picture was taken!Sorry no pictures of completed set up however I wanted to show you my $ Tree finds... all of the garland, flowers and swirly things on the tent I got from $ Tree. Cute, huh?? I really wanted a bright and colorful party. Too bad I have no pictures of all of the details...I've learned from my mistakes~hire a photographer!!!!!!!!!!!!Notice my baby and her grass skirt~ oh how they grow too quick! She did awesome at her party even with no nap!What luau would be complete without a luau show? We had an authentic troupe come in to perform. The band was really good.The show lasted about 45 minutes...I loved the kids who danced. There must have been at least a total of 30 performers which about 10 were children.

Here are some members of my family participating in the show.

Maddy had never had cake before this day. She didn't dive into her smash cake as I had anticipated she would. She merely put her finger in the icing. And didn't like it! To this day, she doesn't like icing~she wants the cake only.

We also had snow cone, popcorn, and cotton candy stations. The airbrush tattoo and caricature artists were definitely a favorite. Here is me getting my tattoo of a butterfly.

The party lasted all the way until evening. We lit the fire pit and had smores and the children put on their glow sticks from their favor bags. I know I have a favor bag and her invite here somewhere in my stash so I will post pictures at a later date.

I contacted a photographer today for Madison's Crayola party so you can expect much better photos this year!! Yippee!!

I have taken off the next 2 weeks from doing parties to prepare for some huge events that Maddycakes has and to do some work on my home. We are leaving early tomorrow to go to the mountains so I will post more on that tomorrow night.