Picking a location to celebrate this joyous occasion was the easy part – after having spent the best part of the past year in Centennial Park, this was simply a matter of deciding which of all the beautiful locations would be our favourite. In the end, we decided on Pascale's tree – yep, this tree actually has a name - a beautiful spot with plenty of trees to provide much needed shade and a backdrop for our festive home-made bunting.
For the cakes, I resorted to Nigella’s guide to a domestic goddess, a treasured birthday gift from Pienkel that’s inspired me to try my hand at home-baked delights. In this case – it being typical Aussie summers’ day – I went for plain cakes (including a lemon loaf cake, an almond cake, an orange poppyseed cake and a big stack of vanilla cupcakes) that could withstand the 30 degree plus temperatures. Thanks to my lovely friends, without whom we definitely wouldn’t have been able to pull all this off, we also served delicious chocolate caramel brownies, Dutch apple pie, zucchini slices and a cheese platter.
To celebrate the past year – and relive those beautiful moments that have just flown by – we also added some “real” baby bunting, in the form of a photo for every month of the year. Glued onto patterned cardboard and pegged to a piece of string with some festive heart-shaped pegs, it added a festive touch to the party, and reminded us all of those beautiful moments in our little girl’s life.
All in all, it was a beautiful “end” to a beautiful first year, and a brilliant start of her life as a one year old. Here's to many more!
