miss l’s first luau: all in one post!

The Invitations

The Decorations

We may not have had roast pork… but we did have lots of aloha spirit and luau decorations in the house for Miss L’s first birthday party!

“Hau’oli la hanau” Happy birthday! (And yes… both of those tiki’s are normal décor in our house)

Miss L’s 3 layer paradise cake w/whipped cream frosting!

And lots of paradise “shaved ice” cupcakes to go with them! (thanks to JustJennRecipes for the amazing idea!)

The menu was all island inspired favorites: terriyaki beef, huli huli chicken, macademia nut hummus, pineapple stir fry and coconut rice with fruit salad.

And no Hawaiian party is complete without a selection of Hawaiian Sun beverages (one of my favorite island indulgences). We also had rum punch prepared with one of Mr. M’s favorite recipes from the islands and lots of Kona Brewing Company beer (Wailua Wheat for the win!) on hand as well. And the bunting? It was everywhere! (Thank you HawaiianFabricShop.com for being oh so wonderful!)

It was hanging in front of the house to greet everyone (and make sure they had come to the right place!)

 

And it was draped on the stairway…

… and pretty much every single place I could plop of string of it up! And there’s still more triangles that could be transformed, but I just ran out of places to hang them!

And, as for that question you’re all asking? What did that cake look like on the inside? Well, three awesome layers of guava, passion fruit/orange and lime chiffon cake! And it was soooooo good, in both the cake and the cupcakes!

The Party!

“Happy Birthday to you!!!”

We all sang happy birthday and then presented Miss L with her giant 3 layer paradise cake. Since this was her first cake EVER we had no idea what she’d do. And I’m certain this was the most food she’s ever had in front of her at one time!

So….

She went for the one finger approach!

Dad tried to coax her on to take bigger bites…

… but she just wasn’t in a CAKE SMASH kind of mood I guess!

Nope… just one finger is good enough for her!

At that point, we passed out the cupcakes to everyone!

Unfortunately, we didn’t post a disclaimer NOT to use the straw AS a straw.

By this point, someone hit overload with still that one finger… and moved on to the playing part!

The hit of the party with the little ones was the brand new Cozy Coupe.

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There was lots of teamwork going on as “assisted” rides were being given all day long by the bigger kids.

And of course there was time to play with lots of blocks too!

Ah… blocks and bows! These things are the best!

The Photobooth!

For Miss L’s party, I decided to drag out my uber geeky craftroom creation: my homemade photobooth! I’ll post a little later about it (and how you can easily make one yourself!), but for now… here are some of the fun photos from the party! (Everyone got to take home a printed 4×6 copy as their favor)