We had the best time celebrating our girl turning one! Her party was originally planned for January 22 (3 days after her birthday) …but Anna Stephens ended up testing positive for COVID on her birthday (not fun!) and Luke and I had it as well, so we had to postpone the party to the next Saturday, January 29! We tried to view it as keeping the party fun going all month long 🙂

I began to dream up her party theme when she was only a few months old, as we read Joanna Gaines’ book “The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be” … the hot air balloons were so cute, but the message especially is what drew me in. Our prayer for Anna Stephens is that she grows up to know that the world does indeed need her, exactly as she was made to be, by our perfect God…who loves her, fashioned her, and has great plans for her.

We pray we always champion her, encourage her gifts, help her as she will inevitably fail and remind her that our failures do not define us, but how we react and use them to move forward says a great deal about our character. We had all of our guests sign the book with a little note for her and I hope she cherishes it one day. I pray she will never doubt God’s handprints all over her life…but I know she will, because she’s a little human who has already shown us that you don’t have to teach a baby to sin LOL … but when she does, Luke and I (and so many others) will be there to remind her the world needs Anna Stephens Hamilton!

Just for my memory … the party was such a cold day and we had a lot of guests for our modest house size … but we had a fire and a heater outside, rearranged our living room for more walking space, and just had so much fun being with our people, no matter how crowded.

We enjoyed chickfila nuggets, chips, a dip tray and some cheese & crackers. The cupcakes and cake were from Publix and they did an amazing job!

We enjoyed visiting with one another, watching AS play with her little friends, singing happy birthday and watching her smash her cake (she did great!), opening so many fun and thoughtful presents, and taking pictures with friends! We had an imovie that I made of her first year of life playing in the background, which was a sweet reminder of just how much FUN the past year has been with our babygirl.