Kalia's First Luau

Since as long as I can remember, I have abslutely loved entertaining. I love the opportunity to gather the people I love the most, and celebrate our family, our friends, and/or the holidays. In Tonga, birthdays are not often celebrated. First birthday’s are a BIG deal, but after that they don’t celebrate until 16, and then not again until 18/grduation/mission, and then soemtimes 21! As we strive to keep the culture of Tonga alive in our home as well as we can, we are three for three on going ALL OUT for first birthday’s! :]

We spend days preparing the menu and deciding on the food, deciding the theme and gathering those decorations, and we’ve made it a tradition to take a first year photo! I had the most fun so far, panning for and prepping their first birthday parties! Maybe because Kalia is a girl, or because I have taught myself skills in the last several years to be better prepared for stuff like this, I had SO much fun decorating for her birthday. You see, I have spent my entire life opperating on the last minute. I am used to practrastinating, and then pulling it together at the last second. Even, and most times, a litle bit late. But it always gets done! ;)

I love keeping things simple, and cute. We stay pretty minimal on the decorations, because in our house it’s all about the food! Nu’u and our family spend 6 hours rotating the pig above the fire by hand. Most people don’t realize what truly goes into getting a pig roasted, and the men in our family are too humble to take the recognition. It’s a part of life for them. But it’s incredible to me!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy some photos from the most perfect little girl’s first birthday. It was definitely one for the books! <3

I am pretty proud of this balloon garland and banner I made by hand! I used my new cricut to cut the letters out of some cute gold glitter carsick, and strung them on some yarn. The balloons and greenery are all assembled by using chicken wire! I had SO much fun making this stuff, and was very proud of how things turned out! <3

Cake and mini cupcakes are always from TSP Baking Company in Vegas :]