Elena's First Birthday: Growing "Up"

First, I want to thank all of my wonderful foodie friends that participated in cupcake's virtual baby shower yesterday. Please make sure to visit Eva Bakes for all of the scrumptious cupcake posts for my sweet little cupcake. He will be here sometime next week!Wow. It seems like it was just yesterday that I had announced my sweet little "cookie" aka Elena was born. I still remember the day when I went into labor quite vividly because I had literally started my maternity leave that afternoon and had pains and aches all day long that I couldn't shake off.

The moment Elena had entered our lives, our days and nights have been filled with so much love, excitement and pure bliss. Elena has the sweetest and most contagious smile, she's a ball of energy, and has been the biggest and best highlight of our year. She's definitely one of the best things Eric and I have "cooked" up. 

Since Eric and I were team green for Elena's pregnancy, we chose a neutral theme for the nursery. I wanted something playful, fun and a room that our child would love. One of my favorite Pixar movies was "Up" and I know the first ten minutes are the hardest part of the movie, but the overall themes in the movie celebrated so much that I adored. The themes of love, loss, loneliness, fear, excitement, adventure, inspiration and so much hope for life. 

Of course, I wanted to celebrate Elena's first birthday with the "Up" theme because it had meant so much to us. The balloons and the rainbows of color seemed like the perfect way to celebrate Elena's big day. Plus, it would be our little way of saying goodbye to it before we move her into her new room.  Her little brother will be taking over her nursery, but he is getting a fun playful Lego-themed nursery. 

Some of the simple decor elements included: An instagram collage of Elena from the year and a milestone poster to display some of her fave things. 

Since I was fully baked (37 weeks) at the time of Elena's birthday party, I knew that I couldn't handle too much work for her party. I didn't want her little brother to make a guest appearance! Thankfully, I had lots of help - Eric and my mom were the cooks that day and handled the majority of food prep. My girlfriend had came extra early to set up the decorations and my cousin/Elena's godmother, came over the night before to bake up Elena's smash birthday cake and cupcakes. 

We hosted a small family party for about 35 adults and kids, we have a large immediate family! We had a simple Filipino-inspired menu: Chicken adobo cooked on the BBQ, my mom's pansit noodles, steamed rice, mixed salad and lumpia that we had ordered from a Filipino bakery. Plus, for dessert the strawberry cupcakes and Elena's smash cake that we baked the night before. 

One of my sisters has a silhouette and was able to use of Elena's pictures and created a silhouette of Elena and we pasted it on an 8x10 canvas. I used this as guestbook thumbprint artwork for everyone and this will be displayed in her new room. 

The best part of the day was singing Happy Birthday to Elena. I sat next to her and saw her face absolutely light up with glee from all of our family singing to her. I literally choked up a bit and could barely sing along because I was fighting the tears. It was then that it hit me and I realized that my sweet baby was a big girl and officially a toddler!

My sweet Elena you fill my heart with so much love and joy that it literally explodes with happiness for you. You are definitely Papi's little girl and have him wrapped around your itty bitty finger because he melts like butter for you. But you will forever be my sweet baby Elena. We can't wait to see what the next year will bring. We love you Elena!

Vendor Information:

Up Invitations from Etsy: Spare Time Prints

Elena's custom flower headband from Etsy: Jameson Monroe

Birthday Onesie from Etsy: The Peachy Owl

Instagram Collage Prints from Persnickety Prints

Rainbow Tutu & Highchair Tutu: Made by me

Milestone Poster: Made by me using PSE

Sticky & Sweet Asian Meatballs

Happy Friday!

I know it's been forever since I have updated my neglected food blog. It has been a few hectic weeks and I'm finally getting caught up here. We recently celebrated Elena's 1st year birthday and baptism, and I plan on sharing some of my favorite birthday pictures next week. And more importantly, cupcake hasn't made an appearance just yet, we have 10 more days to go until my scheduled c-section on May 13....unless cupcake decides otherwise. I'm almost near the end of my second pregnancy and finally ready for cupcake to join our growing family.

Then I had the worst luck of them all and my computer crashed and I lost some precious photos from the past year and other files on my computer. Some stupid Windows update had malfunctioned or something, and my computer refused to cooperate. I usually back-up my data on my external hard-drive and it was on my agenda of things to do this past week but I never got to it. It was a tough lesson learned and I can't stop kicking myself in the butt for it either. Thankfully, Eric and I have been able to recover many of the lost photos but it's taken all of this week to configure everything back onto my computer. It's been very time-consuming and this time around I'm making sure that I back up everything.

Tiramisu

There are a few desserts that my husband and I typically like to always order whenever we dine out at restaurants. There's the sinfully gooey pizookie (giant cookie cooked in a mini pizza pan), a warm slice of apple pie (ala mode is a must for me), or the creamy and indulgent cheesecake (because making a regular size one at home would require fat buffet pants for the rest of the month). My personal favorite is the ever so decadent tiramisu, an Italian classic dessert that is a coffee lover's dream come true. However, Eric isn't a fan of chocolate desserts, so it's a rare occasion if I can indulge in tiramisu.

I had a sudden craving to make it myself when I saw that my food bloggy girlfriend, Eva, had Tiramisu on her baking bucket list. I don't have a cooking or baking bucket list written down but just a running backlog of recipes in my head that I always want to cook or bake up. It's the desire to complete food challenges to feel a sense of accomplishment and mainly to figure out if homemade desserts taste better at home versus the restaurants, too. And it's always fun to collaborate with my food bloggy community whenever I can especially before my hands will be busy with a newborn. (We have less than a month left until my due date!)