teddy bear picnic party

After playing teddy bear games with Olaf and Anna, Meredith requested to swing (her favorite!), chowed down on her lunch and salivated over the dessert table. The kids lunch menu consisted of mac n cheese bites and peanut butter honey bear shaped sandwiches, veggies and dip, fruit skewers, veggie straws, teddy grahams and gummy bears. The adults noshed on deli sandwiches, mini BLTs, grilled chicken skewers with lime cilantro glaze, smoked gouda mac n cheese, kettle chips, apple cranberry pecan salad, tortellini pasta salad skewers, “beary” cups filled with blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, salmon spring rolls, and an appetizer basket with grapes, cheese and veggies.

Samantha and Amelia single-handedly took apart the dessert table piece by piece! In many of the pictures and video, you can spot the twins in the background sneaking a rice krispie treat here, a cake pop there, and picking berries off of the fruit tarts! After the party, we had a great time looking at the party photos on our TV at home and zooming in to see if we could spot which treat the twins had stolen. Uncle Mike took video with his GoPro and watching the twins run back and forth from the dessert table periodically was hilarious!

For dessert, we snacked on mini apple pies (complete with lattice top– thanks, Jake!), Jodi’s sugar cookies, Phi’s Coconut Dream Bars and nutella filled macarons, Paul’s gluten free dairy free lemon bars, fruit tarts, bear paw cookies, number one shaped rice krispie treats, strawberry cupcakes I made and frosted, using cute fondant cutouts I found from another baker, and of course the piece de resistance, the chocolate bear cake pops and strawberry cream teddy bear picnic cake from Jennifer.

Birthday swinging.

I was so in love with Jennifer’s teddy bear picnic cake!

It just about killed having to take off the little fondant toppers to cut the cake!

Too cute to eat!

Meredith’s smash cupcake I stayed up until 1 a.m. to frost!

Liam, Leighton and Ashley decide what their next treat will be.

Teddy bear cuteness.

Good choice, Liam!

The family chows down.

Thanks for coming!

Jennifer’s Thing One Thing 2 cake she did for the twins’ birthday a few years ago was just as adorable!

Amelia and Samantha spent most of their time by the dessert table.

Hmmm…for my next selection…

Meredith’s cute plates.

Hanging out with Maple and Phi.

The kids patiently waited for cake time.

It was windy and the candle didn’t light 🙁

Unlike the twins who screamed during their happy birthday singing, Meredith was delighted!

After birthday singing, Meredith took “cake smash” to heart and had a grand time (pictures to come in another post). After cutting the cake, we hung out with everyone and then it was time to pack up!

Meredith and Great Grandpa.

Grandpa and Grammy with the birthday girl and Samantha and Amelia who were so sick of pictures by this point that they flat out refused to care.

Great Aunt Linda and Great Uncle David are always game for a party!

Great Grandpa and Allison and Zack with our cute cousins, Noah and little Hailey.

Ben, Great Uncle Steve, Great Auntie Lynn and Noah popped in for a pic.

Meredith always enjoys hanging with Great Grandpa!

Buddies Owen, Mike and Jessica.

Maple and Meredith are hilarious together. Friends forever1

Love Maple’s bear sweater!

It’s always a blast with Phi, Michael, Parker and Maple.

Party animals Todd, Gavin, Sheela, Owen, Avery and our videographer, Lily! The twins snuck in some more fruit tarts for the picture.

Meredith loves playing with Jodi, Allie, Maliyah and Jared. The twins were off stealing more desserts.

We were glad Melissa and Dave could make it and I love Liam and Leighton’s expressions

Kayleigh, Amanda, Chris, and little Charlotte

Thanks for all your help with clean up and taking our presents home, Owen, Jessica and Mike!

The rest of the Abbott family wasn’t able to make it, but it was sweet of Joyce to stop by to say hi!

Meredith loves hanging out with Katie and Jenny at the little park in our neighborhood.

Thanks, Sarah, Ashley and Sophie!

Meredith with Kim, Nate and Chris– we love playing in our neighborhood!

The twins with their pals, Lily and Avery.

London and Chelsea are the sweetest and always play with Meredith at the park in our neighborhood. Their favorite game is to have Meredith chase them while they scream, “Baby monster is coming!!!”

Noah has the best faces!

Thanks for coming, Lori!

The rest of the teddy bear decor:

The bear ear headbands ended up being a huge hit– loved looking back at all the pictures with the kids wearing them!

The teddy bears having their picnic.

The party favors were stuffed bears, gummy bears and miniature honey bears in mini picnic baskets. Loved!

Meredith’s “One” pictures next to her smash cupcake.

Guests signed a copy of the book, “Teddy Bear Picnic” as a keepsake for Meredith.

If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise…

The dessert table.

Meredith’s monthly photos.

I painted a cardboard M I found at Hobby Lobby and hot glued flowers on it to create this cute M decoration:

Thanks to Uncle David for the idea to change the wording. It came out very authentic!

After telling Natalie about my vision, Natalie from A Pretty Little Party created custom printables that came out so adorable! Most of the signs are lines from the book and song, “Teddy Bear Picnic.”

Meredith’s one year stats.

I reused mason jars I’ve used in past parties and glued floral ribbon and burlap to match with the theme.

I didn’t get a good picture of the present table, but Natalie created a cute teddy bear banner that looked amazing!

Even with most of the food gone (we had to-go containers for people and begged people to take food home!), the van was still packed to the brim on the way home. We were too exhausted to unpack that day and just left it all in the car!