The Difference a Year Makes in Your Postpartum Journey

I bought these decorations for my daughter’s first birthday.  A party I really didn’t want to throw.

I probably should have listened to my heart and just bought a cupcake and a candle, and sang her Happy Birthday at home.  Not like she would have been scarred.  She was ONE.

But I guess I got sucked in to the mom life.  I was a year in to motherhood, and while many things had improved since the newborn days, I was still working a full-time corporate job, marketing my children’s book:  Love You to Pieces Beautiful Monster,

pumping and breast feeding, figuring out my new role as a mom while trying to stay true to myself, and struggling to release anxiety and get back to my generally chill demeanor.

The party ended up being kind of a bummer.  It was at a park on an unreasonably hot day, I was stressing about the party set-up and decorations, the fact that there was an event going on at the park thus there was ZERO parking, and the fact that the cute donuts I ordered tasted like bland rocks.  That was March.

Fast forward to this weekend.  My great aunt helped me throw an intimate get together to celebrate Baby Two.  We did a girls night in spa party with a Let’s Pamper Before the Pampers theme.

Unfortunately I failed and totally forgot to snap some pictures of everything set-up, but I took a few the following day before cleaning up.

It was such a fun and relaxing night.  We all wore our pj’s, laughed at our ridiculous face masks, enjoyed exfoliating hand scrub, binged on a dessert bar, and got to enjoy some kid-free hours chatting together.

Most of the decorations were reused from that first birthday party back in March.  I was so excited to use them for a second time around.  It made me notice how far I’ve come since then.  I felt happy, relaxed, light-hearted, and chill at this party:)

I knew back then that I wasn’t my old self yet, but I didn’t know how long it would take.  See, I actually love throwing parties.  I just couldn’t handle it then.  That’s how I knew things weren’t right.

I had no hindsight at that point.  I was just going through the motions, hoping that at some point things would shift.  And they did.  I just needed to give myself grace during the season I was in.

Want to throw your own relaxing DIY Spa Party?  Here’s how!

Set the Mood (Atmosphere):  reused tassels and signs decorations I already had, cut roses from my front yard and placed them in white dollar store vases, lite a Eucalyptus Mint Candle from World Market, turned on a relaxing playlist on Spotify, and used a difuser with Eucalyptus essential oil.

Set the Table (Menu): vanilla ice cream with a candy toppings bar, birthday party popcorn, fruit and donut kebabs, infused lemon and grapefruit spa water, pink fizzy champagne punch

Now Relax (Spa and Party Details):  Store bought face masks, DIY Sugar Scrub, Warm Eucalyptus towels in the crockpot (tip: I used 15 towels, 4 cups water, 20 drops essential oils on warm setting), adult henna coloring pages, mini banana bread loaves for a party favor (tip:  one big loaf equated to four mini loaves – mini loaves cooked 40 min at 350 degrees), and A Freezer Meal Pool where guests could sponsor one of the twenty-two freezer meals we prepped last week – more details here.

For $10 guests could pick a meal and leave an encouraging card for us to read on the day we eat “their” freezer meal.  Easy for guests to play, and it really helped reduce the extra $230 we spent on groceries this month to stock the freezer.