Alexa's Owl Themed 1st Birthday (August 1st, 2010)

Invite, designed by myself (with some creative help from Etsy) 

and ordered from Shutterfly

G/B/U: Alexa's birthday party went really well. We had 31 people over to celebrate her first and golden birthday! The only downside was that she is going through a stranger anxiety phase and that combined with a short morning nap made for a clingy little toddler. Her party went by so quick, I felt like I blinked and it was over.

The food went over well, I forgot to take a picture though. The menu was:

Jalapeno Smash Burgers
'Shroom & Swiss Burgers
Pesto Pasta Salad
Steakhouse Potato Salad
Broccoli Slaw
Veggies & Dip
Fruit & Dip
Taco Dip & Chips
7 Layer Bars
Cupcakes
Pink Lemonade
Fruit Punch

Baby Trail Mix (A mix of Cheerios, puffs, Organic Smilies, & Goldfish)

Alexa's Outfit: Etsy seller SewPoshBaby

Cupcakes: Target (the frosting was melting pretty good here since it was 80+ degrees out). Cupcake toppers I made

 Birthday hats/plates/napkins/etc: Birthday Express

Cupcake tower: I DIY'ed basically making tutus

Paint your own bird house station 

This was a huge hit with the kids 

Owl Pinata from Birthday Express

I hit up the dollar store for play dough/stickers/bracelets/mini rubber duckies and other toddler friendly items to add to the candy in the pinata

Our set up. Eric's aunt has two of these tents so it makes for a nice, easy & free shelter. Tables we rented from a local party rental shop.

I forgot to have Alexa in her birthday hat, but here she at her 12 month pics. 

Hat from Etsy seller shoplissy

And her birthday thank you cards, which I designed and ordered from Shutterfly, leaving enough white space fore a personal thank you greeting ;)

Karter's First Birthday

We did a flowers and headbands theme for Karter's 1st birthday party.

I made this banner for Karter.  I am hoping to reuse it for Karter's 2nd birthday.

 This was the birthday girl's seat.  She had white cake with whipped cream frosting.  She loved it.

 This was the outside setup, complete with tarps and heating lamps.  I put pillowcases over the chairbacks because I got ugly brown chairs for free and I wanted to spruce them up.

   FOOD!

 Dessert!  I ended up making white cake, chocolate pudding, vanilla pudding, and topping with Oreo Cookies.  I put one flower pot at each place setting.

 Drink signs - water, beer, and soda.  We also had Sangria and wine.

We did a photobooth and it was a huge hit!   I made personalized photostrip thank you cards for everyone that got into the photobooth.  This was for my mom and her boyfriend.

This is the card that we gave to people who didn't get into the photobooth.

This is the invite.  Designed by me and printed by Mpix.

I ordered flowers for the decor from http://www.bunchesdirect.com/.  It was fantastic.  I recommend ordering 3 days before the event, as opposed to just one so the flowers open up all the way.  I got 180 stems for $180 including shipping.  I got a  bunch of cheap flowers - gardenias, large and small, roses, and lisanthemus.  I also got gladiolas but they didn't make it out because we ran out of time.  I should have put together the vases the night before.  I thought I was going to have more help the day of the party though.  But I definitely recommend them if you need flowers.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly



Good - Everyone showed up, 40 people.  Everyone had a good time dispite the downpour.  We ate lots, Karter loved her cake, the Slideshow went over well and gave people something to do while Karter was attempting to open her presents.

The party crowd stayed until after Karter went to bed so that I could party too.  They all helped me celebrate my one year mommyversary!  It was a great time.

Bad - It rained all day.  Totally poured.  But my mom's boyfriend and Timm set up tarps over the patio.  We also had heating lamps.  But Timm's grandma and great aunt got too cold to watch the cake smash after eating.

5 people showed up early.  a half hour early!  WTF?!  Who does that?  I wasn't ready until 1:59.  and the people who showed up early wanted to chat with me.  I just couldn't do it.

My grandma spilled a dessert all over the table.  We had to scramble to find a new tablecloth.  She was pissed.  I was cracking up.  At this point, it was raining, I had lost all hope of the cute, spring, flowery garden party I was hoping for.

Ugly - Besides the rain.  Not too much.

Briley's Owl-themed First Birthday

Briley's birthday is March 30th. I chose an owl theme because... well I found a ton of cute Owl stuff on Etsy.
Invitation:
From Mommy's Ink on Etsy










Food:

Homemade butternut squash macaroni and cheese
Waldorf salad - forgot to put this out!
Spinach dip
Guacamole
Cheese
Summer sausage
Meatballs
Strawberries
Pita chips
Crackers
Tortilla chips
Annie's organic bunny crackers







Super yummy birthday cake, made by a family friend -
Bottom layer: chocolate with chocolate buttercream
Top layer: white cake with buttercream and strawberry filling

Briley got her own cupcake... red velvet. She loved it.
Drinks:
Water
Soda
Beer
Wine
I wanted to make a drink with ginger ale, white cran-strawberry juice, and fresh strawberries, but I ran out of time.



Favors:
Chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin cookies in chinese takeout boxes.














Decorations:
The happy birthday banner is from Etsy.
I did a clothesline of Briley's first year inspired by Krissie. It was a big hit.
Tissue poms from Etsy but they would be very easy to make.
I used a white tablecloth and mostly white ceramic serving dishes.
I found a really cute flower bouquet with pink, yellow, green, and aqua flowers (some dyed, of course).
I got an owl pillow from Target.
In the front yard I put 4 giant pinwheels up the walk, and also put flower shaped pinwheels in the back.











Briley's dress came from Etsy, as did her hair clip which she mostly refused to keep in her hair.







Activities:
Sand table - big hit with ages 1-8
Bubbles


G/B/U:
Good: We had a good turnout, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I got lots of compliments and Briley got lots of lovely presents. The party also lit a fire under my butt to finally put curtains in the kitchen. My MIL came over early to help me get ready, and my aunt and her roommate arrived about an hour early as well. I wouldn't have gotten my business together as well as I did if it had not been for them!
Bad: I forgot to take the Waldorf salad out of the fridge. I was hoping some of our adult friends would stay after to make it an adult party but that did not pan out.
Ugly: Nothing, fortunately!

Savvy's Halloween themed 1st Birthday

Date: October 2010
Posted by: Krissie


I threw a 1st Birthday Party for m Niece Savannah. Her Birthday is November 27th so we went with a Halloween theme. Please excuse the lack of quality pictures.

Invitations:     Martha Stewart Severed Finger Invitations

Food   

Apps: 

Ghost shaped Veggie crisp chips by whole foods w/ cranberry
mango salsa mini hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls- I used a glass vase to serve the ketchup.
My mom’s meatballs- 12oz grape jelly, 12oz chili sauce, 12oz in the crock pot
Kettle corn- labeled as “brain bits”
Spinach & artichoke dip from Costco
Trader Joes mixed veggie crisps
fresh veggie platter

Main Course:
Target ghost shaped pasta with meat sauce

Mummies -Sausage and meatball spears covered in pesto cream cheese wrapped in basil linguine.
Cook Meat balls and Sausage. spear.
2 packages cream cheese 3tbsp pesto sauce mix on low.
apply paste to meat spears. cover with cooked linguine to make the “mummy wrap”. Use Capers for eyes.
I found Mummy boxes at the dollar store to serve them in, you can also.

Dessert- Vanilla Cupcakes, candy, cake.

Drinks- 

monster punch- V8 Vfusion tangerine drink, club soda, cranberry juice.
Blood- strawberry milk w/ red food coloring.
Monster coco-Target Green coco.

Activities/Games:

Mummy Rap:
I let the kids wrap them selves in toilet paper rolls. That was enough, however I planned to play music and have them try to dance.

Make your own monster:

each guest got to decorate a monster cake and take it home.
Suppiles-
Green snow puffs, M&M’s chocolate covered marshmallow pops, frosting, red hair- big red gum cut into strips, red hots, coco sprinkles, assorted frosting died with food coloring, nerds, rainbow sprinkles, green & purple cupcakes. I boxed all the candy up in chinese take out boxes and to go    containers from the restaurant supply store and tied green & black ribbon.
       
Guessing Game-
I filled 3 pumpkins with various items & labeled them. The kids had to guess what they really were.
Brains- over cooked egg noodles. I added some purple food coloring in case any of the older kids peaked inside.
Worms- spaghetti noodles- I added pink & orange food coloring.
Eyeballs- Grapes.

Decorations:
Food Table
White table cloth covered with 20 feet sheer black fabric. Scattered assorted sized pumpkins. 4 bags candy corn scattered.
The rest of the house & yard were decorated for Halloween, of course no pictures...

GBU/ would/ wouldn’t do:

It was all good, no bad or uglies. The mummies took a long time to do, I wish that I had made them the night before and heated them before the party. I was still wrapping mummies when the guests got their, hence the horrible pictures. It was fine because it was family and very close friends, but for a less intimate group it would have been a no no.

Total Cost Of party: around $200