DW Birthdays Blog: birthday

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 ;)

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