Growing up birthday parties were a HUGE deal in our house, there are 4 kids in my family and all of us were born close to or on holidays. (I was born on Easter, my sister the day before Thanksgiving, my middle brother was born on Father's Day and my youngest brother on Christmas Day) My mom always wanted to make us feel extra special on our birthday since we had to share it with a holiday. We always had themed birthday parties and from the time I was 6 or so until I graduated from high school I had sleepovers for my birthday. Matt & I decided back when I started planning Laney's party that I couldn't break the bank planning birthday parties for our kids (because after all, I LOVE hosting parties, I love planning parties and well...I love to party!) but we could go "big" for our kid's 1st birthday parties. It's a milestone for Laney, but also for us...that we survived our 1st year as parents.
Like I mentioned earlier, I like to plan & I like to host parties...So, here's a list of things I took into consideration when I started with planning her party:
1. Laney's nickname is "Laney bug." We've spent the year in sort of a lady bug theme. She was a lady bug for her 1st Halloween and I knew that after this year, I wouldn't get much say in what the theme of her party was...so picking a theme was easy. We went with a picnic theme...of course using lady bugs.
2. The location of her party was easy...we'd do it in our backyard that is perfect for entertaining, even though we never use it. (Disclaimer...I won't ever plan a HUGE party in our backyard again though, I stressed way too much over rain and it did rain so we had to move present opening inside and crammed about 35 people (most of which were kids) in our tiny living room, which now is quite comical) Nevertheless, the location was still perfect for her party...
3. Laney's birthday is July 10th, right in the middle of vacation season and right in the middle of the summer...when everyone is super busy. So, I decided to go simple with food. We'd do hotdogs, chips, a few fixings & cupcakes. No need to go elaborate & it needed to be kid friendly...because our friends have a lot of kids. I made the cupcakes because I'm not a fan of grocery store cake & who has $100 to spend on cupcakes from the fancy bakeries we have in Raleigh. (This was a big deal for me...the last time I attempted to make cake icing, it was a disaster! Kuddos to my friend Amanda for teaching me how to make easy and delicious icing!)
4. Decorations had to be cheap. I could not reason spending a bunch of money on decorations for a 1 year old's birthday party, but I like to decorate...so I gathered what I already had around my house and only ended up spending money on construction paper, gingham material & some white daises (I think I spent about $50 total and I plan to reuse the gingham material for Ben's 1st birthday part and then I'll make something with it, because the material was a little pricey...but it was cheaper than buying table cloths) Instead of using tables & needing decorations for tables, we decided to lean on the picnic theme and have people bring lawn chairs & blankets...which turned out great for the kids! I made her banner & we made a banner to display every month of her year... I was so proud of my creations & the way decorations turned out. I will always make decorations in the future...so much cuter than wasting money on stuff and a great keepsake for a memory box!
(Excuse my awful pictures...I for some reason didn't take any close up shots...but you get the idea)
5. I wanted to have party favors, but what kind of party favors do you have for a 1 year old's birthday party? I didn't want to do traditional party bags & waste a bunch of money on toys for bags (because there were about 25 kids here), so I made chocolate covered pretzels that looked like lady bug antennas. I was super proud of my creation and everyone loved them!
6. Her outfit came from my best fried from 5th grade, Krystal. She is amazingly talented and makes the cutest little outfits...personalized for kids with their name on it. You have to check out her work, the profits from what she makes goes towards their adoption fund. Her website is www.krystaloriginal.com
Overall, her party was probably the highlight of my summer and a memory we will always have! I kind of feel like I am bragging on myself a little for the way her party turned out, but seriously I was SOOOO proud of myself for making all of the food, including cupcakes and making all of the decorations (with the help of my amazing partner in crime, Matt who did an awesome job on her invites and picture banner) and for pulling off an awesome 1st birthday party for our sweet Laney bug! She had a great time & we got some awesome pictures to remember it thanks to my awesome and very talented sis-in-law!
(By the way, it ended up being quite the large party...which we probably won't do again until she turns 5) It was fun to plan, but I will admit, was a LARGE party and we can't do THAT big every year!
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