If we had the internet at the house, it would make blog posting much easier! Instead, I'm trying to find a way to get the posts up every week like I want...I'm determined to get into a routine with this! Yes, I know it sounds like we live in the stone ages by not having internet, but when we did have it we really didn't use it a lot and it was a waste of money. Internet on our phones is really enough.
January 31st....a big day for a little boy! Colin turned ONE! Where has time gone?!?! Seriously...I can't believe it's been a year. I'm going to go through all of his party...planning, decorations, etc. If you don't care about the details, feel free to skip the words and just look at the pictures!
Theme
I started thinking about his first birthday and planning his party before he was even born! My original idea was to do a Winter One-derland theme. Then he fell in love with Vocabularry on BabyFirst tv, so I thought I might do something with that. As he got older, he wasn't as interested in Larry and ended up falling in love with Mickey. I didn't want to just do a Mickey theme so I put the two together...Mickey's Winter One-derland!
Planning
How did anyone do any planning before Pinterest?!?! I am a little obsessed and immediately turn to Pinterest to research or plan anything and everything. I started searching for ideas and decided to go with a red and aqua color scheme. You can see my many pins here.
Justin & I went out the day after Christmas and I found some snowflakes in the colors and then found a few more things at Hobby Lobby the week after Christmas 80% off (ribbon, red bowls, etc).
I designed the invitation and chalkboard poster in Microsoft Publisher and had so much fun working on them. It took awhile for the invitation idea to come together but once it did I loved it. We had originally planned to have a big party and make a big deal of his birthday but we realized that he gets overwhelmed with a lot of people so we chose to keep it small and only invite close family and friends. It was hard to figure out the guest list because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings if they didn't get invited, but as I learned with wedding planning you just can't invite everyone.
Here is the invitation:
Decorations
I took the day before the party off so I could get things ready for the party without stressing out. Justin & I went to the church to work on decorations that afternoon and Colin stayed with my mom so he could nap and play....and so I could get everything done!
When I originally talked to Justin about the party, the only thing he said he definitely wanted was balloons. Off I went to Amazon to search for the perfect balloons. I quickly had $40 worth of balloons in my cart and then reality set in and I decided that wasn't smart. The Dollar Tree had Mickey balloons that were perfect and I just ordered a little pack of simple "1st Birthday" blue balloons and bought a pack of red balloons from Wal-Mart.
I had a "vision" of how to set up the tables at the party and with some minor adjustments to that, we were able to get things set like I had wanted. I put four tables together on each side of the room and created a little centerpiece in the center of both. Please excuse the poor quality of the picture - the one detail I forgot to get a picture of....I had to crop another picture to get this! I put a metal bucket (found at Hobby Lobby in the Christmas sales) on a silver charger with red, aqua and gold glitter snowflake ornaments laying around it. A Mickey balloon was hooked in the bucket and then I filled it with white paper shreds. I loved how they turned out! I also alternated with red and white table cloths.
The drink table was one of my favorite spots. Inspiration for this came from Pinterest and I had to do it....melted snowman water! I also made a little printable sign that I framed just for this table.
I also made a little printable sign that I framed just for this table.
I also find the idea to make plates look like Mickey but couldn't seem to find black plates. I already had red plates so I just went with those.
The black buckets were found in the dollar section at Target...they are also chalkboards!
The cake table:
I asked my dad to cut out the letters for "Colin" and "one". I downloaded a Mickey type font and printed the letters to use as a pattern then he spray painted them black.
I printed the chalkboard sign as a 16x20 at Walgreen's and put it in a frame from Wal-Mart.
I also had a place fixed for everyone to sign Colin's birthday book. I did this in the hospital when he was born and hope to continue it for his birthday each year.
We also fixed a gift table with a picture from each month. I also used his main birthday present as a decoration - Little People Disney World!
Food
We went with a simple menu....hot dogs, chili, chips, veggies, pasta salad and cake. I'll have to do a post about the cake because that was a learning experience in itself! I apparently missed getting pictures of the food table as well...oops!
PARTY TIME!
We decided to just throw a bunch of balloons in the center of the floor and the three little ones had a blast with this!
We ate, had cake...
...and opened presents...
Thanks to Hillary, Phil and Michelle for helping with the pictures.
I'll end with a few awesome shots my sister-in-law, Michelle, got of the birthday boy!
I was so happy with how everything turned out. My first party planning experience was a success and I'm ready to plan more! It was perfect - food, decorations, number of people. A perfect day for the little love of my life. I can't imagine life without Colin...he is an amazing gift from God!
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