Happy Birthday Luke! Party Post- Decorations

Read about the decorations on this page!
Party Post- sweets here, Party Post- menu here, party Post- professional pics here, or Party Post- the party here!- I will link here once all the posts are up!

Pinterest has made party planning go crazy! There are so many amazing ideas out there and now I want to do them all. I've had to reign myself in a few times and remind myself that I didn't need to do everything on Pinterest.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (By Eric Carle) has always been one of my favorite little kid's books. It's become a modern classic if you ask me. I knew early on that I wanted to a Hungry Caterpillar birthday for Luke.


Invites
I did make a lot of the decorations and food for his party but decided to start with invitations designed by Party Pixie on Etsy. She was great to work with and had a proof to me in a few days. I was able to print them at Costco for a very low price and order 5x7 envelopes from Amazon. I hope to use Party Pixie for my thank you cards too. We ended up sending over 50 invites and it looks like we will have about 50 adults and 25 kids/babies at the party.

Invitation from Etsy - PartyPixie Invites

Luke's Outfit

Early on when I decided on the party theme, I was searching etsy for the perfect shirt for Luke to wear. He wore a Very Hungry Caterpillar ONE shirt from the Etsy shop RightUpYourAli1. He also had a tie made out of the Very Hungry Caterpillar dot print from the talented Candice at MiduKids.

 

Banners
I made the "Happy Birthday Luke" banner using 2 shades of green cardstock and I freehand drew the letters. I attached it with metal brads so that it would hang smoothly. We attached it to the wall using the 3M stickies because it was too heavy for tape.

High Chair Banner
I made Luke an "I am 1" banner for the front of his highchair. I made it using the same 2 shades of green cardstock and I also freehand drew the letters for this banner. I attached it with tape to his highchair.

Photo Banner
Since we've been taking monthly photos the whole time, a photo caterpillar banner was the perfect way to display them. I used the collages I made on the PicStitch App and printed them as 4x4 squares at Walgreens through the Printicular app. I then used double sided tape to attach them to the 2 shades of construction paper and taped them to the wall. They did not want to stay on the wall though and kept falling off.

Caterpillar Balloons Out Front
I found this idea on Pinterest as well and loved it! We used 3 green balloons and a red one. I used double sided tape to attach the eyes and antennae (made out of construction paper). I bought some small golf tees to hold the balloons in the grass.

Birthday Board
I made a digital birthday board with the tutorial from this blog. I used powerpoint and printed it as a architecture poster at Office Depot for $2.99.

365 Photo Project Slide Show
I took on a 365 day photo project when he was born and surprisingly kept up with it. I decided to show it as a slide show on our TV during the party.We purchased the correct HDMI cable and plugged it into my laptop.

Favors
I went back and forth on whether to do favors or not. I finally decided to do chocolate covered pretzels for the adults and balls for the babies. Luke's favorite activity is playing ball so I thought that was fitting. I made favor tags using wallet size prints from Costco and hole punched them to attach them to the favors.

Close up of the tags:

Favor Tag for the Babies- attached to a ball

Favor tag for the adults- attached to a chocolate covered pretzel

Entryway Decorations
In the entryway, I posted the birthday board above a table. The table has the extra fabric on it as a tablecloth, some balloons next to the table, the favors, and a large Very Hungry Caterpillar board board that people will sign as a guestbook.

Happy Birthday Luke! Party Post- the food

Read about the regular Menu on this page
Read about the decorations!
For the sweets!
Party Post - professional pics, or
Party Post #5- the party! 

Personally, I think the regular food is just a bonus because we all know a party really just needs sweets. But, I figured I should have some food for my guests.

Appetizers
For appetizers we had: spinach artichoke dip, buffalo chicken dip, spicy black bean dip, caprese, pasta salad, hummus and vegetables, chips and salsa and a cheese plate. I also bought some appetizer pigs in a blanket and stuffed mushrooms to serve.

Main Course
For the main meal, we served meatball sandwiches and pulled pork sandwiches.

Beverages
We had water, iced tea, beer, wine, and apple juice to drink

Happy Birthday Luke! Party Post- Sweets

The important part of the party... the sweets! 

For the regular food, read this post.
Read about the decorations here!
Party Post- professional pics, or
Party Post-the party! 

I also used pinterest for inspiration for the menu. I knew I wanted to do some theme foods but some of my favorites as well.


Smash Cake
I had to make Luke an egg free smash cake. I made it a 6 inch cake with the Wilton Round pan. I used an egg free cake recipe I found on pinterest without egg replacer. I used a buttercream icing. On top, I drew a caterpillar and on the sides I used Sprees candy to copy the dots from the Hungry Caterpillar book.


Cupcakes
My favorite cupcakes are funfetti so I made funfetti cupcakes to put on the cupcake tower. I bought the cupcake liners from the Eric Carle Museum in the dots pattern. They are from the UK so the size is strange.

Mini Cakes
I didn't want to have to decide what kind of cake to make so I decided to make a few mini cakes instead. I wanted a carrot cake, a strawberry shortcake, chocolate ganache cake and a chocolate whipped cream cake. I made 2 cakes from the Wilton 6 inch round for all of them and split them with thread to make 4 layers.

Hungry Caterpillar Cake Pops
I also saw these on pinterest and fell in love with them. I honestly didn't realize how hard it would be to get a cake pop to look nice! That's way more difficult than it looks. I used the babycakes cake pop maker and Wilton chocolate melts (in green and red) to make the cakepops. I like the cake balls way more than I expected- they remind me of donut holes. YUM. I displayed them using styrofoam and easter grass.


Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Yum. I love chocolate covered strawberries and knew I needed to make them.

Chocolate Covered Pretzel Rods
For the adults, the party favor is a chocolate covered pretzel rod but I also served them at the party.


Candy
I served candy in small bowls to go with the color theme. I had sprees, m&ms, m&m peanut, and runts.

12 months!

My baby is a toddler!

The quote "the days are long but the years are short" rings true right about now. I can't believe my little guy is already ONE. But honestly, I've been waiting for this stage for awhile and we're having so much fun.

Luke loves to splash in water (bath, shower, pools, you name it- he'll splash), play ball (he actually can throw pretty well), read books, babble, crawl all over, crawl and hide (then look back at smirk), and he loves the swings at the park.

He has been a napping and sleeping champ these last few months which is amazing. He sleeps in his crib all night from 7:30/8:30pm (depending on us) until about 7:30 am on days we are home. On daycare days we wake him up at the last possible second then take him to babyschool.

Luke is still highly allergic to eggs but I feel like I'm starting to understand it a little better. His skin has been very clear with a few minor flareups. He hasn't had a reaction this month but we've had a few small scares. He will eat anything he finds so I'm always worried he will find something with eggs. Ideally, we would just have our whole house go egg free but I'm not ready for that right now.

So what can he eat? Well, he LOVES mandarin oranges and black beans. He will pick at most other table foods. We serve him whatever we eat that is egg free. He also eats yogurt everyday- it's definitely one of his favorites. He has tried a lot of stuff lately including fish and chips, tofu, falutas, and whatever else we eat.

He is still drinking Earth's Best formula and is thriving on it. I almost wish I didn't fight the breast pump for 9 long months. His skin is so much better now that he's on formula. We will try out some cow's milk soon.

Luke can crawl really fast and also stands up on furniture and cruises around. He is starting to let go but not for very long yet (I can't even get a pic it's that quick) but I think in the next few weeks he will be standing. I think he will take his time walking but probably by the summer.

We still cloth diaper 4 days a week. On daycare days we use disposables and it's not worth using cloth at night because then they sit too long until we get a full load. We still use a disposable overnight because he fills it up. I still love my cloth diapers and definitely have a preference towards my American made ones (Fuzzibunz, BumGenius, Blueberry/Swaddlebee) but still use our chinese ones too (JC Trade Cartoon, kawaii, Sunbaby, Alva Baby).

Happy Birthday Luke! Party Post- Professional Pics

We had Luke's 6 month pictures done by Jessica at Blue Raven Photography and were excited for her to do his one year ones as well. I had asked her to do some family pics, some one year Luke pics and a cake smash session.

For the family pics, Luke wore a plaid shirt from OshKoshB'Gosh and blue jeans from Baby Gap!

For his one year pics, Luke wore a Very Hungry Caterpillar ONE shirt from the Etsy store, RightUpYourAli1. She was great to work with, responded to emails quickly and shipped fast. He paired the navy blue long sleeve shirt with khaki cargos from Baby Gap.

 For his cake smash, Luke wore a fuzzibunz cloth diaper (one of our faves) and a tie custom made by Candice at Midukids. He was entertained by an egg free cake I made and decorated.

Photo by Blue Raven Photography

these pictures are not aligning properly and it's driving me crazy! i will need to fix them later though

Birthday Party Planning

The birthday party plans are in full swing over here. My little baby will be 1 in just 1 week!

Tonight I made his egg free cake for our cakesmash photos on Sunday. I'm excited, I hope he likes it!
I will decorate it and ice it later this week.

We are having a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme! Stay tuned for more posts about the decorations, menu, and party!

First Night Away...

I have met the most incredible mom's through my mom's group. I met most of them at the hospital's new mom's group. At one of our Mom's Night Out we mentioned that we should do a Mom's Weekend. At first I figured it was just one of those things we talk about but without followthrough... But then I realized I loved this group more than I thought! They actually followed through!

A group of 9 of us went to the coast. Most of us stayed one night, a few stayed 2. It was so nice to be with other moms. We made dinner, sat around and talked, went to the hot tub, talked a ton, stayed up late, slept in (as long as we could- we were all used to getting up early), had an amazing breakfast and hung out some more.

It was so energizing and exhausting at the same time! I needed a nap to recover from our late night!

11 months!

The birthday countdown is ON! I am so excited that my little guy is going to be 1 soon! This month he has really perfected his mobility- he can crawl very fast and get where he needs to go. He also is standing more and getting braver about letting go.
Luke's in a shy phase right now where he doesn't want to play with a lot of other kids- he crawls onto my lap when he's with others- hopefully that is short lived!

He has mastered the straw cup this month but still isn't getting enough out of it to transition. He also is eating a ton but not dropping any bottles. I think he's in a growth spurt. He has been increasing his bottles though so maybe that's a start. He eats a lot of variety but I don't feel like he's eating that much quantity lately.

His 8th tooth broke through! Now we'll wait patiently for the molars!

We did some Easter photos this month! Caitlin took them with her camera and they turned out great.