Will's birthday party

Will's birthday was Monday, December 27th but we scheduled his party Thursday evening. Compared to years past, this was a very low key party for me -- no elaborate decorations, party favors or mounds of food -- just a cake, chips & dip, individual ice cream cups & ice cream sandwiches, a few balloons and some confetti. Well, my mom being the hostess she is, added in some candy & caramel popcorn because she, like me, doesn't really know how to do things too small scale. Will was introduced to all 3 Toy Story movies this year and loved them all, so that was our theme.

this was my first time working with fondant, so

it was an experience but turned out ok

 

  

 Notice the wardrobe change between presents.

My parents bought a Spiderman shirt that he insisted

on wearing immediately. Sorry for the blurry

pic below but it was too cute not to add

the aftermath

I LOVE party decorations, favors, food, activities and of course a cake all centered around one special theme. I just can't help myself! I think the 1st birthday is huge because well, firsts are a big deal to me, and because we learn more in our first year of life than any other year so it deserves a huge celebration-- if that's your thing anyway-- and it is mine. :)

His first birthday was a Curious George theme complete with a homemade banana-shaped cake for Will to dive into-- Daniel did a great job carving the cake into it's shape and icing it-- and a store bought Curious George look-alike (b/c they can't do him exactly due to copyright issues) pull-apart cupcake cake, lots of streamers, balloons tied down with bananas, CG stuffed animals and books as decorations, a time capsule, coloring station, pinata, banana bread favor bags (w/stickers and other little things) and named food. Yes, while planning his party I decided to have meatballs and thought it would be cute to call them monkey poo. So I appointed name tags to all the food! Sounds silly, but it has since become very popular at parties in my family (naming food, that is).

We also had a big 2nd birthday for Will because I wanted to celebrate his day at our home where his friends had a chance to attend (1st bday was in TN). Since Will was soooo into cars and trucks, we did a fire truck theme complete with a homemade fire truck cake (by me this time), firetruck toys and balloons as decorations, a 'town rug' for the kids to drive cars on, Firehouse Subs, chili with all the fixings, pasta salad, fruit and individual ice cream cups. I didn't name the food this time, mostly because I thought it was obvious-- Firehouse Subs is a chain around here. Favor bags included homemade sugar cookies in the shape of firetrucks, iced with each kid's name on it, a little water gun (to put out the fire, of course) some bubbles, tatoos, a fire safety coloring page and each child took home a plastic fireman hat as well. Then a real fire truck stopped by! The fireman let all the kids sit behind the wheel and climb into the truck, it was a lot of fun.

This year I held back because these parties can get very expensive and both weekends surrounding his birthday were holidays so the scheduling wasn't in my favor either. At any rate, we still had a theme, it was still a nice little party and we all had a great time!