Birthday Party Extravaganza

I don't know how we did it, but Craig and I were able to pull off a great first birthday party for Natalie last Saturday.  I had been systematically buying things here and there over the past month and everything had been sitting on my dining room table for a few weeks until I was ready to get things decorated.  I knew that Saturday morning was going to be crazy before the party so I started decorating about mid-week with things that I knew would be out of Natalie's reach.

One of the PTA copy moms and I put together this banner for Natalie out of heavy duty cardstock scrapbook paper that I purchased at Hobby Lobby for $5.00.  

I purchased the "Lucky" letters at Hobby Lobby and I switched out the normal Craig and Laura engagement and wedding photos on the mantle for pictures of Natalie throughout the year.

Here is a close-up of the banner - I LOVE the industrial cricut machine we have at work!  The copy mom also let me in on a scrapbooking secret - glue dots!  Glue dots are little circles of glue all attached to a big long roll of wax paper that you can peel off and stick on paper or photos for scrapbooking.  Genius.

The full mantle - I didn't make the tissue poms (although now I know I could have) and instead I purchased two bags of three lime green poms at Party City.

For seating in the kitchen table I hung some poms over the table and used fake flower arrangements from around the living room to decorate.  Sitting around the flowers are Lucky Charms in the cauldron (is that the right word?) and green and white M&Ms in my white Corningware.  My dad had the fun job of filling Lucky Charms and sprinkling St. Patrick's Day confetti around the arrangement.

On the entryway table I filled two picture frames with printables that I found on Pinterest and added a picture of Natalie.  My middle brother Mike made the green wooden shamrock and I stained and painted the lettering.  I'm going to hang onto the printables and the shamrock to put up every year during March.  The wooden shamrock was actually supposed to go outside in the front garden area but due to the downpour that we had on her birthday party day I decided to move it inside so the wood wouldn't get warped and the paint wouldn't run.

For her gift area I used one of our side tables from IKEA decorated with her green Natalie letters from her room and two pictures/portraits that we already had sitting out or hanging around the house.  Her big present from Craig and me was the pink wagon (which was a HUGE hit) and we loaded some of her presents into that for safe keeping during the party.

Since we had a few bigger kids at the birthday party and I knew that the weather was going to be rough I printed off some St. Patrick's Day coloring sheets and filled a bucket (from JoAnn's) with crayons and added some fun St. Patrick's Day books as a little quiet entertainment center.

The way our house is set up we have a great flow from the front entry way to the dining room to the kitchen to the living room - it all just makes a big circle around the stairs which are in the middle.  I put the food in what is supposed to be the dining room (but we use it as a make shift office for Craig) right off of the kitchen, the drink station was on the island in the kitchen and the her smash cake was featured on the cutting board on the stove.

We had a large spread of food which included a sandwich bar with lots of different cheeses and meats.  We had a fruit platter in rainbow colors of course.  I had three dips, two of which I made - sausage, crab and spinach.  Yummy.

Of course I had to have my family in coordinating outfits.  Craig already had his shamrock Dallas Stars shirt, I found mine at Target and we bought Natalie's tutu skirt and shamrock "kiss me" shirt at the children's store Crazy 8.

Natalie and her friend Jacklyn (14 months old) sharing crayons and learning to color on the sheets.

About to dive into the cake - of course we had to get her naked because I feared that it was going to be a massive mess.

She began eating the cake very delicately and didn't make much of a mess.  The rest of us were eating cupcakes so I think she saw us eating the cake directly from the wrapper or something........because all of a sudden she forgot about her hands and just went mouth first into the cake.

See?!  That's much better.

The pink wagon was a big hit with both Jackie and Natalie and they took several trips around the house.

There's my big girl sitting in her new rocking chair.  She will just sit in it and rock back and forth giggling the whole time.

Whew!  Planning and executing this birthday party was a lot of work and I have to admit - I'm glad that I don't have to do it for another year.