Elijah’s First Birthday {a colorful celebration!}

Planning for Elijah’s birthday party started a good 2 months before the actual event. People often made the comment to me that “he is only one and he will never remember his party.” But it was as much a celebration FOR Elijah as it was a celebration OF Elijah–it was my hope that David and I, along with all of our family and friends, would have a fun time celebrating all the *JOY* Elijah has brought to our lives.

I made customizable invitations on Mixbook.com thanks to some Groupons that I had purchased with Elijah’s party in mind. It wasn’t until I made the invites that I actually decided on a “theme” of sorts.

I am not one for elaborate, childish themes for nurseries or parties. I was originally thinking of a loose fish theme because of our boy’s love of water but finally settled on primary colors for the decor and went from there.

When I got married {5 years ago} treat bars were a thing of the future. I have been dying to do one for a party and hadn’t had the opportunity until now.

I am proud to say that all the decorations for the party we handmade by me. It was definitely a labor of love but in the process I found out that I am a lot more creative than I knew. I often completed projects during E’s nap time and had a lot of fun.

“Knowing Elijah is a Treat”-Bar: Orange Slices, Red Vines, Lemon Heads, Mike n’ Ikes, Apple O’s, Swedish Fish and a M&M Salad.

I got the idea for the decorative pinwheels from here.

The ‘Happy Birthday’ banner and other banner paper is from Michaels–I traced the circles, cut them and then cut out the letters on computer paper. I used a scrapbook circle paper cutter for all the other circle banners.

The rainbow paper picture banner turned out to be a lovely way to showcase all of Elijah’s monthly pictures. Everyone loved looking at them. 🙂

I got the mason jar drink idea from here. And ordered the colorful straws from here.

I used some of my favorite pictures from the first 12 months of Elijah’s life for the decorations in the kitchen.

Some guests even got to take a copy of their favorite when they left.

I also made both of the cakes for the party from white cake box mix and used this recipe.

I knew that a rainbow cake would be perfect for the party and it really wasn’t all that hard to pull off {just took about 4 hours to make and an ungodly amount of frosting!}.

The guests loved it!

Elijah definitely had no trouble grasping the concept of a smash cake:

 But he didn’t eat a single bite.

That may have made me question his paternity if he wasn’t the spitting image of David…

 Turbo definitely earned his keep  by helping us clean up the mess:

We had each guest take a picture with Elijah so that we could use it for our thank you notes and in his baby book. He wasn’t really up for smiling at that point in the party so we got some funny expressions.

He is such a lucky boy to have so many people who love him.

I completely forgot to take any pictures of the food but here is a list of what we served:

Blue colored lemonade and unsweetened iced tea
Hot dogs with all the fix’ins
Sun dried tomato pasta salad
An assortment of potato chips
Melon ball Salad (cantelope and watermelon)

I didn’t get a bite but I heard that it was all yummy. 🙂

~

I can’t believe my sweet boy is already one.

{He even took eight noteworthy steps on his birthday!!!}

Truthfully, I can’t wait to plan another celebration of his life next year!

I love being his mom. 🙂