Luke's 1st Birthday

Luke turned 1 on August 13, and we celebrated by throwing a big backyard birthday party.  Since he loves Sesame Street, we went with a Sesame inspired theme.  And since I love to throw a party, I couldn't wait to start planning for his! The week before his party was also the week I had off between summer school and the start of the new school year, and my mom just happened to be in town that week for work so we worked late every night preparing for the party - we had so much fun!

I made all of the printables in Photoshop Elements, and will give details with pictures below.  First, here is the invitation that I made.  I printed it onto card stock, used red envelopes, & made a matching return address label. 

Unfortunately, Luke had a virus and was so sick for his party.  I took a ton of pics, but only got a few of him actually smiling - he was pretty much miserable (poor baby).  About a week after his party, once he was feeling better, we went outside & took some "birthday pics".

I ordered his sweet monogrammed jon jon from Kynna BeBe Boutique on Etsy.  Her shop can be found here, & his outfit can be found here.  I love the way it turned out!  There are more pics at the bottom of the post.

I made this wreath for the front door with polka-dot gift bows.  I hot glued buttons onto the letter L, & attached it to the wreath with ribbon.

This is the favor table.  Each box had a pack of crayons, bubbles, play dough, elmo ring, & candy.  I made the pennant banner with with polka dot and gingham card stock.

 Here is a close up of the favor box, bubbles, and play dough.  I printed all of the labels onto plain white paper and attached with double sided tape.

Here is a close up of the 3 frames.  This was very easy to do - I just printed the 3 pictures, and used double sided tape to tape onto polka dot card stock, then framed.  I made them look like they were matted by leaving about 1/4th of the white paper around the picture when cutting.

The next few pictures are of decorations that my mom made for me.  I punched a ton of circles out of colored card stock with a 2" circle punch & she ran them through the sewing machine, creating strands of paper garland.  This was hung in the dining room, above the gift table.

Next, she sewed together colored crepe paper to make the ruffled crepe streamers.  The tutorial I used can be found here.

These are a couple of the projects that kept us up late!  I wish I would've taken more pics of the ruffled streamers because we had them hanging all over & they were so pretty - so much prettier than the plain crepe paper rolls.  The only photos I have do not do it justice!

The next group of pictures are of the refreshments.  We also served pizza, but I didn't get any pictures of that! The buckets I made by creating the faces of each character in PSE, then printing onto full page shipping label sheets - this is much cheaper than buying printable sticker paper & worked just as well.  Next, I cut each piece out and stuck them onto the buckets.  The buckets and colored boxes were full of cheese and butter popcorn.  I had planned to use sweet caramel or rainbow colored popcorn, but when we went to the popcorn store the morning of his party, it was closed for the day (I'm still not sure why).

My sweet aunt, who helped out SO much setting up for the party, cut all of the fruit and arranged it.  She also arranged the sugar and m&m cookies, and made the lemonade - I don't know what I would've done without her and my mom!  My mom made the fruit dip which was delicious.

The cupcakes were chocolate and white cake with white butter cream frosting.  I made the tiny pennant banner for the top of his cake using bamboo skewers, polka dot & gingham card stock, and embroidery thread.

I made the pom poms above the table by following the martha stewart pom pom tutorial found here.  The table runner is wrapping paper I found at Target.  It was one of the first things I bought for the party and served as inspiration for everything else that I made.

I also made the cupcake stands, but these were not the first ones I made.  I broke one of the first ones the day before the party, and had to make 2 new ones so that they matched - I liked the first ones a lot better, but I didn't have the energy or time to go back to the store to buy more supplies.

The water bottle labels were so easy - I made them in PSE, printed on regular white paper, and taped onto the bottle with Scotch brand packaging tape.  I kept them in the refrigerator over night & set them out right at the start of the party so that they were cold.

I really loved making the poms.  Some are cut with pointed tips, & some with rounded tips.  I used 10 sheets of 20X20 tissue paper for each one.

The next group of pictures were taken in the backyard.  We had close to 40 people attend his party, with almost half being kids between the ages of 8 months and 12 years old, so we had activities for all ages.  We rented a giant bounce house, had an art/activity table, pin the nose on Elmo game, bean bag toss, and an inflatable pool that we filled with ball pit balls and beach balls.  The kids ended the party with a water gun fight.  All of the kids were entertained through the whole party, so I believe the activities were a success!

Birthday banner ordered from here.

The basket was full of crayons, bubble, play dough, and Sesame Street coloring sheets.  The table was covered with white craft paper.

We bought a bean bag toss from Academy but thought that it was too difficult for kids, so Brad made this one from giant foam board and beach pails.  We looked all over for suitable bean bags, but couldn't find any so my mom sewed us some really cute ones!  My mom is the absolute best!



These are Luke's sweet Cousins, Madison & Jacie.  Look at where Jacie is pinning the nose - I don't think she could've even reached his nose if she tried!  I love it!

The next group of pictures are of Luke as we were singing happy birthday to him, and as he ate his cake.  Since he was so sick, he really didn't enjoy eating the cake.  I found the wooden high chair on craigslist and painted it with Krylon brand spray paint in banner red- I'm not very good at spray painting & so used about 6 cans of the red, plus one can of a primer coat.



Here are some of my favorite pics from the party.

I love everything about this photo - I love the way that Madison is looking at Luke, and the way that he is facing her with his hand in the air - and I especially love how Jacie is sneaking a taste of the cake!  So cute!

I must admit that this isn't my favorite family photo since I'm the only one smiling, but it is the ONLY one we took together at the party.  I love that Brad sported the Sesame Street shirt - when I bought it I really didn't think that he'd actually wear it (although I hoped to talk him into it) - but he did & it was awesome.  I was in such a rush to get ready that I forgot to put on earings!

This was right before the party when I was trying to get Luke to wear his party hat & smile - the hat was off before the picture was taken, and he was not up to smiling - poor thing!  But, I did get about 20 pics that look just like this one.

Smiling, hat off

Hat on, not smiling - at this point the strings had snapped off, so it wasn't going to stay on anyway

Here are more of the pictures I took a week after his party once he was finally feeling better.

I LOVE this little face!

I wish that I would've taken more pictures - especially of all our guests.  My aunt also took pictures of the party, so maybe I'll update once I get those.

Thank you so much to everyone that came to Luke's birthday party!  One of my best friends from Dallas, Kelly, & her family came & that meant so much to us - thank you!  Thank you so much to my Auntie V - she came a couple of hours early & helped a TON - we really put her to work & she did a way better job than I could've done!  And also, THANK YOU MOM - you are the BEST & I love you! 

I can not believe that my baby is one!  This year went way too fast. 

Happy birthday, Luke!  You are the light of our lives - we LOVE you!

To see all the awesome link parties I've linked to, go HERE - awesome parties with tons of creative ideas!

.