Oh the places you’ll go party! First birthday celebration

So, I’m going to let you decide if this party was Pinterest-worthy or not. I happen to think that I pulled it off spectacularly, but it wouldn’t have been possible without help. To me that’s the secret of party-planning… Getting help. And I don’t think I did a single detail of this party alone.

Starting with my invites. I knew I wanted to do a Dr. Seuss theme from the book Oh The Place’s You’ll go. I had ideas in my mind, but wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull it off. One day I just decided to go for it, and when I found a $5 basket that would PERFECTLY serve as a kiddy hot air balloon basket I knew it was on.

So home I went with my $5 steal, and I got balloons to tie to it. Word to the wise: Don’t try to take 10 balloons home from the store, it’s not safe. I had to pull over and have my husband rescue me from my balloon-filled passenger seat.

Once I had the picture taken, I searched for the perfect invite. I found one from this etsy shop. Boom. Invites done.

My sister Lauren helped me make the “welcome” sign outside the door that actually didn’t say welcome, but some funky directions that went with the Oh The Places You’ll Go party theme. She made fun of me for placing it that way, saying I should have put down up and up down, but whatever.

My friend Hope has a Cricut and she helped me make the Happy Birthday banner, and extra flags that I used on the wall.

Another friend, Laura, makes adorable photo banners, so she sat down with me to make his month-by-month photo display.

My mom and sisters came in for the party, and they wanted a hand in helping. My mom helped me turn colorful lanterns into hot air ballons. My sister Kimberly gave me the idea to turn the extra bunting into an elephant/held flag. And from the beginning I wanted to make a mountain rage featuring the famous words in the story: “KID YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!” Even Lil’ J helped with that creation.

I used some leftover poster board to make a little airplane “banner” for a plane we had. It looked perfect on our bookshelf below a US map I got from Hobby Lobby.

A woman from my ward has a little bakery called Dough Girl Bakery, and she made the gorgeous pastries you’re about to witness. Believe me, they tasted as good as they look.

I gave her ideas and sent her pictures of the type of cupcakes, and dipped pretzels and giant marshmallows I wanted and she totally exceeded my expectations. She also made the cutest little smash cake that Big T loved.

For a second.

I’m not sure if he had a sugar rush or if cake got in his eye but after a few fistfulls in his mouth he was done.

We had water and rainbow sherbet/sprite mix.

Adults and kids loved the sweets, but we also had other yummy non-sweet food. We ordered chicken croissants and ham pinwheels from HEB, and my sister made purple and green grape kabobs. Happy Family sent me a bunch of toddler snacks for a promotion I’m doing on BabyCenter and they worked perfectly as healthy snacks for all the kids. The organic animal cookies and yogurt puffs were a big hit.

The party favors were another idea I came up with on my own. I’d been saving babyfood jars thinking I’d make rainbow cake in them, but it was too overly ambitious for me. I ended up filling the bottom with Easter-colored jellybeans (that went along with the theme) and topped them off with jellybean cotton candy.

A neighbor let me borrow her gorgeous goblets that I filled with the other favors… Play-dough and bubbles.

I bought an extra copy of Oh The Places You’ll Go and used it as a guestbook. Looking back I wish I left a sign asking guests to leave a piece of advise or well-wish, but it’s ok.

We also inflated more balloons (this time with a balloon tank) and attached it to that basket again for a little corner photo booth.

Lastly, I bought a rainbow inflatable pool (that my mom inflated with her own lungs!) and 300 balls for a little ballpit for the kids. They got a kick out of it. It took him awhile to warm up to it. We had it up for a few days before the party, and now, a few days after he’s finally climbing in and out, tossing balls about.

I’m not thrilled about having 300 plastic balls that at any moment can end up sprawled across my house, but hopefully we’ll put them to good use, and this summer, can get good use out of the pool.

Oh, and after wrapping up the party, we took his last 365 photo. So that project is a wrap!

Overall I think it was great. My one year old had a blast on his big day, and I tackled a party like never before. Planning ahead and getting help made the biggest difference. I’m already excited for my daughter’s birthday in July!

And of course I had to capture the scene on video. If you don’t watch the whole thing just watch the first 10 seconds and let me know what you think of my new intro. Believe it or not that was the trickiest part of the entire project!

What do you think of the party? How did I do?

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