1st Birthday Party!

Working full time with a sick hubby means that I don't have a lot of time to plan, prepare, and craft. But I think CJ's first birthday party came off pretty well. I chose an "apple" theme, and then started researching. Turns out there are lots of apple theme birthday parties out there. Who knew?

First off, I knew there would be a wide age range of kids at the party, and I wanted something for them to do, but didn't want it to be too structured. I made little red and green paper apples with their initials cut into them, and gave them markers to decorate. I also covered a table in craft paper and told them they could color on it. As the kids came in, I gave them their apples to color at their leisure. These apples were then used in a later game.

Decorations and snacks:
I created these cute paper lantern apples and hung them around randomly. They are just green Chinese lanterns with brown duct tape stems and foam leaves.
For snacks I had apple slices and dip (caramel and marshmallow fluff/cream cheese), Apple Jacks, apple flavored jelly beans, cheese, and pretzels. We also had signature drinks: for adults - apple martinis, for kids apple juice mixed with sprite. All with cool green plates, cups, and napkins, of course.

 

We needed to run off some of that sugar and enjoy the beautiful fall day! Bubble Machine!! 

Remember those colored apples? We played a variation of pin the tail on the donkey. Pin the apple on the tree. Big kids had to close their eyes and get spun around. Smaller kids either got spun or not, depending on what they were up for. The goal was to get your red apple closest to the red apple with a star and the green apple closest to the green apple with a star. This worked really well, and everyone wanted to go twice, which worked out perfectly!

Dinner on the pergola. Nothing particularly apple themed for dinner. I had made carrot and apple salad to go with the tator-tot casserole, but forgot to put it out! Ooops...

CUPCAKES! Aren't these cute? Apple cupcakes from a Martha Stuart recipe. The brown ones have caramel frosting. The green ones have marshmallow fluff icing a la Rachel Ray. With a mint leaf and pretzel stick to make them look a bit like apples. So, they didn't turn out as amazing as some of the pics I found online, but they are pretty good for me. (-:

 Oh yeah, the boy loved em, too.

Presents! We have wonderfully generous friends and he got lots of goodies!

It was a great day and we had lots of fun. It is hard to believe my little boy is 1 year old now. He's grown into a little boy all of a sudden (instead of a baby). He explores, "talks", plays by himself, interacts with other kids... and is just so much fun!