Hunters Winter OneDerland- Part 1

Rather than post 100 photos in one post I'm breaking this up into two posts, the first will be the details and the second will be the people/celebration part.

 

Hunters first birthday party this past Sunday (on his actual birthday) was a big success. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, ate a lot, liked the decorations and the birthday boy didn't have any meltdowns. Win, Win, Win, Win!

 

I must say that pulling off this party was a lot more work than I anticipated. I had last Mon-Wed off for the Christmas holiday and then took Thurs and Fri off to in part prepare for the party and get some stuff done around the house. Yeah the "get stuff done around the house" didn't happen because I was running around like a chicken without a head trying to finish up crafts, buy last minute supplies and food, clean and decorate the house. We went to 4 different grocery stores in 4 days before we had everything we needed. It was exhausting and next year (I guess it's technically this year) I plan to order pizza and buy Hunter a cupcake and call it a day.

 

So below are the shots of the decorations and food

The birthday balloon wreath I made. Not very hard but fairly time consuming. I was quite happy with how it turned out and I plan to hang it on his bedroom door now.

This was in our dining room. We took what was supposed to be a table cover and hung it on the wall then taped a bunch of photos from Hunters first year to it. Everyone seemed to really enjoy looking at all the photos.

Here are the goody bags displayed on our entry way table. Inside I put a Cheryl's Co. cookie (they actually sent me the wrong cookies and so I ended up getting them all for free since the order was wrong), a snowflake ornament I got from Target, Mint Hershey Kisses with the green, snowflake wrappers and a small pad of paper with a snowman on the cover. I wanted the goody bags to be kid friendly but also not entirely geared towards kids since most of the guests were adults.

The bag ties were courtesy of Kristen at Little Laws prints.

Some snowflakes in the entryway. I ordered a good amount of the decorations from Oriental Trading.

More decorations in the entryway. Kristian said it looked like a snowflake themed prom. My response: "that's just the look I was going for".

The mantle in the living room. I spray painted some letters I bought at Michaels a light blue to match the decor and hung up each of Hunters monthly photos. The number banner was also courtesy of Little Laws Prints.

I love this banner and kinda want to keep it up all year.

 

The high chair of honor for the birthday boy. I actually made the "ONE" banner at the last minute when I realized I didn't have one. Fortunately I found some snowflake paper at Michaels.

Our cake/dessert table setup. This area didn't turn out quite the way I had planned because 1. Kristian didn't want me taping a bunch of stuff to the walls for fear the tape would rip off the paint. It didn't. Nor did I expect it to. 2. I didn't know how big the cakes would be so it was hard to decorate/setup around those until they arrived. But I think it looked okay.

A close up of the banner also from Little Laws Prints.

So my brothers girlfriend Melissa bakes cakes, like really good cakes. She offered to make Hunters birthday and smash cakes and they turned out better than I had hoped. Here is his snowman smash cake. It was so cute I hated having him destroy it.

And here's the main birthday cake. Both tasted excellent. Chocolate for Hunter and vanilla for everyone else.

I laughed when I thought about how I was stressing over making some cake pops and she created these amazing cakes.

Some desserts I made. I also took some photos of Hunter holding up his O, N, E letters for the frame. Getting those shots weren't easy because he kept wanting to either chew on or throw the letters. Sigh.

My snowman cookies. I found on Pinterest. You just take the Golden Oreos dip them in melted white chocolate and use mini chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth and candy corn for the nose. Actually fairly easy but time consuming. That was how I spent last Friday night. The things we do for our children.

My first (and probably last) attempt at cake pops. They seem so easy to make in theory but really were a huge pain in the ass. Fortunately they turned out okay, our 14 year old niece ate most of them. I sprinkled crushed up candy canes on them. The ones in the center were actually little brownies I bought in the store that I also dipped in chocolate and put peppermint on.

Another idea I found on Pinterest. My dessert kabobs. I used angel food cake, strawberries and marshmallows covered with chocolate syrup. We had a bit of a sweets overload at the party.

All the appetizers. Veggie tray, pigs in a blanket, mini quiches, meatballs and chips and salsa.

In addition to this we also had a chili bar but I didn't get any pictures since that was setup in the kitchen. Kristian made two huge pots of chili (he makes excellent chili) and then we had different toppings set out (cheese, sour cream, chopped onions and frito chips). Everyone loved the chili and he made enough that we were able to freeze the leftovers for several meals. I really wanted the menu to go with the winter theme.

Our hot chocolate bar.

I made hot chocolate in the crockpot and had different toppings- marshmallows, chocolate chips, peppermint and pirouette cookies. The younger kids seemed to enjoy the hot chocolate. We also had hot apple cider in the basement but most of the adults just drank beer or wine.

 

The whole dining room setup (prior to the cakes arriving).

 

So there are all the details I was able to photograph. It didn't all turn out quite as I had hoped but overall I'm pretty happy with the results and I got a lot of compliments so I think we can put this into the success column.