Wesley's Birthday Party {Chicka Chicka Boom Boom 1st birthday}

I cannot believe I've writing about Wesley's first birthday! I started thinking about the theme when Wesley was 9 months old. After some consideration, Jarrod and I opted for a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom themed party. If you'll remember, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is one of Wesley's favorite books. I got to thinking, created a pin board, and was very excited.

The first thing I did was create an invitation. I couldn't find anything I liked online, so I crafted this on Photoshop.

From this invitation, I also created thank you notes, return address labels, and food cards for the party.

Of course, in order to design the table cards, I needed to decide what we would be serving. With the party from 1-3pm, we opted for appetizers, cookies, juice, and cake. We served Chicka Chicka Chips and Dare Double Dare Dips (guacamole, queso, and salsa), Wiggle Jiggle Juice, alphabet cookies, and cake.

Rather than buying plastic table clothes, I decided to make my own... You can see it in the above photos. I purchased 3 yards of orange and white polka dot fabric and 1 1/2 yards of green and white polka dot fabric. I cut the orange in half and just sewed it together and hemmed the ends.

Another craft I did was making Wesley a birthday banner. I bought several sheets of square scrapbook paper on sale, cut them into smaller squares and then cut out the letters to spell out "Happy Birthday Wesley!" I hot glued these squares to an orange ribbon and hung it up before the party. I imagine it will stay up until we move. :-)

I ordered Wesley a birthday t-shirt because I knew I wasn't going to make the perfect t-shirt. I ordered this t-shirt from Lollipop's Shirt Shop. It was a little big on Wesley, but it was absolutely perfect! He wore it for most of the party (until the cake!) and then wore it to school on Monday!

We made three homemade pizzas - alfredo with mushrooms, cheese, and pepperoni - and then sliced them into bite-sized pieces. Had I been a little more creative, I may have cut them into L M N O for the LMNO Pizza Bites...

Yes, I wore a shirt to match the party...

And then there was cake. It was the part of the party that I was most looking forward to. A friend from college made it for us - we had two actually: one for Wesley and one for everyone else. Not only were they delicious, but they were exactly what I pictured!

We put Wesley in his high chair which happened to be spray painted a perfect color for the party. (Don't worry, we sealed the tray with Safecoat.)

Source list:
T-shirt from Lollipop's Shirt Shop
Cake from: Classic Confections: 214-641-7240.
Table cloth fabric from Hobby Lobby
Cake stand and high chair already owned but spray painted blue
Cookie cutters
Icing
Cookie dough recipe

I'll be back tomorrow sharing more pictures from the party - especially from my favorite part - the cake smash! Later this week I'm going to share my best practices and things I learned from planning and executing this party!