Saturday, May 19, 2012

Ramona's 1st Birthday Party - With Rainbows!

So yes, I know that this post is a bit...late.  Six months or so.  Let's just pretend it was yesterday, ok?  Sounds good.  Anyway, Romy's birthday party wasn't a huge to-do or anything, just some friends and family, a good time overall.

When I was looking for a theme, I wanted to pick something simple that I thought would interest her, as much as you can at that age, anyway.  I didn't want to pick some random character, because really she couldn't care less about them.  I've never personally known a one-year-old to get super excited about an Elmo party or whatever.  But hey, maybe your kid was, and that's cool too!  At the time the only show she ever watched on TV was Yo Gabba Gabba, but that still didn't really mean all that much to her.  I decided to just go with rainbows, I figured we could have some fun with the decor and she would like the bright colors.

For the decor I kept it rather simple.  From the dollar stores I got streamers, balloons, plates, napkins, and cups in a variety of colors.  I let most of the balloons just float around the floor because I knew that's where the kids would be able to enjoy them.  My favorite thing was the bunting that we made out of felt and ribbon, and it was fairly easy.  We decided how big we wanted the flags to be (smaller for "Happy Birthday", larger for "Ramona!") chose a font and size that would fit (basically by  holding a flag up to the monitor) and traced the letters onto white felt.  A little glue, a little scissor-work, add some ribbon...done!  Plus, I'm planning on hanging the bunting in Ramona's room as soon as I figure out the best way to get it up on the plaster walls.

Awkwardly cropped photo.  I sacrificed the exclamation point so you wouldn't see my forehead.
When I say we: I was very lucky in that I got a TON of help from my mother- and sister-in law.  They helped make the decorations and bake everything.  I couldn't have done it on time without them.  We had cake pops, cupcakes, white-chocolate dipped pretzels and oreos, fruits, veggies, crock-pot meatballs, dip, and of course a little rainbow cake for the birthday girl.  We used rainbow sprinkles, silver dragees and purple sparkly glitter to decorate the sweets.  It was a life-changing revelation when I found out about edible glitter.  I decided that it needed to be sprinkled on all of my food forever (I did not follow through with that).

There may or may not be a Brobee and/or leftover Halloween decor in this photo.
So let me tell you right off the bat- making the rainbow cake and cupcakes, and the cake pops...that was a bitch.  I decided that I wanted to go the swirl route (rather than the different colored tiers), so that wasn't too bad, but trying to split up all the different colors evenly and get them in a muffin tin - headache.  You see people who do these things and they're all like "Omg, it was so easy!"  Well, good for you.  Then there were the cake pops.  Yes, this was our first foray into the world of little tiny edible balls of amazingness, but I still have no idea how these people manage to get these nice round perfectly smooth little creatures.  Mine looked like I tossed them toward the bowl from across the kitchen and hoped for the best.  Then there was the matter of getting them to stay on the stick.  I'm pretty sure they were just trying to escape.  Lumpy, see-through...but delicious.  Once I got them decorated, they were much cuter, though.  And the fact that they tasted great is what counts, right?  And whatever, they were MADE WITH LOVE.  And they were color-swirled too!

I'm still in love with the mini-bunting on here.  Also, no idea how MIL got a ghost "1" on there.
I wasn't sure how we were going to display them, but I remembered that I had a ton of those Target $1 metal pails hanging around in various colors and patterns.  We filled them with sand, covered it with foil, poked the sticks through, and then poured in m&m's and sour gummy worms to cover the foil and add to the color.  They may have been easier ways to do this, but hey, it worked!


Ramona wasn't feeling the greatest, but she still seemed to have a good time.  You could tell that when we did presents and the cake, she was rather confused about everybody standing around and watching her!  She definitely had some trepidation about the smash cake that we gave her, as she didn't get that kind of thing very often.  She got into in the end, as long as she avoided the frosting, which she wasn't a big fan of.  She really didn't make that much of a mess of herself, she was pretty neat and tidy!



We had lots of fun, but I was glad when it was over!  Just like my wedding, I had a good time getting there, but the next day - what a relief.  It's totally possible that I left some of the decor up for a while afterward...I couldn't let all that work go to waste so quickly!



Ramona is almost 19 months old now...guess I better get started planning the next one!

FYI- The first two pics were taken by my BFF Brett, the rest were taken by my good friend Laura of Torn Paper Studios.

1 comment:

  1. Haha! This is awesome. You're cake pops turned out so much better than mine would.

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