Rowan's First Birthday Party

Well surprise, surprise!



Blogging Rowan's birthday party 2 weeks later! I am amazed at mommy bloggers who post everyday!

Rowan's birthday party at first felt like I was planning my wedding all over again. I believe the planning process started at Christmas. I  actually looked at venues, had my secret pinterest boards. I planned out projects, doled out duties to people, etc. I planned different outfits she would change to (which she did), etc. etc. Does it have to be this crazy? Absolutely not. However, being the person I am, I knew this wouldn't be a small affair. Yes, I do know she won't remember this party. I will though, LOL.

In my head, I wanted a decorated, from top to bottom party in my home. However, my home is more on the cozier side  (aka small) , and having up to 50+ people wouldn't work. My ideas of an over the top decorated party came to a crashing halt. I decided to rent out a park space. We specifically rented out a space at Derr Okamoto park in Elk Grove, which is a GORGEOUS new playground and water park nestled amongst some beautiful homes. My heart broke, because decorating for a park party is a whole lot harder. I knew I couldn't decorate how I wanted thanks to being in different elements. It had to be done a little simpler.

Rowan's party was a lot of work, but so much fun. We ended up having 40+ dear family and friends to celebrate our beautiful miracle baby. Really at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Rowan thankfully was very cheerful and happy to have all the attention. We laughed, stuffed ourselves silly, and enjoyed honoring the birthday girl! It was truly a wonderful day. One CRAZY thing though...Rowan HATED HATED HATED the cake smash. Honestly, I was pretty bummed. If you know my child at all, she LOVES food so much. I pictured in my head the traditional smearing of the cake all over, her gleefully enjoying it. Welp, just goes to show you, you can't plan it perfectly! Initially, it started to go well. However, she was getting tired, and realized she couldn't get rid of the frosting off of her fingers. After that, she straight up lost her mind! We got the funniest (but kinda sad) pictures of her screaming. It's kinda funny now:

Here's the breakdown of her party...

Rowan's birthday theme:

 Under the Sea

 She loves the sea animals in the show Baby Einstein, so it seemed appropriate! Pinterest has a huge SLEW of cutesy pins for it.

Decorations:

 Park birthdays can be a bit trickier to decorate. Some park areas are super easy, some aren't. Our section had a super high overhang where I couldn't necessarily hang things. So, we did table cloths on tables, topped with mason jars filled with sand, sea shells, and "1" and "sea shell" decorations in it. On top of each table was a framed picture of Rowan in different stages of her infancy. Not overly fancy, but adorable and sweet!

Next, I borrowed a pop up from my friend Eva. I made jelly fish from paper bowls (simply paint and poke holes on the top) and stapled crinkled streamers on them. I hung a total of 6 around the whole thing and it had an cute effect!

For her cake table, I bought "ONE" letters from hobby lobby. I put modge podge on the letters, and covered them with gold glitter. Once I shook off the excess, I hair sprayed the letters. Presto! At target, I bought this cute banner kit for $4! I also bought these gold stickers  and made the following banner, "I am one"

Her cake table ended up looking like this. This was also before we put out her cake and before more presents came

I posted a chalkboard, and on each side had a fun poster. The first side had Rowan's monthly pictures. I am SO happy I did this. It was super worth it and makes me cry to see how much she has changed. I bought a chalkboard looking poster board from the dollar tree and I was done!

On the other side, I bought a fantastic chalkboard poster from the lovely and talented shop Emma Joy Designs . The poster was only $14! It was perfect and I loved it!!

Food:

I am so disappointed I didn't get good food pictures at all. In the midst of party craziness, I didn't get any pictures of the food! Since it was at a park, we decided to have hot dogs as our main dish. For sides, I went with a sea theme. Despite the lack of pictures, these are some picture pins from other blogs I copied exactly for her party. Super cute and precious!

Cake:

I asked my sister, who is the queen of cake pops, to make cake pops for the party. She is extremely talented and didn't disappoint! They were beautiful!

Just perfect!

Now for the cake smash, I had the original intentions of making a rosette cake, that claimed to be easy.

In talking to one of my talented baker friends, who gave me great tips, I attempted to make it at 10 pm the night before her party. If you know me at all, I am not overly talented in the baking department and ruin the easiest of recipes. Needless to say, it was a little nuts and didn't quite turn out LOL...

My friend, who was so sweet, lovingly dubbed it as monster hair. Perfect for a Monster's Inc. type of monster! I ended up using it for her photo shoot. However, that presented me with a cake problem on her actual party day. At 7 am, on the morning of her party, I frantically ran into my nearest Raley's and explained my plight. They were amazing, and took a small square cake and redecorated it for $5. Why didn't I do this in the first place? At this point, I didn't need it to be fancy, I needed something semi presentable! Thank you Raley's!

Rowan's clothes:

Trying to figure out her outfit was like picking a wedding dress, LOL! She ended up wearing two outfits. When she first arrived, she wore her glitter "ONE" onesie with a scrappy tutu. The ONE decal came from the talented Jamie Van Nuys Designs for only $7. I had a onesie already lying around, so this was cheap! Now for her scrappy tutu! I came up with the idea after seeing this precious pin:

Making a scrappy skirt actually wasn't too hard. I bought a ton of super cute fabric on sale at Joann's. I plan on doing a tutorial on this, I promise. Anyway, her skirt came out perfect and looked like this:

After her cake smash fail, she changed into this precious first birthday pillowcase dress that belonged to her cousin Abby. I am so sad I don't know where it originally came from, but it was from an Etsy shop and my sister bought it 6 years ago. However, if I didn't have that precious dress, I more than likely would have picked this cutie from Carolina Kidz Clothing. Anyway, I loved the pillowcase dress she wore, because it was roomy, comfortable and lightweight, as it got pretty hot later. She even wore it during her photoshoot!

And for her final touch, her birthday crown! We got this gem from Think Pink Bows, for a steal for $6.95. I love this shop, and we have tons of head wraps and top knots from them. Their prices are amazing!

Us at brunch on her actual birthday, 4/19/15...that face LOL

If you stayed with me so far, thank you!
Overall, I was very happy with how her party turned out. I just truly can't believe she is 1!

Complete list of vendors/shops used:

Onesie decal: Jamie VanNuys Designs

Birthday crown: Think Pink Bows

Cake: Raley's

Venue: Derr Okamoto Park

All About Me chalkboard: Emma Joy Designs

Cake Pops: Connie Finney

Here are some of my favorite party pics!

Ruffle booty!

With her Uncle Kevin

I love my muggles!

My wiggly girl

Before she lost her mind

So far so good...

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!

Loving on her paci during gifts

My beautiful miracle baby!

My Potter tribe

Apparently, cake pops aren't offensive to her..

Happy cake pop covered girl