Teddy's First Birthday - Northwest Blonde

My baby is ONE! (insert me sobbing). I can’t believe that my teeny tiny squishy little baby is now a walking “talking” toddler.

On his actual birthday, February 7th, Andrew came home early and we just had a casual and fun sushi night-in at home but the week before we had a party with close friends and family to celebrate. It was pretty low-key as but I made a couple of decorations that had a big impact with very little effort. I got some questions on Instagram to share more pictures and link so I figured I’d put everything here in one place where it’s easy to find.

DECORATIONS

I’m not crafty AT ALL but I knew I wanted to do something. A family friend who has two kids always does a streamer backdrop and lots of balloons for her kids’ parties so I just took those ideas and ran with them.

Since I didn’t want the complexity of a theme, I just made it a primary color party. All the decorations were red, yellow, and blue. With those colors in mind, I went to Party City and picked up streamers and placed an order for helium balloons. I also got one pack each of red, yellow, and blue balloons at the Dollar Tree as well as napkins.

Only after I started making the streamer backdrop did I notice that red, yellow, and blue are also very circus big tent colors but it still looked fine. If I need more of a theme in the future, I can always fall back on those. Just how did I make the streamer backdrop? I followed this tutorial I found on Pinterest. It was super easy and only required masking tape. In front of the backdrop, I added a “ONE” balloon that I found at Target.

Along with the streamer backdrop, I had Andrew blow up a bunch of the balloons so our living room floor was covered in them. I think he did about ten of each color. That was about it. Everything held up really well. We set it all up Friday night before the party and it’s still all going strong as I write this minus the helium balloons.

I was also planning on attaching pictures to the string of the balloons but I ended up not doing it. Instead, we just placed the pictures on the table around the edges of the food and on coffee tables and end tables. I’m so happy that I did print out all the pictures regardless. I’ll have some of them framed and displayed in our house, the rest will go into a YEAR ONE photo album.

FOOD

My piece de resistance was the cake! I’ve said it before but I’m no master chef. It’s more of we don’t starve attitude around here. So I was so impressed with myself that I successfully made the Minimalist Baker One-Bowl Vegan Chocolate Cake. It was so easy once I got going. She has an entire catalog of one-bowl cakes that I’d say anyone can make. I also got vegan vanilla cupcakes from the store for Teddy to use as a smash cake and for anyone who didn’t want chocolate.

Other food included orzo pasta salad, green salad, chips and guac, french bread, an array of Trader Joe’s dips and spreads, a veggie platter, hummus, fruit salad, and flatbread.