Ethen's 1st Birthday Bash

Today is a huge milestone in our family...Ethen turned 1!!! We can't believe a whole year has already passed in this little man's life, but we have absolutely loved every second of it and wanted to do him justice in throwing him a fun birthday bash (although we knew he wouldn't remember).

Anne decided the theme was going to be all things fish. Our first idea was to go to our local party store and see what kind of goodies we could get there. we were able to find plastic table cloths and plates with napkins that suited the theme very well. From there we took it into our crafty hands and designed it to be our own.

The dollar store played a big help in our execution as well. We needed containers to hold a variety of items but we did not want to spend a ton of money. We found colored cups, serving bowls, and dishes that helped keep the same color palette throughout the room. We filled them with various types of goldfish (we had no idea how many there actually were) so guests could munch on our friendly fish before the barbecue that was to happen later in the day.

Along with our original table cloths we bought basic colored ones as well. This allowed for us to double layer on the extra tables to give some variety and cut shapes with the excess ones we had to keep our underwater theme afloat. Fishes, octopuses, sandollars, starfish, and seaweed displayed in a variety of colors were cut and stuck on with the help of our trusty friend spray glue.

We have seen many pins on people doing photo booth photos for parties and weddings and thought it could be a fun memorabilia for our guests to be able to do this as well. We pinned a table cloth to one of our walls that displayed our sprayed on fishes. We also included some blow up toys (which were also used later when we went swimming), leis and giant sunglasses that people could hold or wear during their photo session.

The outside we put sticky fishes on the windows for some decoration to be displayed to be seen both inside and out. On our gate in our backyard we thought it could be fun to put a net with some treasures tangled through it. This kept our theme going no matter where are guests were located.

One of our favorite things about the party was seeing Ethen get messy with his cake. His ocean themed cake was actually made with cupcakes. This made it very easy for our guests because instead of waiting for a slice they were able to pull off a cupcake from underneath the frosting and eat them straight away.

As the children were leaving the party we were able to give them little party favors to help them remember the day. Little jars were decorated with stickers and filled with nerds and swedish fish filled them to look like tiny aquariums. We also thought bubbles would be appropriate to have because fish blow bubbles and the kids could as well. Anne also made special jello cups with blue jello to be the water and yellow and blue jello that she had formed to look like fish thanks to some ice cube trays that we had found.

All in all we had a blast celebrating Ethen's first birthday and look forward to celebrating many more! We are glad we were able to post about his special day and hope it gives you some party ideas for your little ones.