Winter OneDerland
Birthday Party
My little guy will be two this month and that is both super
exciting and extremely terrifying. Terrible twos, anyone? Luckily, he’s still
an only child so between me and daddy, it’s still two against one.
Anyway, last year was his first birthday and being a
December baby made for a little bit of a challenge when it came to planning a birthday.
Add to the chaos of Christmas, his birthday is on the 26th, which is
the day right after Christmas, so there’s that …
Moving on … because you can really only pull off a Winter
Onederland when the kid is One, I figured I’d better do it the year he actually
turned one. I hit Pinterest for most of these ideas.
Invitation: found a version online that I liked and re-created it myself using a professionally taken photo of my baby.
Invitation: found a version online that I liked and re-created it myself using a professionally taken photo of my baby.
Food: What goes
with winter more than cookies? Answer: More cookies! You guys. I baked my ass
off. For like two days straight before the party. M&M cookies. Chocolate
Chip Cookies. Sugar Cookies.
And then also cupcakes. Store bought items included: doughnut holes, white chocolate pretzels and toppings for the hot cocoa bar.
That’s right. You can’t have a winter wonderland without hot
cocoa too. We had sprinkles, white chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips and
butterscotch chips along with whip cream. I saw on Pinterest where someone took
those big marshmallows, dipped them in melted blue white chocolate and topped
them with these cute snowflake sprinkles. They were really good and were used to stir the hot cocoa.
I used this crockpot hot chocolate recipe and doubled
it: 1.5 cups heavy cream, 1 can of
sweetened condensed milk (14oz), 2 cups milk chocolate chips, 6 cups of milk, 1
tsp vanilla extract.
It. Was. Amazing.
So, total sugar overload. I probably would have been more concerned
about this if there was more than two children at the party. Everyone else was
an adult. I’m okay with adults on a sugar high.
Decorations: I
hit up Dollar Tree in October as soon as their winter stuff came out and
grabbed a bunch of snowflakes to hang from the ceiling. I also used any silver
decorations I had lying around in my Christmas containers; silver plate, silver
picture frame, branches with fake snow (from A C Moore) and of course, fake
snow. The two white vases with crystals on them are decorations I bought for the
house a few years ago at chiasso.com (which I guess is now called inmod.com.) I also filled the entire dining room with balloons. That was a lot a of blowing.
Pictures: The day
of the party was going to be hectic so I took the advice of much more experienced
mommies and did a cake-testing photo shoot a few days before the actual party. I just didn't want all of Mason's first birthday photos to look like this:
Anyway, it was so much fun. I made little guy a giant cupcake cake (chocolate, of
course), set up a backdrop and went to town with my camera. I made the banners
from scratch paper purchased at Michael's and let the balloons fall where they
may. I think his tummy is just the cutest thing in the whole world, so I had
him shirtless with dark blue jeans.
Party Favors: For
Thank you party favors, I filled up some hot beverage paper cups/lids that I
had with tootsie rolls and individual hot cocoa packets. I tied them with
snowflakes from the Dollar Tree and a little note that matched the invitations
saying, “Thank you snow much for coming, Love, M.” Cute. Easy. Inexpensive. And
everyone loved them.
Budget: Hubby and I decided on a $100 party budget and I
think we fell just short of that. We spent most of the money on recipe items
and food. The dollar store was a huge help with décor and it helped that I
designed all of the paper items. So if you’re thinking of hosting a Winter
Onederland for your little person, I hope you find some inspiration here. My little
dude’s second birthday party is Elmo themed, so stay tuned for that!
Till next time.
xoxo
Jessie
Jessie
