I started planning Evan’s first birthday party (better known as the Celebration of Surviving the First Year of Parenthood) a few months ago. I fantasized about everything from inviting every playmate he’s ever met this year and having a baby extravaganza to doing barely anything (because a lot of what I read said they don’t notice the theme and who cares if they don’t remember it anyway). I settled on a small party at home with some fun ideas collected from around the internet.
Before we get to the specifics, I just want to say that all the stuff I read about your baby not noticing or caring about decorations is hooey. I am SO glad I decorated with streamers and balloons, the works…Evan LOVED it. He noticed it the moment we came downstairs and looked, pointed and babbled about it all day. We enjoyed lots of rare giggles (he doesn’t often laugh out loud) as he chased balloons around the house and played with his giant helium balloon. And who cares if he doesn’t remember it, we got it on video and in pictures…so he’ll get to experience it all over again when he’s older, and that he will remember.
Here’s what I did and how it turned out:
1. The Theme: Sesame Street with Cookie Monster as the star – Evan has a stuffed cookie monster that his Dad got him at FAO Shwartz in New York. He loves it, so I decided to decorate his first cake to look like cookie monster. That being decided, the rest of the theme fell into place and was really easy since you can find Sesame Street stuff all over the place. We had SS napkins, plates, wrapping paper and splat mat (for under Evan’s highchair). I bought blue cups and blue and white crepe paper and multicolored balloons. Most of it came from the dollar store (hello saving some money)! BTW, did you know the dollar store sells helium balloons?! They cost $5-9 anywhere else! I also had to hang up a Spongebob Squarepants (my favorite cartoon character) birthday sign that my friends hung on our house last year when Evan was born. I’m not a stickler for making everything match, that’s way too Edward Scissorhands neighborhood for me!
2. Cake for Evan and cupcakes for everyone else – Go ahead and laugh at my rendition of cookie monster…I know he has issues…but it was so easy and Evan is not very critical. As a first attempt at cake decorating, I love how it turned out. The cakes were almost a disaster though…there’s a lesson here: never use old cooking oil!! I happened to taste the raw batter (after the cakes were already cooling) and it was awful…my oil was over two YEARS expired (can you tell I bake a lot?). I had no idea that cooking oil goes bad, and yikes does it ever! Thankfully, I hadn’t frosted the cakes yet and my hubby was already at the store buying other supplies, so we rescued the cake and prevented a disaster. All I did for the cakes was use devil’s food cake mix and white frosting with blue food coloring. The eyeballs are marshmallows (an idea from googling “cookie monster cake”) and the black icing was premade from the bakery aisle. We forgot to get the special tip that goes on the premade icing package so I put it in a ziploc and snipped a corner off, and that worked fine. Cheaper too! We also got a bucket of chocolate chip cookie dough as an easy way to make cookies and add to the theme. Evan had a grand time destroying his cake while eating a small portion (actually maybe he ate more than we thought…he was up a lot last night). He looked like he was playing in a mudpie, elbow deep in chocolate cake! Fun, but not a daily activity. He went straight to the bathtub afterward.
3. The 1st Bir
thday Shirt - Another idea I collected from cyber world and was excited to make since I just started sewing was a birthday shirt for Evan. This is something easy to do that makes a very special keepsake for your kiddo to have later. I bought a blank blue shirt at the hobby store. I formed the number one using some striped ribbon I had from a belt I made and stuck it to the shirt using my new favorite product, Stitch Witchery. Basically it’s a strip that you put between two pieces of fabric and then you iron over everything. The stitch witchery bonds the layers together so you don’t have to use pins when you sew. After that I went around the edge of the number one with a zigzag stitch to finish it off. My husband wanted me to personalize the back with Evan’s name, so I decided to just take permanent marker to draw on his name and then added a simple drawing of cookie monster and a “Happy Birthday” message. I googled “cookie monster” images to find one that was easy to draw. The shirt was a little over-sized on Evan but that made it perfect to wear while destroying the cake (instead of his nice birthday sweater).
3. The out-fit to grow into – One of my favorite ideas I found googling is this: buy an adult sized outfit that you can 
take a picture of your child in every year on their birthday and watch them grow into it. At first, I started looking for a T-Shirt of some sort and jeans, but decided that would be too hard to keep up with and not as much fun. Dejected, I gave up on this idea until I spotted an adult-sized Superman PJ set at Target! Perfect! Evan won’t mind having his picture taken in it for a long time and may even look forward to it. When he’s old enough to fit in it, he can just wear it at home and we can spare him the embarrassment of having to wear an outfit his mom picked out when he was a baby in public. If he turns out like me though, he may find a time in his life to wear it proudly out in public. 
For the party, we just hung it up for some more mis-matched decoration.
That’s it! Super easy…super cheap…lots of memories! Every party has to have a hitch though; I was hoping ours was the failed first cake attempt…sadly it ended up being the camcorder not recording the Happy Birthday song, candle and cake demolition. Birthday Tip: Make sure the camcorder is really recording!!
