John's 1st Birthday Party!

I came up with the idea for John's first birthday party when he was just a couple of months old. I was shopping for clothes for our upcoming Disney trip and saw that one of my favorite shops for Disney outfits, Benoit & Matisse, had a pre-order for Peter Pan and Tink outfits. I thought they were so cute but didn't need them for our upcoming trip (and I wasn't sure they would arrive by then anyway), but I really wanted an excuse to buy them. :) So then I came up with the idea of having a Peter Pan themed party so the kids could wear the outfits. I ordered them, but as time went on I worried that the theme was too cheesy and came up with another idea. But I never could really get excited about it. Fast forward until about a month before his birthday and I realized I just need to make a decision and get to work on it because the party was in a month! I looked at Pinterest and saw a few cute ideas so I decided to stick with the Peter Pan theme, cheesy or not. And I am SO GLAD I did! It was so much fun to do!

These pictures uploaded out of order but I'm too tired to try to fix them. :)

I forgot to get a picture of just the invitation, but my friend, Shannon, at Poppyseed Paper did them, and I thought they turned out so cute!

I ordered a set of cookies from Sweet Melissa's (she is actually from my home town and we made our debut together!), and they were pretty much the cutest things I've ever seen! I follow several bakers on IG and have always loved the birthday sets they do for people, but I had never ordered one for myself until now. She was so excited that she found a font called "Peter Pan" so that's what she did his monogram in. Not only were they so pretty, they were delicious too! Pictures don't do them justice.

I got the idea for these Indian tee-pees from Pinterest. As I was working on them I thought they were going to be a total fail because the initial white icing I was using wasn't keeping the pretzels on the top. But then I used the leftover white chocolate melts from the treats below, and that worked great. I just piped the chocolate on the cones for the tent flaps, and used green food coloring to dye shredded coconut. I found the bark trays at Hobby Lobby.

I used pretzel rods, white chocolate melts, and gold sprinkles to make Tinker Bell wands. 

I used my Cricut and some glittery gold vinyl to create the Tinker Bells for the inside of the "lanterns."

I kind of mixed a "woodland" theme in with the Peter Pan, so I got the fern to put by his smash cake. We already had the Peter Pan book, so I just grabbed it from the girls' room to add to the decor. My mom did the flowers for both of the cakes.

And I did all of the other flower arrangements myself, and my mom went around behind me to spruce them up, as she likes to do. :)

I got the idea for the Sprite bottles from Pinterest as well, and I thought it was a simple and fun way to incorporate more of the Peter Pan theme. 

I got the burlap canvas from Hobby Lobby and made the little pennant banner on it to provide a backdrop for the cake. My mom did the flowers on this cake as well. Both the smash cake and this cake were made by Mallory Webb at Daughter's Baking. She is just starting her business, so I was thankful to my friend Sheela for telling me about her. I was excited to try something different, and I love the look of her cakes! I chose blueberry lemon for the main cake, and John's smash cake was vanilla. I knew the kids probably wouldn't love the blueberry lemon, but I wanted the adults to have something yummy, and we had plenty of other sweet treats for the kiddos. The bark cake stand was an impulse buy at Home Good months and months ago, so it worked well for this party.

I put John's silhouette we had made in Disney World out on display, and used his monogrammed napkins left over from his baby shower. 

I cut out the vinyl shadows on my Cricut and put them on the mirror in the dining room. 

For favors, I got each family of kids the Little Golden Book of Peter Pan. I also wrapped up a few extra cookies for the people who didn't have kids to take as a favor. 

I ordered his 1 hat and ONE banner from two different sellers on Etsy.

We loved celebrating our sweet birthday boy!! I wish we took more pictures of people. Why do I always forget to do that?! We SO missed having Curran at the birthday party. We found out the casting for the Nutcracker the night before the party, and to our surprise she got 3 parts! So that meant she had rehearsal from 11:30-4:30 on the day of the party (and the party was at 3:00). This is a very professional/serious production, and I really didn't feel comfortable asking if she could miss the first day of rehearsals. I mean someone from New York flew all the way down just to do the casting! So we just tried to make light of it and kind of fudged to her that she wouldn't miss the whole party. 

He leaned over to lay his head on hers and my heart turned into mush. 

BJ got some good play time in with Cousin Cindy during the party!

We used his monogrammed sterling cake knife that Sheela gave to John at his baptism.

He enjoyed it, but he certainly didn't make a mess or go too crazy.

We were so excited to have Uncle Charlie, Aunt Camille, and Mae come from New Orleans to stay with us! I am kicking myself for not getting any pictures of the cousins together. 

After Curran got home from ballet (and after having a meltdown that her BFF Lillian had already gone home), we sang happy birthday again and had a smash cake re-enactment for her. 

I only have it in me to do one cutesy party these days, but it really was so much fun and I enjoyed putting it together. We kept it small and simple, but it was the perfect afternoon celebrating this sweet baby and all of the JOY and happiness that he has brought to our family in his first year of life!