Nautical First Birthday Party for Isaiah

When I started thinking about Isaiah's first birthday party I was thinking reds, blues, maybe a last splash of summer theme... But as soon as I spotted these little booties I knew I was going nautical. :)

Next step was invitations. When you have a sister who is a graphic designer, you can get a little carried away. First I did a photo shoot of Isaiah that looked semi nautical. Then I had my sister use that photo and make it into a vintage looking post card invitation. 

The front. (It was not pixelated in real life) 

The back. I wrote him a message on one to tuck into his baby book later. 

Now for some of the decor. I definitely should have broken this post into two parts... It's going to be very long and VERY full of photos. 

Above is the wall above the dessert table. I used regular little cork boards, painted on the stripes, and then decorated them with a newborn photo, six month photo, a sail boat that drew helped me make, photos from the nautical shoot, and the post card I wrote the message on. Above is a piece of twine with fabric pennants glued on. I actually hot glued the ends of the twine to the wall. No nail holes, and it peels right off. And it was Drew's idea. He is a genius! (He asked if I was going to glue it to the wall when I was trying to decide how to hang it... and I said Yes! That's exactly what I'm going to do you brilliant little two year old!!) 

One of my favorite little details were these striped paper straws. I love pitchers and drink dispensers, but my favorite glass drink dispenser broke the day before the party.. So to make my plastic pitchers look a little cuter I cut squares out of brown paper bags and wrote "mint tea" and drew an anchor on them. I also used blue mason jars to hold the straws and extra forks. (you can get these straws on a site called garnish)

The silverware. Tied with twine with a life saver attached. I think I saw this on a google image search of nautical party ideas. (Cute and practical) 

Another sailboat that I made and party favors. I just cut regular paper bags down a little shorter, wrote each child's name and drew and anchor, filled them with plastic bags full of swedish fish and gummy sharks (red & blue & from the ocean... I love themes...) then tied them with twine. 

More favors. There were a lot of kids. You will see for yourself in future photos! 

Can't leave the chalkboard undecorated! 

I made Isaiah's cake. Cake making is not my forte', and probably my least favorite art form. But whatever, perfection is never my goal. Cute and thoughtful are what I go for, so I think I accomplished that much. Because cake making is not my thing, I have 9x13 pans and nothing else. But I wanted a tiny, taller, round cake. So I baked a strawberry cake in a 9 x13, used a bowl and a knife to trace to circles into the cake, cut away the rest, stacked the circles, frosted the cake, used some blue sprinkles on top, and then stuck on another homemade sailboat with toothpicks. 

[About the homemade sailboats.... Drew and I just collected sticks from the backyard, using more curved sticks for the bottom, then cut out fabric in triangles, hot glued it to our sticks, used twine to hold the sticks together at the base, hot glued on little flags... super super easy and I love how they came out! Trying to figure out where I can use them around the house as part of everyday decor now.]

Last part of the decor were these long pieces of twine and fabric pennants I made. Again, easy, but somewhat time consuming. I didn't use a pattern, I just cut out triangles from the fabric I bough (remember, perfection is NOT my goal!) then I cut slits in the top corners of the triangles and strung them onto the twine. I hot glued the corners in place so they wouldn't slide. The most difficult part of this whole shenanigan was trying to make them the right length... I happened to be climbing up onto the picnic table with my arms full of twine and pennants and wasn't paying attention to where I was stepping... I stepped onto the end of one of the benches and it flipped and i fell and somewhere in the air me and the bench collided and I had quite the purple bruise to show for it for awhile... 

If I would have had more time I probably would have made a third or even a forth strand to hang. I loved them :) 

Close up. 

Food! One of the best parts of a party. :) Our menu: 

Pulled chicken bbq sandwiches. 

Tortilla chips and homemade pico de gallo. 

Veggies and dip. 

Fruit. 

Pasta Salad. 

Cake Batter truffles.

Birthday cake. 

Mint Tea.

Dessert table again. Not the best lighting or angle. (rushing)

[Thank you to my brother for making the pico, my mom for doing the fruit, my dad for doing the pasta salad, my sister for making the truffles, and my mommom for making the cake! You all helped to take a huge part of the preparations off of my shoulders and I enjoyed the whole day so much more because of it! Plus everything you all made tasted wonderful!] 

Now for the party itself!!

Kid table :) 

Isaiah loves fruit!

Some of the babies Isaiah's age that were at the party! Missing his buddy Zavier who was camping, and Connor who was at his grandparents house.  

ready to escape.

eating his way out.

Almost all of the kids at the party. Alexia was being smart and not partaking in the chaos :) 

More escaped from this photo. But it's still a cute one. Someday I hope these kids have fun looking back at these pictures and laughing together. :) 

My birthday boy!!! 

Ok, so theme of my life: Perfection is NOT the goal!! That being said, please enjoy our attempts at a family photo for Isaiah's birthday: 

Take 1: Screaming Isaiah. 

Take 2: Crying daddy. (my personal favorite)

(also, I think I was saying something like "well, here's real life for ya!")

Take 3: Dejected Drew. 

Take 4: 

Hmm... after all that, this one doesn't seem too bad... two of us are smiling at least. Three are even looking at the camera. Never mind Isaiah looks miserable, and Drew's hand is in his face. We'll take it. :) 

Daddy with the birthday boy!

Playing with a straw. 

Birthday boy happy and clapping along! 

Now, the best part of a first birthday is the cake smashing. And I thought we'd probably be in for a pretty good show with Isaiah. But I never anticipated his tactics... After looking at the cake for about a second, he braced both hands on his high chair, and dug in... with his FACE. Behold: 

Feeding daddy :) 

Still going to town. 

Num num num.

Last two photos before I had to strip him down and put him in the sink, wiping icing off his face, hands, hair, and legs. Yes. legs. Somehow, they were covered too. 

Cleaned up and back out to play! 

Happy boy! 

Opening presents!!! I am so thankful for our finished basement, the biggest room in our house, where we were able to accommodate everyone. Thanks for being willing to be snuggly! 

Puppy from grandma and grandpa.

Drew jumping in on the action above. 

And after an action-packed gift opening session, our big one year old crashed in his new chair from mommom and pop and looked quite comfy. :) 

Thank you again to everyone who was part of his special day, we loved celebrating his life with you all!