My Baby is ONE! Weston's First Birthday Paw-ty!

This is a very special and more personal blog post for me. I can't believe a year has gone by since our family welcomed Weston into the world. He's been such a blessing to us all. He's the sweetest little boy, and of course I think he's so stinkin' cute. I went back and forth on whether to throw him a first birthday party or not. Part of me thought - he's one, he won't even know what's going on! But, then I thought, well we threw big brother Braden a party, how can I not do the same for Weston. Guilt got the best of me, and I love entertaining, so I decided to throw a party. I immediately knew what I wanted the theme to be. I had seen these adorable cupcakes at a local bakery, Frost, they were puppy cupcakes. I just fell in love with them and decided I had to try making them myself. So away I went with the puppy theme. I don't really consider myself a super creative person, so I searched the web for ideas on decorating, food etc. I found Annie's Eats to be an awesome source of information on kid's party ideas. She so kindly posts pictures of her own kiddos parties, and oh my gosh, so cute. Check her blog out and just cruise around her site. She seems like a super awesome lady and mom.

I found these cute invites on Etsy.


I also wanted Weston to have a cute little shirt for his celebration. My co-worker's wife owns the Paisley Polkadot, so I contacted her and she came up with this SUPER cute shirt and I love it!


First, for the party, I wanted to do a puppy adoption. Since this was a one-year old party, I didn't know how successful games would be, so I thought the puppy adoption was a super cute idea that kids of all ages could participate in. Each kiddo got to pick their puppy when they got to the party and take it home with them.


For the decorations. I went crazy on Etsy. I got the Happy Birthday Banner and sign for Weston's high chair from Etsy. At Annie's Eat's she used this cute idea to twist streamers. I chose to put them in my window opening. I think a pack of streamers is under $1, so a really economical, easy way to decorate. I thought it turned out really cute.



Also over at Annie's Eats, she posted a picture of a cute birthday banner. I fell in love with this idea. I had a total of 13 pictures. I started with Day 1, then did month 1, 2, 3, all the way through 12, so you could see Weston through the year and how he looked at each month. This was fun especially for me, and all the grandparents.


Then, what's a party without FOOD! We had rice kripsy treats, cut in the shape of dog bones and then I made these awesome cheese crackers. They are SO yummy. The recipe is actually for homemade goldfish crackers, but instead of cutting them into goldfish, you guessed it, I cut them into dog bones! I found some really cute brown polka dot portion cups to put them in. Also, I loved this idea for veggies and ranch dip. Put them in individual cups so folks can just pick them up and eat them. The ranch dip was homemade. I got the recipe from the Our Best Bites blog and I love it. It's so easy to make and tastes SO much better than store bought. It's so easy, I really don't think I'll buy it again. It literally only took 10 minutes to make and didn't make a mess in my kitchen. WIN!
My mom brought over her famous pasta salad. I kept thinking what could we do to this dish to dress it up for the party!? What else by cheese cut in the shape of dog bones! Unfortunately, you can't see it in the picture, but trust me, it was super cute!





Now saving the best for last, was the cupcakes! I built the cupcake stand myself. It's bascially cakeboards covered with paper and lined around the edges with ribbon and then you can use cake dummies for the spacers in between, or soup cans, and then cover them with ribbon. Then, add whatever decorations you wish to customize the stand. For the cupcakes, I chose two flavors: chocolate and white. Both were iced with a basic buttercream icing (I used the Wilton buttercream icing recipe). The chocolate cake I chose to swirl with icing with my new awesome JUMBO tips from Bake It Pretty! I then adorned them with a sugar bone. My friend, Adrian, over at AJ's cupcakes tipped me off to this cute idea. She did a similar cupcake for one of her clients and I thought they were super cute. The white cake I chose to make look like the puppies. The ears, tongue, and eyes are just fondant, and the nose is a black jelly bean.




For party favors, along with the puppies, I made sugar cookies in the shape of dog bones, with each kiddos name on it.



This was a super fun party to throw, and hopefully one day Weston can read this and learn about what a fun time it was ;)

List of vendors of where I got all the fun party stuff!
Invitations: Paper Heart Company (Etsy)
Happy Birthday Banner and High Chair sign: DevinPrather (Etsy)
Weston's Birthday Shirt: The Paisley PolkadotCupcake Cupcake Liners: The Baker's Confections (Etsy)
Portion Cups and Paper Straws: In the Clear (Etsy)
Sugar Bones (to top the chocolate cupcakes)and bone cookie cutter: Baker's Nook

xoxo,
Katie