After what seemed like months of anticipation, Little C celebrated his first birthday this weekend. Aside from a special play date with our playgroup pals on his actual birthday and a treasured visit from his grandparents, the big highlight from his birthday weekend was his birthday party.


Our family, captured while everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Little C

We held the fête in our home, and scheduled it from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., with the hopes that Little C would follow his normal nap schedule and wake at 10 and go back down for his afternoon nap as the party was winding down.  He ended up taking an extremely long nap, not waking until we got him at 10:40 to get him changed and giving him a chance to wake up (he can be a bit groggy after his naps).

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Because his party was on Memorial Day and right at lunch time, we ended up throwing a full-scale barbecue.  Mr. Confetti and one of his friends manned the grill, cooking up hot dogs, burgers and turkey burgers, and we had a green salad, a pasta salad, and my favorite, a minty fruit salad in a watermelon bowl (we had one of these at my first birthday, so I wanted to replicate it for Little C’s).  We also made the most delicious mini-caprese bites (inspired by a post on Pinterest), and to match my color scheme, we had Coke, Diet Coke and Fresca.


Mini-Caprese Bites


Watermelon salad with mint, blueberries and strawberries – all of C’s favorites

For dessert, I was determined to bake everything from scratch – I’ve been honing my baking skills since the beginning of the new year (thank you New Year’s resolutions).  I love red velvet cake, but I was not comfortable feeding Little C a cake with so much food coloring, so for his smash cake, I found a recipe for a neutral but tasty vanilla cake, which I topped with butter cream frosting.  I made cupcakes with the extra batter, and then made a full batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting as well.  We had way too many sweets (40+ cupcakes for 25 people… bad math, Mrs. Confetti), since I also made oatmeal raisin cookies, so when the party was over, we brought the leftover treats to our local police station down the block to share with the officers working the holiday shift.


The dessert table all dolled up

The color scheme was prominent for the party, but the theme was subtle – it was a Radio Flyer wagon themed party (chosen because Little C’s aunt was buying him this amazing Radio Flyer trike for his birthday).  Red is my favorite color, and I love the red and turquoise color scheme that is popular and goes along with the wagon theme.  Little C’s smash cake was frosted in pale turquoise, and the cupcakes were red velvet to fit the color scheme.  I found the adorable miniature wagon, which Little C has loved playing with, and it made a great vessel for more cupcakes!


The sweetest wagon in town

My favorite part of the whole room was the Happy Birthday banner. I have been taking monthly photos of Little C, and thought it would be fun to view the progression of his growth through photos, alternating letter pennants with his monthly pictures from birth to twelve months.  I made it using cardstock and my Cricut cutting machine (with the Pretty Pennants cartridge).  The photos could easily be swapped out if we want to use it again for a future birthday party for Little C or future Confetti babes down the road.


Happy Birthday to C!


It is incredible how much he has grown in twelve short months.

I used the same template to make a mini-banner to decorate the crate that housed most of the baked goods.  I made the cupcake toppers with cardstock and toothpicks (and again, the Cricut, this time with the Accent Essentials cartridge).


It’s Party Time!

For Little C’s outfit, I wanted something simple, and I knew I didn’t want too spend much.  We had a free white t-shirt with an ugly logo on it from an event, so I upcycled it by cutting out a felt circle to sew on (just by hand, in and out with string – nothing complicated) and cover the logo, and then I used a glue gun to attach the number one.


Little C, still a bit groggy from his nap, in his “1” t-shirt

We only had three other children at the party, all babies, so I wanted the favors to be simple and useful, rather than throw-aways.  I was excited to find turquoise giant bubble wands from the dollar bin at Target!  With a little bit of cardstock and twine used for all the other decor items, I made cute tags to go along with the wagon theme.


Bubble favors

Also found in the dollar bin: the adorable tins used to hold the silverware (with labels added by me).  All of the paper goods and silverware came from Target as well.

We loved celebrating Little C’s birthday with our family and friends!  It was a ton of work for a very short time, but Little C only turns one once, and I wanted to celebrate his first year (and our first year as parents) with a bang.