It’s a First Birthday Celebration with #PartyCity

Birthday parties are a big deal in our family. Each year for our children is a milestone, and we celebrate with our closest friends and family. Just a few weeks ago, my littlest girl celebrated her First Birthday and we threw her an awesome celebration thanks to Party City. Since she was born in the spring, butterflies always remind me of her and Party City had the perfect theme for her birthday! The Hugs and Stitches theme features butterflies AND “1st Birthday” which was a perfect fit for us! Now for the planning!

The Food
I use to make all the food for our parties – everything including appetizers, main dishes, and desserts, I felt like I was able to feel my guests impressive bites. Until I had kids. Then I felt that I no longer had time to put in all the details that came along with food prep, so I started catering out the majority of our food for birthday parties. This makes my life much easier and everyone is happy! On the menu: spinach pies, vegetarian wraps, a chicken with mozzarella and roasted red peppers hero, Mickey chicken nuggets (from Costco) a pasta salad and a regular salad. We tend to overdo it when it comes to food so this time I scaled back a lot and it turned out to be the perfect amount of food for our guests, with minimal leftovers.

The Decor
Since we were planning a child’s birthday party – decorations were a must! We received balloons (latex and mylar) paper pom poms, banners, table cloths, a high chair decorating kit, and themed tableware. Here’s a little trick if you do not have a helium tank to blow up mylar balloons: stick a straw in the hole of the mylar and blow it up with your mouth. After you pull the straw out, the balloon automatically seals. Of course, without helium the balloon won’t float, but that’s okay – we were able to stick them on to the walls with some tape! Check it out below:

Along with vibrant balloons, we also had some paper puff pom poms to hang up, which my 3 1/2 year old was happy to help with. They came prepackaged as strips of paper and you gently peel back each piece from the center to make an adorable decoration, perfect for any occasion:

The Dessert
I planned on making cupcakes for the kids, but with a busy week never got around to it. I also ordered a butterfly themed cake from a local bakery which included fresh lemon whipped cream, and filled with fresh blueberries and strawberries. It was DIVINE! My daughter’s godmother also made an amazing butterfly cake from scratch and impressed us all! Yeaup, that’s right: this special little girl got TWO birthday cakes! I also made my own fruit kebobs with butterfly cookie cutters and wooden skewers.

The Favors
To keep in line with the spring theme, I decided to make each child who celebrated with us a special beach bucket loaded with fun. Inside the buckets were sidewalk chalk, bubbles, sand molds, and head bands (for the girls).

The Thank You Cards
When it comes to birthday parties, I like to include the Thank You cards with the favor. I used a butterfly shape and inserted texted inside of it, printed  them on photo paper, and cute them out with art scissors:

The Extras
Party City also sent us a matte photo frame which all our guests signed, a cap for the birthday girl, and headbands for all our little girl guests!

Party City made our party successful! They are a one stop shop for anything party, and have just about anything you can think of when it comes to celebrating special occasions! You can check out Party City online or head over to your local store to see how they can make your party special by providing all those extra touches that complete your day. Just bring the food and the guests! Also, be sure to join Party City’s online community on Facebook, and Twitter.