Mama's Little Homeschool: D.I.Y. Mama

I just loved the simple, low-key, less traditional way that we celebrated Noah's first birthday last year!
He was born on May 13th which was a Wednesday, but thanks to leap year the big ONE fell on Friday the 13th...
And I'm kind of a superstitious person!
But I like to think that Noah has the lucky side of the number 13. I guess you could call him a lucky duck. So, hence the theme...Noah is ONE lucky duck.

And ducks are also pretty cute. Plus he could say "duck" (and nope, it didn't even sound like a cuss word lol) by his first birthday. Nothing could have been sweeter. Except cake. All over my child. And myself!
Seriously though, I was covered in blue frosting and it turned my skin blue for days. I might have had more on me than he had on himself. It was very special to have our photographer come to our home and set up the photoshoot. It was just myself and DG with him and it was a rainy day so I was glad we hadn't planned anything for outdoors.

The cake design was straight from Pinterest but I just loved those bubbles. And yes, we saved the ducky topper. Who doesn't love a topper that become a toy after the cake has been eaten? I won't lie, Noah was so gentle with his smash cake that I stuck some fresh frosting on and served it up for us to enjoy along with the cupcakes that I had ordered to accompany it.

Decent, right? And of course we sang "Happy Birthday" and let him make his wish when we celebrated later on.

The cupcakes and coordinating tableware just made it extra special. Simply because we weren't entertaining party guests didn't mean I couldn't have fun with theming. It was a nice change to have all the fun of planning a tiny party without the stress of the big party! :)

I made these cute party hats with plain paper hats, pom poms, and ribbon. I also made a special one for Noah which he refused to wear. It had the number 1 on it and matching polka dot fabric.

Here's a good picture with his high chair stripped down to prevent staining the cover! That frosting was intense!! Btw, the pinwheels on the banners are just so whimsical...I found them at Michael's and could not resist.

I love the light aqua, navy, and yellow together in the color scheme. I also was able to work some little anchors and polka dots in there which were just these very subtle touches that added a layer of unique detail.

I searched high and low for ducks of all kinds but Amazon had the best price and selection. I ended up buying a second big rubber duck for bath time because it floats and doesn't have anywhere for water to get inside. No more squeezing to avoid moldy bath toys.

The little rubber duckies made for cute table decorations and friends in the bath tub. And you could always hot glue the opening closed I suppose! They would make a very sweet favor to take home as well, but they also dress up the table perfectly.

I loved celebrating Noah's birthday with a fun theme for the party planner in me but without all of the hassle! Of course, for his second birthday we are making up for it by having the party at a zoo so be prepared for that blog post. ;) I just can't help myself - I love a good party!

Very soon, my firstborn will be turning FOUR. I can hardly believe it. He's become such a little man. 😅

All this thinking about his birthday has me taking a little stroll down memory lane.

I started planning this birthday party when DG was two. He was obsessed with trucks! He would slide down the pole of the baby gate pretending to be a fireman, dug up the yard with his construction trucks, and his favorite episode of Bubble Guppies (which we watched OVER and OVER) was called "Humungatruck" and featured every truck imaginable. I knew we just had to give him a truck-themed third birthday party!

When I consulted the party-planning Bible, a.k.a. Pinterest, I realized that there weren't many party themes that featured all trucks. There were monster truck rallies, Disney Car themes, hard-hat construction, Little Blue Truck, transportation and fireman parties galore - but my vision of every truck ever all in one place was relatively new as far as pre-made supplies went.
Thankfully I had the pleasure of chatting with Emily, the shop owner of SkyeCustomDesigns on Etsy. She designed all of the graphics for this party, from the eye catching invitations to the perfect finishing touches on the food display. Her etsy shop can be found here https://www.etsy.com/shop/SkyeCustomDesigns?ref=l2-shopheader-name
I had all of these random ideas for favors and theming which she was able to translate perfectly into the graphic design that would bring my ideas to life! Check it all out...

The invitation that started it all. I knew I wanted a road and elements of construction, rescue trucks, monster trucks, and transportation symbols. Voila, the perfect invite was born. I joked with Emily about putting the phrase "trucking good time" on the invitation - and while I chickened out on the formal invite, I did include it on the Facebook blurb. ;)

I thought long and hard about favors. I am one of those moms who try to avoid taking the goody bag of candy and plastic things that litter the floor of my car, so we gave party goers a single Hot Wheels or Matchbox car with altered packaging to say "Thanks for Trucking on Over to David Gerard's 3rd Birthday Party!"

And of course there was candy as well, I bought a bulk bag of YumEarth Organic lollipops on Amazon and pulled out the red flavors. Then I had Emily make up stickers to make each one look like a stop sign. If only I could find the close up! They were adorable. All of the bins were from the Dollar Tree, and I dressed them up with ribbon (because I have a thing for cutesy stuff) and just used Sharpie to adorn some truckish phrase upon them! "Every trucker gets a sucker!" ;)

The favors were over by the paper goods at the "starting line" of our food spread. We literally just covered our L-shaped kitchen and island with food, there were full bellies that day and leftovers in our house for days. The printed paper goods were from http://www.birthdaydirect.com/cars-and-trucks-party-supplies-c-1076_4238.html and the solids were from Party City.

I was short on space and couldn't spare a banquet table for food, so instead of trying to cover our counters with table cloths (or leaving them uncovered which would just be no fun at all) I used pages of an old atlas to cover them, and themed our foods as a "Road Trip Across America"

We even covered some ocean, traveling to the Hawaiian islands for some Hawaiian Roll Sandwiches ;)

Guests enjoyed Eggs Rolls from Chinatown...

...Bagels from Brooklyn

Snacks for the road! Truckers get hungry on their travels.

We didn't forget to pack some extra Nuts & Bolts.

On the West Coast there was Little Tokyo Sushi and California Rolls...

...Farmer's Market salads...

Little Italy Kabobs & Wheelie Good Pasta Salad

America's Farmland Favorites featured Midwest Haybales, Florida Fruit Kabobs, and Louisiana Charcuterie

The construction truck crew could even Dig-In to some Spinach Dip

And luckily we had a tractor-trailer with a load of plastic cutlery, too!

If cold fuel didn't sound appealing, there was a Hot Cocoa & Coffee Bar to rev the engines as well.

And with so much for lunch, the dessert table couldn't disappoint! The sloping roadway was created out of necessity because there wasn't room to put the table anywhere other than right in front of the boys' wall easel. It worked out splendidly though!

I loved using so many of DG's toys in the decor and food display. This Little People garage was perfect for stacking Wheels and Tires.

These Traffic Lights were super yummy and easy to make. A rice krispie treat with chocolate frosting and three cleverly placed M&M candies!

DG loved his custom cake made by a talented local mama. It featured another one of his toys on top, complete with a load of crushed Oreo cookie rubble.

Forky the Forklift held these adorable wooden ice cream spoons that I found on Amazon, and Greenie the recycling truck held onto the dessert forks for us very nicely!

The birthday boy helped me to make these cute Dip Sticks the day before his party!

I loved these cute galvanized steel marquee letters that we found at A.C. Moore.

Again, the Little People toys ended up being the perfect decorations!

On the tables we used plain black plastic table cloths with yellow duct tape dashes and lines to make them look like roads. DG lined up some of his wooden trucks for some extra pizzazz. ;)

There was a Truck Assembly Shop where the kids could put together these adorable wooden truck toys from Melissa and Doug.

We even made a tiny road table on DG's picnic table!

As the craft, we had plain white trucker caps, fireman hats, and yellow hard hats along with craft materials so each trucker could design their very own.