Anderson's 1st Birthday Party

This weekend we celebrated Anderson's 1st birthday!  I can not believe that a year has gone by!  It has been an amazing year.  Knowing that he is 1 has been very bittersweet!  

We had a blast planning his birthday party.  I decided to go with the Dr. Seuss theme because I took some newborn pictures of him with Dr. Seuss books.  His room also has a quote from "Oh, the Places You'll Go" on the wall.  So it seemed fitting that we should celebrate his 1st year with Seuss decor!  Plus, Seuss is always fun!  You can't go wrong!  

So we started with an adorable invitation seen here:

I decided it would be cute to take pictures of Anderson and put Seuss quotes around them.  Dr. Seuss had some amazing "life" quotes and I wanted to find a way to use them.  Here are the pictures with the quotes added in...

"A person's a person, no matter how small."

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

"Today you are YOU, that is truer than true.  There is no one alive who is YOUer than YOU!"

I put these on top of the piano with some Dr. Seuss books and Dr. Seuss characters that we found at Kohl's.

I made the Happy Birthday banner out of scrap paper from Michaels and letters that I printed on my computer.  I found the Grinched font for free online.  It didn't take long to make the banner at all!

For the front door I wanted to try to make a balloon wreath.  I had seen a few on Pinterest and wanted to give it a try.  I bought balloons in "Seuss colors."  It took about an hour and a half to make the wreath.  And it had over 300 balloons on it!

I wanted to put a little something at the front door.  I had left over balloons so I just did a simple display with the "Oh the places you'll go frame."  I actually received this frame from my Student Council advisor at my high school graduation!  Awesome to be able to use it for my son years down the road!

A few weeks before Anderson's birthday, a good friend of mine came over and took 1 year birthday pictures with him.  So I displayed my favorite picture from that photo shoot.  Anderson in a "Thing 1" hat.  

Another fun Pinterest idea I found was having everyone sign the Dr. Seuss "Happy Birthday to You" book on their 1st birthday.  

Now... on to the best part...THE FOOD!  We had so much fun making the food!  My mom and I baked all of the chocolate cupcakes and my friend Lindsey decorated them all!  She also made Anderson's Thing 1 smash cake.  It was all delicious!

For all of the food, I did some searching online and found some neat food names that were Seuss related.  This part was the most fun!

"Green Eggs and Ham"

First I made deviled eggs and dyed the inside green.  Then I just took deli ham and rolled it up.  Very simple :)  

"Brown Bar Ba Loots Truffula Fruits"

These were just red and green grapes.

"Hop on Pop-Corn"

This is my dad and his wife's Erin famous Caramel Corn.  This stuff is addicting!!!

"Cat in the Hat Fruit Skewers"

We took sliced bananas and strawberries and skewered them on toothpicks.  We tried to do this at the last minute so that the bananas wouldn't brown.  And we sprayed them a few times with lemon juice.

"Yertle's Caramel Turtles"

We made these by just melting rolos on pretzels and topping them with a pecan!

"Three Cheese Trees"

I'm not going to lie, these were a pain to make!  But they turned out cute, so it was totally worth it.  I bought 3 styrofoam trees at Michaels.  We wrapped the trees in plastic wrap.  We then cut the toothpicks in half and just started stabbing cheese all over the trees.  It took a while, but turned out great!

"One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Goldfish!"

Very simple,  just multi-colored goldfish.  And it was awesome, mom happened to have a fish bowl on hand!

"Oodles of Noodles"

Mom made this delicious pasta salad. It is bowtie pasta, brocolli, peppers, cauliflower, carrots, pepperoni, and italian dressing.  Delish!

"Assorted Greens and Other Things"

Just a veggie tray!

"Stink, Stank, Stunk Pretzels"

I was going to add some kind of spice to these, but I decided to take the lazy route and keep it simple.

"Yot in  Pot"

These were just meatballs and BBQ sauce.  They were definitely a hit.  They were the first thing to disappear!

It all wouldn't be complete without having red and blue utensils, plates, and napkins to keep with the theme!

Total spread.  It was quite a table full!  But there honestly wasn't that much food left at the end!

One of my favorite things about the party was the cute little kids table. We had 3 kids that were 1 year old so it was awesome to be able to use the small table.  For party favors for the little ones, I ordered Dr. Seuss toddler plates.

Baby feet!

I had so much fun planning this party!  Parties really are more fun when you pick a theme and run with it!  I really hope Anderson's second year doesn't go by as fast as the first.  But I'm not going to lie, I am excited to plan next year's party!  

I want to give a special shout out to my mom, sister, and my friend Lindsey!  They helped me a lot with party prep the day of!  You guys rock!