more than 9 to 5...my life as "Mom": Amos's {Burlap and Bowties} 1st Birthday Party

Wow. So, looking back through my posts, I see that I never posted about Amos's 1st birthday party!! #thirdbabyproblems In my defense, it all went down not long before Josh left to work in VA, leaving me with the 3 boys by myself during the week for the next 4.5 months. I don't miss that! I guess I should probably post about this one before I post about his 3rd birthday...it appears I had most of it ready to go, so I'll fill in the blanks now! :)

Now that I've updated you about Amos's 1st year, it's time to talk about the party!! On my 3rd boy now, I decided it was time to finally do a "little man" bash. So, away I went planning an adorable navy blue, aqua, and lime green "little man"/bowtie-themed party for my little guy. I decided to incorporate burlap to the theme, too, for a "burlap and bowties" party. First on the agenda, the invitations.

I love including photos of the birthday boy on the invites, and I thought it might be fun to make this a 3-D invite, so I added the bowties (made from lime green grosgrain ribbon) with hot glue. :) I also decided to mount the invites on pieces of burlap, to complete the 3-D effect. I was very happy with how they turned out!

After the invitations were mailed, I started brainstorming ideas for the party. To decorate the house, I bought some navy blue, aqua and lime green latex balloons (inflated with helium and hi-float) at the local party supply store. I also bought a 1st birthday balloon and lucked out that the colors coordinated fairly well! I made a custom banner that read "Happy 1st Birthday Amos" using the same bowtie/color theme. I used aqua baker's twine to string together the pendants and made the bowties from burlap. It worked well and looked great! I also made a coordinating banner for his highchair that read "I am 1".

From the mantle, I hung a string of pictures from Amos's first year - the monthly pics I took throughout the year. I decorated this banner with more bowties and put it on a burlap background. I also framed the print I made summarizing his first year.

For the party favors, I bought little burlap bags (from Michaels) and added personalized tags to them. Inside the bags, I added little bags of bright blue, aqua and kelly green chocolate candies (from Fresh Market). I also made clip-on bowties for the boys and bow barrettes for the girls, and added these to the bags. To help decorate the room, I set the bags on our bookshelves and tied a balloon to each one.

This year, I made cake bites for the party guests and a small smash cake for Amos. I used aqua blue candy melts for the vanilla cake bites. I purchased the lime green cupcake liners, to hold the cake bites, from our local party store. All of the plates, bowls, napkins and utensils were purchased at our local party store. I wrapped the utensils in a napkin, then taped a piece of ribbon around the middle to make them look like bowties. For the tables, I used dark blue plastic tablecloths, then draped pieces of burlap on top as table runners. I placed more of the colored chocolate candies in candle holders to make for a colorful centerpiece.

For the dinner menu, I chose:

Burger Bites (beef patty sliders on Hawaiian sweet rolls)
'Lil Smokies ('Lil Smokies cooked in Montgomery Inn BBQ sauce)
Sweet Tator Tots (homemade roasted sweet potatoes cubes)
Caprese Skewer Bites (cherry tomatoes, mozzarella pearls and basil)
Bowtie Pasta Salad (bowtie pasta, Italian dressing, mini pepperoni, roasted red bell peppers, shredded parmesan)
Bowtie Pasta Crunchies (fried bowtie pasta with roasted red pepper hummus)
Mini Fruit Pizzas (mixed berries and homemade whipped cream in deep dish sugar cookie)
Baby Carrots (served with ranch dressing)

I wanted the food to go with the party theme, which is why I chose the "little" items for our little man. :) Thanks to my sister for helping me get all of the food ready, as usual! We also had homemade vanilla ice cream (courtesy of my dad!) to go with the cake bites. Yum!

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his day!! :) I sewed the suspenders and bowtie to his plain white onesie for his party outfit. He also wore it for the one-year pics that we had done.

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I added one of the professional pics to a simple thank you note matching the theme. Plenty of room for a sweet thank you for friends and family!