Another Take on an Elephant Birthday

I don't want to believe it, but our baby turned one recently.

You may recall that I helped my cousin create a fun little elephant birthday for my God Son awhile back.

 

 

I wasn't planning on turning out the same type of party for my little guy, but about 11 months ago when I settled down to take his first monthly photo, I happened to grab a stuffed elephant we had on hand to use in the photo, and it stuck...

With all those great photos on hand for decor, I decided to go with an elephant theme again.  I'm not going to lie, it helped that I already had some decor items designed, so this time all I did was change up the colors a bit.

I created this invite and had it printed at a local print shop.  Simple and sweet.

Ryder insists that a party just isn't a party without "those triangle things', so we whipped up some fun ones for Bo that I just printed on card stock and hung via ribbon.  (I've created a party-planning monster!)

 

The cake might have been my favorite part.  I'm fully aware that this is a category that I go way overboard.  Trust me, I know I'm crazy.  But I actually really like making these homemade cakes for my boys, and if they look back at photos and see the elaborate cakes that Mom always made for them special on their birthdays, well, there are a lot worse things they could remember about me.  I give myself a lot of time, make the cakes early in the week and freeze them, make the fondant early in the week and let it set, and then ultimately have a little wine and put the whole thing together the night before.   Every time I try I get a little better with fondant, it's basically adult Playdoh.  Besides cutting out my little elephant, this time I attempted to get fancy and make the "1" cake topper.  I just formed it the night before so it had plenty of time to set up and I used a wooden skewer to hold it up tall and firmly to the cake.

The decor was pretty simple, but it took me no time to print out a few elephant circles to place on the bowls and vases.  Simple, folded menu cards let our guests know what they were grabbing before they man-handled it.

I've also learned through the years that for me, a key to a good party is making it pretty turn key.  I've made a lot of mistakes along the way.  But now I know that I don't want to spend time grilling hamburgers or refilling hot hors dourves, I want to spend it talking with friends and cuddling my birthday boy, so we make the menu simple.  I had some elephant/circus themed treats- (peanuts, popcorn, animal crackers) as well as pizza.  Because everybody loves pizza.

All in, it was one of our best parties yet.  It was small, manageable and full of the important stuff- like spending time with our little monster.  Who is now ONE... It's just too much guys.  I'm going to go cry into my coffee.