Welcome to our first post! I am glad to introduce you to our blog with a post on Akira’s Birthday. It is hard to believe that she is one already! Actually, it was her birthday celebration that got me started on the idea of a blog. But it took me a good 5 months to finally be here. 🙂
Like any other parent, we were really excited about her first birthday celebration and wanted to make it special. But planning a kid’s birthday party can be a bit overwhelming, especially if it is the first one. We started the planning 1 1/2 months ahead, but were still scrambling to get things in order till the last moment. I thought it was worth sharing our planning and the experience in the next post – How to plan your baby’s first birthday.
And here is how the party turned out to be…
Party Invites
To start with, we had to finalize on the party date, venue and guest list. Since Akira’s birthday was on a Sunday this year, we decided to celebrate it on her birthday itself. Also, we decided to have a lunch party over an evening party, since she is more active during the day. This was a good decision multiple ways. She was more rested and was happy to meet all the guests. We had daylight to take some nice pictures. It allowed us enough time to prepare for the party, and also gave us enough time to clean up afterwards. Also, daytime parties are a better option in winter. I wanted to invite our friends and co-workers for the party, many of whom had not seen Akira since she was born. So it did turn out to be a big party. Since our home was not big enough to host the party, we decided to rent a party hall based on our budget and location. Once the guest list and venue were decided, it was time to send the invitations. We used electronic invitations with RSVP and added some personal touch to it by creating a collage of images with Akira holding the letters from “One”.
Winter Wonderland Party Theme
Our main decision was about choosing the party theme and since it was in Jan, we thought it should be something related to winter. We were thinking about “Frozen”, but then we chose to save it for her later birthdays, when she can understand and thus enjoy it more. So we finally decided it to be a “Winter One-derland” theme and it was just perfect. Having decided on the party theme, everything started falling in its place – the color scheme, decorations, display center, desserts and party favors. We decided on a soft color palette with Whites, Blues and Greys for the theme. I wore an Indian traditional Saree in blue and Vinay wore a white tuxedo jacket with a dark blue shirt. Our little princess had a pretty blue dress and her own tiara! Thanks to my mom and aunt Sushila who actually shipped us our party dresses from India.
Cake Smash and Splash
Since Akira loves cakes, I so much wanted to have a cake smash. We decided to throw in a cake smash followed by a water splash. We arranged for some photo props and background, her second set of clothes, a smash cake (ran out of time to make one…) and a special galvanized wash tub for the splash. But as much as she loved chocolates and cakes, Akira decided not to even give them a second look on the party day. Every time we made her the touch the cake, she would go “Ewww!”. And every time she seemed to even try, she got scared by the cheers from all the people around. Finally, there was no smash, and no splash for the party! And a good lesson learnt that one should get the kiddos used to touching/feeling/smashing a cake in the privacy of your home a week or so before planning to pull it off publicly in a party 🙂
Party Treats
The party treats included:
- Kahlua cake with Chocolate Whipped Cream frosting
- Vegan Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache frosting
- Tiramisu Macarons
- Espresso Snowcap cookies
- Sugar cookies with frosting
- Kaju (Cashew) Chocolate Rolls ~ an Indian sweet delicacy
We actually made every single party treat, and I say “we” because this time Vinay helped me out with each one of them. I was really happy with how the sweet treats came out, but I wish I had made the cookies and Macarons a bit ahead of time. We spent most of our final days to the party – Baking! Mmmm…. nothing says home like the smell of baking!! I had to try some of these recipes before the party, to see if they would come out as expected. Good thing was that Akira’s birthday is around the holiday time, so I baked and baked for the holidays. And thanks to all our friends who were happily ready to try all my experiments!
Winter Wonderland Display Center
Preparing it was one thing and displaying it another! The cakes were of course at the center of it, on top of these pretty white scalloped cake stands. The cookies and macarons were displayed in the glass jars and tray. I used some gift wrapped cardboard boxes to give height to some of the jars. I also used some filler items like rattan ball lights and holiday decorations in the jars. For the background we made a birthday banner and some paper snowflakes.
Food
I seriously think we overdid ourselves here. There were just too many items, especially after trying the party treats. We did have lot of leftovers, but we were not complaining 😉
Menu included
- Cheese and Crackers
- Green Hummus & Pita Bread
- Fish Tacos
- Dal Makhani
- Hot Cocoa
- Naan
- Chicken Korma
- Veg Biryani
- Shahi Paneer
We marked each item with DIY tags made from the leftover paper from the scrapbook. Neat right? And Vinay got super creative with water, soda & wine/beer labeling 🙂
Winter Wonderland Party Favors
Since most of our guests were adults, we decided to give a party favor that the whole family could enjoy. To go with our ‘Winter One-derland’ theme, we decided to make DIY Waterless Snow Globes as the party favor. They were real fun to make, especially since our friends Akshatha and Kishore helped us with them. Our guests also loved these cute little return gifts. I will be providing step-by-step instructions on how to make these in a later post.
DIY Items
We put lots of effort to do things on our own, to make it special! Here is our list:
- Birthday Bunting Banner
- Cake Bunting Banner
- Paper Snowflakes
- Chocolate Espresso Snowcap Cookies
- Tiramisu Macarons
- Kahlua Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting
- Vegan Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting
- Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing
- Green Hummus
- Fish Tacos
- Dal Makhani
- Mason Jar Waterless Snow Globe
I will try to write about them as and when I can.
Happy Memories
Kids of this age probably won’t remember their first birthday party, so it’s up to us to capture and preserve these memories. On any other day, Vinay would have been a great candidate to be our official photographer, but on the day of the party you need all of your time. We could not afford a professional photographer, but were really happy to have our friends help click pictures for us. It was finally the time to enjoy with Akira and our guests. For us, this one single picture serves as the perfect memory of the day. Akira’s smile just made all of our effort totally worth it 🙂
So how did you celebrate your child’s first birthday party? Are you planning a Winter Wonderland themed party as well?
