16984

Puppy Dog Tails Party -1yr- Themed Food

November 2007

Emerald in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma  United States of America

Honorable Mention

My son's first birthday was coming up and I decided on a 'Frogs, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails' theme because he is all boy. Deciding on a theme got the ball rolling on all the details.

INVITATIONS: We decided to stick with blue,green and yellow as a color scheme- I made the invitations b/c I couldn't find any with that theme that I liked. I took green and blue card paper printed the needed information on the inside with the Frogs that's what Little Boys are Made of" poem on front. I took stencils and used our color trio to paint on the invites there were pawprints going across the front with the poem and inside there was a frog crawling up the card a snail going across the bottom and a dog jumping up in excitement. They were adorable and did not take much time to make just a little paint water and the stencils.

DECORATIONS: I had to get a little creative here b/c we were on a budget. We had streamers of course in our color trio 3 balloons in our colors that I tied to the highchair (a cute effect for the cake eating pictures) we took all of our frog and dog stuffed animals and used them throughout the party room and dining room (a very low cost effect if there ever was one) I gathered facts about frogs snails and dogs and printed them on bright green paper and hung these fact sheets through out the party I had a scrapbook of my son's first year (up that point) out for guests to look at. The food table was a major point of décor

FOOD: We had snail pinwheels (turkey pinwheels with pickles attached that looked amazing like snails) puppy chow (chex cereal with peanut butter chocolate and powered sugar coating) in green and blue dog bowls (new ones just for the party of course) a chocolate pond (or fountain) with various fruit marshmellows and carmels to dip (with our color trio toothpicks) all this was was laid out on a blue table cloth with yellow and green plates green napkins small plastic frogs spread over the table small dog and frog stuffed animals showcasing a framed picture of my son and green and yellow snail watering cans (that I found on summer clearence at walmart) that were filled with real green and yellow flowers.

CAKE: Instead of a cake I made frog cupcakes these were made with green peanut m&ms and black frosting for eyes black frosting for a nose and mouth with a regular red m&m for a tongue all on green frosting. This was a focal point of the party our son eating his cupcake since it’s the 'one year smash the cake into your face birthday'. We had him do cake earlier on in the party for guest who might need to leave early. We just served regular drinks since this party had only adult guests however we did have blue plastic cups that I wrote short animal facts on around the top. This was fun for guests and everyone had a different fact on their cup.

ACTIVITIES: As mentioned before all of our guests were adults so we had to come up with corresponding activities. My husband took adhesive foam frogs (found at a craft store)and stuck them all over the party room the guests had to guess how many there were write their guess down and put it in a jar. Near the end of the party my husband  went through the guesses and the person who came closest (or right on the nose in our case)won a prize which was a frog trinket box (we found at craft store) that contained a paper with our son's handprint on it with his name and the date.

After we finished this we had a Pop Quiz for the guests. We had made up a pop quiz with 10 questions that ranged from fill in the blank multiple choice true or false and circle all that apply. These questions were all facts about our son. My husband read of the questions and the guests had to fill in their answers on sheets we had made for them off the computer. The guest with the most correct answers won a prize which was a 'Frog Snails and Puppy Dog Tails' photo frame with a picture of our son already placed inside (found this really cute frame online at bestfrogs.com).

This was a fun activity it was interactive without putting people on the spot and allowed all the guests to learn something new about our son through the correct answers being given. We also had everyone sign a matte board that later we will put in a picture of our son and hang in his room.

After the activities we opened presents which was mainly my husband opening them with our son playing in the tissue paper:)

After gifts it was pretty much a visiting time until guests left. We kept the party down to 2 hours since our son is so young. Although he enjoyed himself thoroughly walking from guest to guest getting all the attention and of course getting to stuff his face full of cake and icing. All of guests enjoyed themselves as it was a pretty easy going party but was still fun and interactive. Everyone enjoyed reading facts about the different animals and looking through our son's first year on this earth in the scrapbook. It was a simple party but it was all about our son from beginning to end. "

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