Noah’s First Birthday Party

You may remember my big project for Noah’s first birthday was to update the picturescape of our living room:

To say this was an enormous project for me is an understatement.  I was doubtful I would be able to get it done myself much less have time to do any other cutesy things for the party, but I kept thinking about all the time and effort that went into Elijah’s Music Themed party and the fair streak in me kicked in.  So we mustered together an understated St.-Patrick’s-Day/Year-in-Pictures theme for Noah’s party that I ended up really loving.

St. Patrick’s Day has never really been on our radar (even though we got married St. Patty’s weekend) until our little shamrock was born.  Undoubtedly Noah will have more than his fair share of green on his birthday, but I couldn’t resist making it the color of the day (even though I made the decision after the invitations went out in orange :().

I found these fabulous plush animal puppet sets at Costco that we used as thank-you gifts for our little guests.  They also doubled as decor for the party.  To coordinate them with the theme, we attached the picture at left (printed on white card stock) to each animal with curly ribbon.

To pull the picture theme through the entire house, I made four different banners of monthly pictures from Noah’s first year.  I used concentric rectangles of white and black construction paper to make each photo appear to be in a black frame with white matting.  I taped green crepe paper to the wall first and then taped up the pictures to make the final timeline.  Additional pictures were arranged between the plush puppets.

We kept the menu simple: Copycat Portillo’s Chopped Salad, Beefs, Summer Fruit Salad, and Costco cake.  With help from Grandma and Papa, and Uncle James and Aunt Abby (most of us) actually had enough time to take a nap before the guests arrived.

That’s the most relaxed I’ve EVER been before a party.  Pretty fabulous if you’d ask me :).