First birthday celebration for Oscar!

By Jenny Ford

MOOOOO-VE over bland 1^st birthday parties, here comes OOOOSCARS!  Oh how much fun I had for this barnyard bash.  I had many nights of insomnia with the list of “to dos” running through my head, so I found myself waking up at 5 am (which is completely unheard of for me – I’m an 8am to noon-ish kinda gal) getting busy.  Cutting, taping, drawing, hair and finger nails flying (added the last one for a fun visual).  All this hard work paid off when I heard the oooohs and ahhhhhs at his party!

So here it is.  The long awaited Oscar’s first birthday party which was a HUGE success.  (Even the hubs *admitted* he enjoyed it, and he was non-stop rolling his eyes at everything for the past 3 weeks – his eyes must HURT!) The details, which MADE the party, were supplied by Anders Ruff Designs and I couldn’t be more happy with their work.  EVERYONE commented on the little bits scattered throughout the party.  I thought it was adorable for Oscar to have his own logo.  The (barn) stage was set with the invite, and everything from there coordinated.  Can you say AH-DOOR-ABLE?? 

I had so much fun playing dj on itunes by creating a mix of Oscar’s Barnyard Beats.  I had a little cowboy theme going with Wild Wild West (Will Smith), Dixieland Delight (Alabama), Should’ve been a Cowboy (Toby Keith) and tons more.  I hope the kiddos enjoyed them on their ride home, and hopefully it didn’t drive the parents nuts by being to kidd-ish.  Along with the cd’s, each cowpoke received their very own adorably hand decorated farm animal sugar cookie. Aren’t they sooo cute!  They could choose from a horse, barn, cow, pig, chick or sheep.  And they were quite yummy too!  All created by Truly Scrumptious Cookies – so many fun designs.  See those “winner” bags?  Those are for the pin the tail on the donkey and pie eating contest winners.  Oh the kiddos had so much fun playing.  And of course, no farm party would be complete without Monkey Toes Wowie Cowie tennis shoes.  I initially had the shoes, and Oscar’s non-traditional birthday hat –  a cowboy hat - sitting on the entry table and then moved it on to the kids table to act as the centerpiece.  Oscar did just what I suspected he would once I put the hat on his head, he grabbed it, smacked everyone in the face with it and then threw it to the ground.  Gotta love 1 year olds!

I tried to make the party space look as much like a barn as I could, so we held the party in the garage.  I figured all the pots, tool boxes and lawnmower, etc were perfect “décor” for a barn, right?!  I just incorporated it all into the scenery.  We even strung lights across the ceiling of the garage for a “ho-down” kinda feel.  I LOVE it, so much that I think I will leave them up – it’s like a party for our cars every time we drive into the garage. The wheel barrow was the perfect place to house the cold beverages!  Look how cute those “Got Water” labels turned out.  I heard many whispers of “oh my gosh, I can’t believe Oscar has his own water bottle labels, how CUTE!”.

The kiddos were greeted with their own burlap covered table filled with all sorts of goodies, when they walked into the garage – oops, I mean BARN.  Each lil cowpoke had a cowboy hat with name tag, and their tagged cups dictated where they would be sitting (ah, this left out any arguing over who was going to sit by who! Crisis averted - Yay me!!).  I had this bright idea for centerpieces in the middle of the night – a mason jar filled with animal crackers and peeking out – a colored pencil topped with the cute little tags made by Anders Ruff.  EASY PEASY!  And cute to boot! (HA! I am a dork).  And since Oscar would chuck his hat any time it was near him, it sat in the center.

For games, I really wanted tons of giggles from the kiddos so we went back to basics.  A good old fashioned game of pin the tail on the donkey and a pie eating contest. I drew the donkey, my oldest daughter colored it, and made the tail by cutting a ton of fuzzy yarn and hot gluing it to a square of card stock.  The kids had so much fun being spun around and around – I was amazed at their pinning skills!  All the kids helped out and were squealing.  The pie eating contest was  a hit too!  Of course I wouldn’t let them use their hands.  HAHA!  Whipped cream EVERYWHERE!  They loved getting a little messy for a good cause – a clean plate.  To make bibs – I cut plastic shopping bags in half and the handles served as the ties.  Cheap, easy and fun!

 Ok, Ok, on to the most important thing at a birthday party – CAKE!  I decided not to go the traditional route of a giant cake, I went with mini err, gigantic cupcakes from Costco (GASP! Don’t knock it until you try it, their cakes are DEEE-LISH!)  I’m a cake person, if you can’t tell.  To make things easy on me, so I didn’t have to do any baking or re-frosting, I decided to just add a toothpick to those cute little tags and slap them right on top of the store-bought cupcakes.  Again, easy, and made a great statement.  I even created cow print placemats from some of the Anders Ruff printables they sent. 

And lastly, we cannot forget the birthday boy and his first GIANT cupcake!  I think he was a little overwhelmed by this monstrosity, but we all coerced him into eating it.  And that he did! (Oscar is definitely my child with the way he smashed that cake into his mouth) He was so messy we had a “hay-day” (pun intended) getting him clean again.  I swear with a toddler you need a disposal installed on the tub.

I’m pretty sure Oscar had a great time at his party.  Ok, he had no idea it was his party, but he didn’t cry, scream or throw any tantrums, so I am taking that as a “I loved it” stamp of approval!

Thank you to Anders Ruff who provided me with all of the gorgeous printables for this party!  I would have NEVER been able to pull this all together without you!!  And now on to the next party in March - YIKES.

So here is what you MUST do - go visit Anders Ruff's Blog - they're giving away a pair of Monkey Toes! (just like Oscar is wearing) WOOT!

And while you're waiting to win that pair of Monkey Toes - make SURE you visit Anders Ruff Designs on Etsy and start daydreaming up your next soiree.