Party Prep

Gavin's big day finally arrived. Since we were traveling on Gavin's actual birthday, we postponed his party until the week after we got home. Here is the invitation I made for Gavin's birthday. We kept it pretty low key and just invited a few close friends to our house for desserts. I got this idea from a couple blogs where you just have a dessert bar. I thought it would be fun to try since Gavin is too young to have friends over to play games and such.

I made a couple versions of the card. On the back it said

"Oh what fun! Gavin's turning one!

"Join us for desserts

Address, etc."

After the invites were sent and the RSVP's received I had to start the baking marathon.

I'm not a baker. I don't usually bake unless it's for a birthday or a holiday. Some people enjoy it. I can't say that I do. I feel like I'm in the kitchen enough with preparing meals 3 times a day that I don't really have a desire to spend more time baking. Plus, my kitchen becomes a complete war zone as you can see. So, this is what my kitchen looked like before the party.

It certainly doesn't look like it does on those cooking shows where everything is evenly measured out and placed in little bowls and no mess is to be found on the countertops. Nope, I believe baking is meant for making messes. Flour on the floor. Sugar on the counter. Chocolate smeared on the bowls. Plus the best part is licking the bowl. But I digress. Back to the party prep.

My color scheme was an aqua blue and red. My wonderful sister just happened to have a birthday banner made with those colors, so she let me borrow the "happy birthday" portion and sent me her extra paper so I could create the "Gavin 1" portion.

My sister also made this banner. I just added pictures of Gavin for each month of his first year and the number for the month it corresponded with.

The treats I made were chocolate dipped strawberries. Red velvet whoopie pies.

Rice Krispies treats with M&M's mixed in. (I always have to sneak in a Mars product somewhere at my parties. Gotta show my support. wink wink)

This was Gavin's cake. This was a "Baby's First Carrot Cake Recipe". After I made it and tasted it I was disappointed. It was quite a bit of work and tasted pretty bland and more like a spice cake. I guess that's what I get for trying to make it a healthier option. The only redeeming quality was the cream cheese frosting. Even though I didn't like it, I was hoping Gavin would. He's never had cake before, so he wouldn't know the difference.

I also made chocolate dipped marshmallow pops with sprinkles on top and chocolate dipped pretzel rods with sprinkles on top. They were placed in a bowl that had aqua blue sixlets.

I put some red nips and swedish fish in another small glass bowl. And for a healthy treat option I set out a bowl of watermelon.

The beverage of choice: Juice for the kiddos and Strawberry crush for the grown ups.

The treats were made, the decorations hung, now it's time to indulge and celebrate the best treat in the house- our big one year old!

Stay tuned for pictures from Gavin's first cake experience.