John Deere Party

It's the little guys first birthday!  What better way to celebrate a little boys 1st birthday who has a half Mennonite Daddy?  John Deere of course!

  

We kept it simple and just decorated with a few bunches of helium balloons.  I could not find any John Deere themed balloons so I got generic yellow and lime green balloons and wrote JOHN DEERE on them with permanent marker and decorated them with tractor stickers!  (this trick works great, I once threw the Hubby a Tom Tom party and wrote TOM TOM, LEFT and RIGHT on the balloons and it made great conversation pieces... a Tom Tom is a GPS by the way!)

 

We bought pre done invites because they were a really good deal.  I still wanted to customise them a bit so I printed a really cute One Year poem on Vellum and pasted it in.  Here it is below, I think it is so adorable!

A year's gone by

Oh how time has flown,

We can't believe

How Oliver has grown!

He's such a joy

And so much fun,

Oh my! Our baby boy

is turning One!

I also printed the info on vellum and layered it on top of the printed prefixes to make it look like it was all printed inside and then I didn't have to hand write them all!

Oliver sporting his Birthday hat!

We lucked out at a party store in Groove City when we were on a weekend trip and found everything we could possibly need for a John Deere themed party, which is also where we got the invitations and thank-you cards.  I think the table looks awesome all Decked Out in John Deere print!

Oliver's cousins also sporting their party hats!

the Dinner Table

Gotta love plastic table cloths!  I know their bad for the environment but just roll them up and gone is the mess!  And look how great the table looks with all those tractors...

the Dessert Table! YUM

Cake for the Adults!

Healthy cake for the Kiddies!

The most important part to any birthday, but especially for a 1st birthday, is the cake!  Of course! 

For Oliver and the kids I made a rice flour cake sweetened with maple syrup.  The frosting was cream cheese also whipped with maple syrup.  Click the above picture for the recipe.  I was going for a muddy tire to tie in with the John Deere theme.  Once I iced the cake I placed a cup in the centre and covered the icing with cocoa.  I used a wooden spoon handle to notch ruts around the edge.  Then I cut the same size circle out of a piece of paper and placed it on top of the cake and sprinkled the hole (in the centre) with yellow sugar sprinkles. 

For the adults I decided to try cake balls!  I did a double chocolate version, click the picture to view the recipe.  I covered them with yellow and green chocolate and drizzled some with the contrasting coloured chocolate and sprinkled the rest with various yellow and green sprinkles.  I was very thrilled with how they turned out and they were fairly easy too. 

Both the cakes were a huge success among the adult and miniature guests.  And Oliver was completely thrilled with digging his hands into a slice.

Oliver ultimately enjoying his 1st Birthday Cake!

Oliver suiting got a John Deere tractor as a birthday present from his Nana and Papa.  So I took him and the tractor to Zehrs (that was an interesting trek) and got some pictures done.  The one I used for the back of the Thank-you card was my favourite!  It really captures his charm!

So Oliver had a fantastic 1st Birthday!  We sent the Thank-you cards out and we have tons of great memories!

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Mellow Yellow Baptism

I think baptism's are my favourite events!  There's always so happy and there's always a little baby getting passed around and cuddled!  I started planning the theme for my son's baptism long before he was born and ultimately before I new he was a boy.  So what better colour to decorate with then the most cheerful yet mellow yellow.



The Invites for the Baptism

I found these super cute printable invitation cards with the multi coloured foot prints around the edges.  I printed the info onto them and attached a 2" by 2" photo with foam mounting squares.

 

We saved the top tier of our wedding cake for a special occasion.  Yes, most people take it out on first anniversary but honestly who can eat that much cake between two people? 

I love the colourful jelly beans in the picture their so cheerful.

 

For the favours, what better way to thank our friends and family then with some yummy homemade chocolates.  I invited my Mom, Nanny (Mom's Mom) and Sister over the Wednesday before to make teddy bear chocolates... I think we made about 100!  We made dark chocolate and white chocolate teddy bears with yellow chocolate bows.  My sister also made the "O" and the "H" to add to the cake out of yellow chocolate.

My Hubby and I both have large families so we needed extra space.  We set the tent up outside with some tables and chairs.  Covered them with white table cloths and yellow satin overlays and hung some yellow paper lanterns for extra colour.

You can have tables without centrepieces!  So I used some cylinder vases I had acquired from an earlier wedding, stuck some large calla lilies with yellow orchid centres in some river rock and used orchids leaves as filler.  For the buffet table I added some lemons for even more yellow fun!

The baptism was a great success!  Very cheerful and everyone was so happy.

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