You're Only One Once!

We celebrated Callan's first birthday last Saturday with a farm themed bash at our house. It turned out to be a great day, despite the weather predictions! We had rain in the morning and late at night, but during the party it was dry...a little steamy, but dry. Thank goodness, since we had eleven families joining us to celebrate and needed some room outdoors to fit everyone comfortably!

the birthday boy!

Once I decided on the farm theme, I could barely stop myself from putting all the great ideas out there to use. It is so much easier to plan a party these days when you can literally type in what you want, and the internet returns thousands of pages of ideas and pictures that others have done. The hard part is being selective and trying not to do it all!

We set up different stations around the house for fun and food. Indoors, we had the food and drinks tables, of course, where we served such items as "Chicken Feed," "Cow Patties," and "Haystacks." We also set up an art station where the kiddos could use foam farm animal stickers to decorate their own farm scenes. I searched all over the house to find every farm toy and book that we owned and set them out as well. Outdoors, we had a Duck Pond (a kid pool filled with floating ducks) and a Pig Pen (an area in the yard filled with big pink balls that had pig faces drawn on them.) I also decorated the wagon to look like a hayride for the kids to enjoy. To top it off, we set out our John Deere tractors and trucks for the kids to play with on the deck.

even though this pic is blurry, it shows just how happy our little guy was!

I decided to forgo a large cake in order to make adorable farm animal cupcakes. These were so easy! I found these fabulous fondant icing cupcake toppers on etsy, so all I had to do was frost the cupcakes and stick these on top. They were a huge hit with the kids, and it was fun to let them pick out which animal they wanted to eat!

Callan LOVED his cake. Big surprise, huh? He devoured it until there was nothing left but a few crumbs. He also loved the fondant cow on top, and sucked away at it until it was gone! It was really cute to watch the big kids crowd around him to watch as he ate his first bites of cake. :)

(Sorry the video is sideways...a little technical error on our part. :)

Some of the party guests...

the kuhn family...hannah, addie, matt and leni

brody and carson

gabriel and everett

maisie

leyton

kate and amanda...kate was playing peek-a-boo with camera!

ansel and isabel

We sent the guests home with birdhouses decorated to look like barns, and personalized lollipops. They were a labor of love, but I thought the finished product was really cute!

All in all, it was a lovely party for a very special little guy who's only one once!