Happy Birthday to You! Sam's First Birthday...Dr. Seuss style!

Dr. Seuss would have recently celebrated his 109th birthday and I thought I should make a post about Sam's first birthday, which was Seuss themed.  His birthday is February 13th, so I'm a little late getting this out there.

Speaking of Pinterest, I'm sure if you're a parent and user of the virtual pinboard site you've looked up pins associated with birthday party planning.  Wow, was I blown away!  I sometimes feel that the site has given parents a new standard in over achieving when it comes to your kids, but I'm going to save that for another post.

Birthday boy Sammy crushing a cupcake

Back to the party, I made red velvet cupcakes with cotton candy flavored buttercream icing to resemble Thing 1 and Thing 2.  I had originally planned on making them with cream cheese icing and adding blue cotton candy to the top of that...but honestly, that sounded like too much work for me---oh no, Pinterest moms are gasping everywhere!  I also made Lorax Nutter Butters and Red Fish Blue Fish Jell-O parfaits.  We also added Cat in The Hat fruit kabobs at the last minute...they were so easy!  Just alternate sliced bananas (coat in lemon juice) with strawberries on wooden kabob sticks.

I had to fix a party favorite of ours---Ham & Swiss on Hawaiian bread with a honey mustard poppy seed sauce.  I've been asked for my recipe for these, and there's not much too it but I'll have to indulge and post one next time I make it...they are divine.  I mixed it up this time and made Sweet BBQ with a semi-dry coleslaw on Hawaiian bread.  I'll have to make a few tweaks to that recipe, but we love our BBQ!  I never had coleslaw on BBQ or burgers but after a few trips to the Carolinas---you will love it!  I also found a recipe for Rice A Roni Chicken Salad Sandwiches, I was so glad to find this because they are so good and don't take anytime at all to prepare.  My mom brought some meatballs and I finished it with some good ole Green Eggs and Ham!  They were very cute...everyone complimented on how good the food was and that it looked really nice.  I had a lot of fun making it...I prepared the entire week prior to the party.

I'm not huge into doing party favors and I thought about doing a candy bar instead because I already had a few things and thought it would be a good way to get rid of all the candy so that it wasn't staring at me for weeks.  We offered mini M&M's (Truffula tree seeds), BarBaLoot graham cracker bears mixed with marshmallows, butterscotch discs, lollipops, and more Swedish fish mixed with gummy bears.

I got all the decorations at Oriental Trading and Party City.  I made the Truffula trees with Dollar Tree square glass bowls and glass pebbles, dowel rods, and craft pom poms.  I plan on the replacing the trees with a big white or cream hydrangea flower and using them in my living room or the guest bathroom as decor.  Not bad for just a few bucks.  I also found an idea on Pinterest to use the pom poms and rope/twine on cardstock (I used watercolor paper cause it was a cream color and is heavier.) to make Truffula Tree artwork, which will also be re-used in his bedroom as decor.  I was really excited about the Lorax candy decor that I found on, you guessed it---Pinterest.  I found a curvy glass vase and glass taper candle holder (glued together with E-6000, best glue ever) at Dollar Tree and filled it with butterscotch candies.  I then went here to get the free Lorax face printable to finish it off.

We asked for guests to think of bringing a book instead of toys and clothes.  Sam gets a lot of hand me downs from his big brother and he really does have enough toys, especially since his birthday is two months after Christmas.  It went over so well, he got so many different books and I can't wait till he gets really into them.  Silas loves to read at bedtime and it's so important for kids to be read to.  Sam still doesn't get the concept that he can't try to chew the book while I'm attempting to read it...but he'll get there soon!  I kinda felt weird actually asking for certain items for gifts, but I figure we already do it for the baby showers and people are going to ask us what they want anyway...so why not beat them to the punch!  We worded it very nicely on the invites...I did the same for the Sam's baby shower, because I saved so much from when Silas was an infant that I didn't need much.

I think everyone had a wonderful time, and even though it was crowded and sometimes very loud...we made memories.  I wanted Sam to have a great first birthday, because honestly, these parties aren't cheap and as they get older the pomp and circumstance tends to fade.  And I'm OK with that, especially since there's two kids.  Our family and friends are very special to us and I'm so glad they joined us.  That's another thing...it's hard for us to have 'small get togethers' when my mom is one of 9 children and I have almost 30 cousins....on one side of my family.  But it's never a dull moment when we're around family...we love them all and there's nothing like family to help you build your memories.

 To top the nice day off...two of my very best friends made it to the party and brought their babies too!  Three best friends...three 2012 babies. We've had a busy few years and it's so nice to get together with our kids.  It doesn't happen often since they both live at least an hour away and we are all busy with kids and working, but we make the most of it!

I don't know about everyone else but I know that I'm ready for warm weather and fresh cut grass!  Bring it on spring!