Winter OneDerland: Favors, Activities, and Anything Else

I'm going to try to finish up my posts about Levi's Winter OneDerland party today by including any left over details! (If you missed the posts about the decorations or food, just check back from the last couple of days.)
Let's start with the activities shall we?  I am a big believer in having optional, varied activities at parties so that guests can choose if/what they want to participate in. Even though there we had a good number of adults in attendance, I figured they would mainly want to eat, drink, and watch football (which I was right on all accounts), so I focused my activity planning on the kiddos.  The highlight of the party was our "snow" (ordered from www.sno-wonder.com).  We contained the stuff to one of our inflatable pools, and the kids had a blast playing in it.  To be honest, I don't know if it feels exactly like snow, but to a bunch of Virginia kids who really don't know what snow is it was awesome!

Considering it was in the mid-60s the day of our party, the kids ended up spending the bulk of the rest of their time just playing in the yard.  I had some snow glue and the game Don't Break the Ice out on the back patio in case they wanted more options, and they did try out both.  Colton got really into Don't Break the Ice towards the end of the party and is now OBSESSED!

In case the weather hadn't been as nice, I had also purchased Happy Feet to have on inside, so the kids would have stuff to do inside.  We didn't end up using it, but it was a nice plan B!

While we didn't really have activities for the adults, I had made a short video of Levi's first 365 days and had it playing for the first half hour or so of the party (my dad kept trying to turn it off to watch the football game, though, so it didn't last long!).  And like we had done for Colton's first birthday, we asked guests to bring an item for a time capsule in lieu of typical presents (although people didn't listen and brought gifts anyway in addition to the time capsule stuff).  Levi did end up with some pretty cool stuff for his time capsule, though: t-shirts from Va. Beach landmarks, video of "Gangam Style," and even a picture of Virginia Beach's new Target (my new home) which should be pretty fun to look at in 18 years!

As for favors, we did a kid version and an adult version.

The adults got jars of "snowman soup" (hot chocolate, marshmallows, a few Hershey Kisses, and a miniature candy cane.

                            

And the kids got the snowman bags (created by me) filled with some snowman goodies (bubbles, a lollipop, pencil, and notepad) from Oriental Trading and a packet of hot chocolate.

The tags on the goody bags, which read "Thanks for making my party onederful. Love, Levi," were designed by me along with all the other signage from the party.

And I think that may finally conclude my report on Levi's Winter OneDerland.  I had been mentally planning this party from the day he was born, and it was so fun (and a lot of work!) to see it all come together just as I had seen in my head.  And luckily the birthday boy seemed to enjoy his big day as much as I had hoped he would!  So once again, a very happy first birthday to my baby boy!

Winter OneDerland: The Food and Drinks

Yesterday I shared with you tons of pictures/details of the decorations at Levi's Winter OneDerland party.  Today we get to move on to the best part of any party...the food and drinks!  Before we get started, I should probably preface this with a few key details that effected the menu selections.
 First, the party was at 4PM, so I didn't really feel like we needed to serve a meal per se, but I also knew people would probably eat pretty substantially.  Also, our party had about 35 adults and 15 kids in attendance, so we really had to have food and drink that appealed to both crowds.  So with that out of the way, let's get started.
For the kids (and kids at heart) in attendance we went with a snow/white-themed menu including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (cut into snowflakes), powdered doughnut skewers (meant to look like snowmen), white cheddar popcorn ("snow white" popcorn), carrots and Ranch (snowmen noses), and a cheese ball (shaped like a snowman...of course, right) served with crackers.

Levi's cake and some cupcakes were also on the table.  The cupcakes were actually baked into ice cream cones (appropriately called snow cones).

For the adults, we had a chili bar.  I am about ready to kick myself because I didn't get a single picture of it (!), but it was a big hit!  We had meat and vegetarian chili and then put out Fritos, chips, french fries, hot dogs, pasta, and cornbread so people could pick their combination.  I also put out diced tomatoes, diced onions, sliced jalapenos, cheese, sour cream, ketchup, and mustard to be used as necessary!  Again, kicking myself for not taking pictures!

Continuing with the bar theme, we also set up a hot chocolate bar with all kinds of toppings and mix-ins for people to choose from, including cinnamon chews, candy canes, caramels, wafer cookies, chopped up Hershey (both the regular and cookies and cream kinds), 4 flavors of marshmallows (all purchased at Target), and some liquor (Kahula, Baileys, Creme de Menthe, butterscotch Schnapps, and Grand Marnier). The chocolate and peanut butter spoons seemed to be the favorites!

Obviously, hot chocolate isn't really something you can sip on all day, so we also had other drinks including the obvious soda, beer, and wine.  But we also had water bottles out labeled as melted snowmen.

And for the kids we had milk snowmen.

Typing it all out it sure sounds like a lot of food, but we actually had very little left over!  

Winter OneDerland: The Decor

So here we go...the first in my series of posts about Levi's Winter OneDerland bash.  Today we'll focus on the decorations.  If you're considering a similar themed party, one of the main advantages is that most of the decor was created for free...or close to it...from supplies already on hand or very cheaply purchased.  Let's start with front walkway.  I lined it with white balloons (stuck in the ground with golf tees a la Pinterest and) and then had a simple snowflake wreath on the front door.

As you enter our house, the first room you see is the dining room where I typically set up the food.  This is our main party staging area, so I wanted to give it a big treatment.  The backdrop was just some wrapping paper that I found and taped to the wall.  I printed out various black and white images of Levi from the past year and strung them along.  In the center were three pictures of him spelling out "one" from his photoshoot a few weeks back.  I also made some paper snowflakes that hung from the ceiling and hideous ceiling fan!

The food pretty much dominated the food table (duh).  I'll go over the details of that tomorrow, but I did want to share with you a couple easy things I did to snaz it up and make it look fancier than just a plain white tablecloth.  I collected some branches from our yard, spray painted them white, and coated them with Epsom salt.  After putting them in vases on each end of the table, they certainly made the table a little prettier.  My cake stand created from Dollar Store plates and candle sticks (and then spray painted) also seemed to help.

The other main area of decoration was the mantle.  The "snow" is just cotton balls threaded on a string.  With all that going on, the mantle didn't need too much more.  I made a few trees out of cereal boxes and various supplies (fabric, cotton balls, felt, and yarn) and then framed a couple more pictures from Levi's first birthday photoshoot.

There were touches of decorations elsewhere throughout the house.  Above the drinks bar, I strung the pictures from Levi's monthly photos.

I also created a "Year of Firsts" for him, framed it,and put it on display.

And finally I created little snow men from styrofoam balls and plastic cups rolled in Epsom salt that hung out near our Chili Bar and Hot Chocolate Bar (more on both of them tomorrow).

And, of course, Levi's high chair got a little treatment as well.

So there we have it...the decorating fun that was the Winter OneDerland!  Tomorrow I'll be back with details on all the food and drinks we served (my favorite part of any party)!

Success

Well, another party is officially in the books.  And this time it was a big one...our little boy's first birthday Winter OneDerland bash!  Although we were on pins and needles all week wondering if my niece's arrival would happen to occur on the same day as Levi's party (which it didn't and she is now scheduled to be induced today so hopefully by this time tomorrow, Miss Riley will FINALLY be here), the party went off as planned.
With Levi being born in January, I had figured from day one that his party would have a winter theme.  Therefore, from the day he was born, I began mentally collecting ideas for the bash (and then allowed myself to formally pin things about 6 months ago...couldn't look crazy by doing it too far in advance...).  Of course I, then, spent hours and hours planning and executing every last detail of Levi's party.  And while I will no doubt bombard you with photos/explanations of all that over the next few days, the real mark of success for this party was just how much fun Levi (and his older brother) had in celebrating it.  So today we'll focus on the real star(s) of this party: our sweet Levi Shane (and all the friends, family members, and especially his older brother that helped make his day so special).