King of the Monkeys! Gavin Turns 1!

It wasn't easy picking a theme for my son's 1st birthday party.   I decided to buy some standard items from the Mod Monkey party theme and embellish them a bit on my own. After months of planning and hours of crafting here are some pictures from the big day. Many of the pictures were taken by my friend, Carrie, from Follow Your Dreams Photography. She was great with the kids and captured the day perfectly!

In lieu of balloons, I saw a cool idea online to use lanterns on dowel rods.  I found inexpensive trashcans from Target & stacked them to create a vase for the lanterns.  I lined each trashcan with polka dotted wrapping paper I used throughout the party. I made a wreath for the front door out of small tissue poms which was time consuming but only cost me a total of $1.50 to make.

The favors consisted of monkey cookies for the adults & monkey cups with straws for the kids.  I lined an ordinary folding table with my wrapping paper and bought a grass table skirt to hide the legs.

Favor Table

Monkey Cookie Favors

Monkey Cup Favors

After stressing over a menu I decided to make it simple and serve foods my son loves.  Pizza, chicken fingers, macaroni & cheese, & fruit kabobs made the cut.  Since I had a simple menu I focused my efforts on a dessert table which had cake, chocolate covered oreos, chocolate monkey suckers, G sugar cookies & rice krispie treats.

Dessert Table

When I invited 60 people I never dreamed everyone would be able to make it.  Luckily, we had just finished most of our basement so we set up several tables, lined them with a throw away table cloth and wrapping paper, bought a few dozen balloons to scatter throughout and called it a day.

For party hats I bought ones to match the mod monkey theme and a girlfriend and I glued 16 pom poms to each to give them a little pizazz.

Time for cake!  To decorate Gavin's highchair I made a banner & lined it with a grass skirt.