A First Birthday Party

We had Phoebe's first birthday party over the weekend. Her actual birthday isn't until Thursday, but my mom was in town and we wanted to include her in the celebration.
A couple of months ago, when we first mentioned Phoebe's party, Finn decided that it would be a mermaid party. And a mermaid party it was. And, essentially, he planned the whole thing...

First off, we needed a mermaid pinata. A mermaid pinata I asked? How on earth will we make one of those? And, it was actually even harder than I had anticipated. And, the only part that Finn would help with was the painting and the stuffing, so we couldn't even really blame the poor artistic quality on him! Instead of doing a traditional pinata where you take turns trying to bash it, we stuffed the pinata from a trap door in the bottom, and then taped a bunch of ribbons to the bottom of the mermaid. Only one ribbon pulled the trap door open and each child had a turn to come up and choose a ribbon to pull. Let me tell you- the anticipation was fantastic. If you are ever gutsy enough to make your own pinata, I would suggest the ribbon method. And I would also suggest making a shape that is not a mermaid.

Finn also insisted that I sew Phoebe a skirt out of mermaid fabric. Easy enough, right? Except that the only mermaid fabric I could find had to be ordered from etsy and was pretty expensive. But, it is darn cute.

And of course, a birthday crown! This one I needle-felted a mermaid onto. I thought it looked cute. Too bad she wore it for about 15 seconds.

For decorations, I made a PHOEBE banner out of some of the leftover mermaid fabric, and also made some simple felt garland, an idea that my friend Heidi had for her son's party recently. It was so cute that I just had to make some of my own....Finn made his own mermaid flags and also decorated the party bags with mermaids (some of them were superhero mermaids).

And, the best part.... cupcakes! Chocolate buttermilk cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting. All courtesy of Martha Stewart. I guess I should also thank her for the couple of pounds I have probably gained from eating the leftover cupcakes!

All in all, the party was a success, Phoebe only cried a few times, and nothing disastrous happened. I just can't believe my baby is already (almost) one.