Minnie's 1st Birthday -1yr- Minnie Bingo

For my baby girl's 1st birthday, I decided to do it as a Baby Minnie Mouse theme. Since she's my first and I wanted to go big" for her 1st birthday I started planning her party when she turned 6 months. Not only was it great starting so early but I was able to use different trinkets from the different holiday novelties sold from that point up to her birthday were great for the goodie bags and food. It also didn't hurt the pocket too much. The birthday doesn't seem so outrageouse until afterwards when you add everything up. ;P  The venue: I had her party a local bar and grill from 11:30 ~ 2pm. The venue space was free. So I just had think about the food. I chose this particular bar & grill because they have an outside playground that is at the back of the restaurant which I specially requested for her party setup to be right in front of. That way parents could feel secure with their children playing there. *Also since my baby girl was only turning 1 her guest list would be more adults than children.* 

INVITATIONS:  For invitations I found a personalized template on ebay about a month before her birthday for about $10 that I was able to print as many as I would like at Walmart's Photo Dept. (I used her very 1st picture from the day she was born as the main picture on the invitation. Everyone loved this idea as you can see how much she had grown in a year since birth.) *I did put a special note at the back of the invitation since I was hosting her party at a bar & grill "Per momma's request all alcoholic drinks MUST be consumed at the bar." A few friends teased that that was unacceptable but when it came to time for the party everyone respected the request which was GREAT. Letting the adult guests know in advance made it easier for them to not order from the bar.

DECORATIONS:  For decorations nothing really special. I had bought a few things from Party City that were the Baby Minnie Mouse theme. I did order a felt personalized Happy Birthday sign from onestepahead.com that I can use for all her birthdays. The total expense was about $30 but can be used for as many birthdays as she'll let me. :) I bought a couple of green cupcake stands from LTD Commodities. *I figured these would be a great investment for future birthdays. Side bar: Since I'm not a big fan of a girl having her world revolve around pink the only pink that really was visible were the Party City decorations. With everything else I did my best to incorporate more purple orange green and yellow.)  The birthday girl's wardrobe: I knew I wanted a special Minni Mouse outfit for my baby girl to wear for her party but didn't want to look to costume-y. So I found an outfit on ebay of red/white polk-a-dot shorts jumpsuit with a matching headband with Mouse ears for about $10.

About a couple of weeks before her birthday I bought her a pair of Minnie Mouse black w/ white polk-a-dot shoes to go w/ her outfit and matching Mouse ear earrings with birthstone. This was a perfect outfit for her since she was everywhere and mixing and mingling with our her guests. :) I did buy a second much more dressy outfit "just in case" also off of ebay; but the best part of this outfit was that it was made to order and in exactly in her size. I was orange w/ white polk-a-dots & white trimming. It was BEAUTIFUL! All I had to do was find a hair accessory to match which was a piece of pie. Since this dress was a little more formal than the other we had my baby girl do a 'costume' change into this dress after cake since she was covered from head to toe in cake and frosting. :D Needless to say and luckily for momma I had made sure to wear a double layered shirt. So when it came time to change her I just removed the top shirt and the bottom shirt took all the cake and frosting. :D HINT HINT NUDGE NUDGE LoL 

FOOD/DRINKS:  On the invitations I had asked for a RSVP since I had plan on feeding everyone. So I had pre-ordered hamburgers and french fries for everyone. The children had an option of Mac-N-Cheese or apple slices instead of french fries. Tea and restaurant's soda fountain station was available for guests. Instead of using the restaurant's glasses I asked special permission to use plastic cups that were purple and had Minnie & Mickey on them that I had collected throughout the 6 month span of planning her party. I paid as $0.67 ~ $0.99 per cup and found them at three different stores (Walmart Walgreens and HEB). Everyone loved these and were a great party favor for all guests to take home. *The restaurant were also grateful for not having to worry about washing more dishes. ;) To also help the restaurant on feeding the guests and since the food was made to order I had ordered personalized wristbands for all guests to wear. The girls taking the orders knew that anyone with a wristband was with our party and not a regular patron. I ordered purple wristbands and had her first and middle name on them. I wanted it simple and something that can be used for almost her birthdays. (www.wristbandsexpress.com - 500 p/bx minimum 1 bx/order = $50 one-time expense) *These worked out great because it was easy to spot who belonged with our group and who didn't because both adults and children wore a wristband. 

GAMES/ACTIVITIES/PRIZES:  Using Excel I made a personalized Birthday Bingo along with the matching cards that revolved around baby Minnie Mouse and turning 1. I also had created a personalized birthday word search but the best was Pin the Bow on Minnie game. I had been trying to find the 'perfect' Minnie Mouse poster that would go with the theme that wouldn't look too out of place. Side bar: Baby Minni Mouse is completely different from Playhouse Minnie Mouse. My younger cousin who was visiting from out of state volunteered to free-hand any picture of baby Minnie Mouse on poster for the game. So using a Disney World resort offer that had coincidentally been mailed as his inspiration. He drew it on the middle of a purple poster which he did awesome on; and between my sister and myself we painted Minnie ourselves which came out beautifully. (We matched Minnie's dress to my baby girl's birthday outfit.) Using the same mailed paraphanelia from Disney World Resorts I colored copied at work Minnie's bow. I cut these out and had everyone that was going to participate in the game write their name across the bow. Using my baby girl's headband w/ Mouse ears as a blindfold since we forgot to take one :) everyone took their turn trying to Pin the Bow on Minnie. It was fun to see the adults get more dizzy than the children and seeing the children do a lot better than the adults.

I took extra care of this poster because my plan was to frame it and leave everyone's try as is so that my baby girl could have that memorabilia for when she would get older; and let me tell you words can't even express how beautiful it looks framed. My sister engraved a name plate at Things Remembered that just said "My 1st Birthday" & the date of the party. It looks fantastic hanging on her wall in her nursery. *tear* For prizes: Since her birthday is in the middle of August and its Back to School everywhere I decided to something a little different. I bought a few assorted inexpensive backpacks with a few basic school supplies in them from HEB and added a $5 ToysRUs gift card in the school box. The parents were extremely gratefull for these and believe or not the kids that one the prizes loved it! I got a lot of compliments for using school supplies as prizes instead of the normal. This is great to score points with possible babysitters. Hint Hint Nudge Nudge LoL

CAKE/COOKIES:  Instead of a traditional cake I wanted something different to go with the theme. So I bought a few dozens of mini cupcakes from HEB that I added mini Oreos to to represent mini Mouse ears. They were so cute! I got a lot of compliments on. For her "smash" cake I just ordered a small 5" round cake with birthday colors also from HEB. I didn't worry too much about her cake because she was going to 'enjoy' it all her lonesome self. :) For cookies I had found during February pre-pared cookie dough from Pillsbury that had a heart w/ Mouse ears embellished in the center. I thought these were perfect for her party. I bought a few boxes and just froze them until it was time to bake them! What was an extra bonus was come August Pillsbury was selling a back to school Mouse ear cookie that just had the Mouse ears embellished in the middle. So needless to say I bought a few boxes to add to the mix. These were also a hit! Everyone teased that the hearts signified Minnie and the plain Mouse ears were Mickey. It was great! 

The Goodie Bags: Believe or not I scored a great deal with the goodie bags. I found at a local Goodwill a couple of large bags that had almost a 100 party goodie bags total w/ a couple of trinkets in each of them. All the goodie bags were the same and were very general. They could be used for both male or female. All you had to do was emphasized the gender by using a coordinating color on the inside out. They were perfect! Each bag included a plastic M&M purple cup which in each cup had a Minnie Mouse or Mickey Mouse bubble that I had bought in February at Walgreens for $0.99 each 1 mini DumDum 1 mini bite-size chocolate 1 Bubble Gum a couple of my baby girl's favorite foods such as 1 string cheese pkg and 1 pkg of Jack Link's Original Beef Jerky.

Also included in the goodie bags was a black headband w/ bow for the girls and black necktie (which I made myself) for the boys. I had gotten the headbands at Michaels 2 for $2. The bows were 8 for $1 at Family Dollar. Very inexpensive. I found Mouse ear pattern online and traced it on a black poster and cut them out accordingly. I hole-punched two holes in between the Mouse ears so that we could put ribbon through to make Minnie's bow. Pink ribbon w/ white flowers for the girls and green ribbon w/ white flowers for the boys.I found this ribbon on clearance for $1 at Michaels. Each bag was sealed with a Mouse ear and a personalized 'Thank you for coming!' stickers in purple that were put the center.  All bags were sealed this way and having the two different colored ribbon made it easier to hand it the right goodie bag to each child (and adult 'child'). They looked so expensive and I think each bag was like worth $5 in goodie bag. 

All in all and aside from the little unexpected sporadic light raining which I forgot to mentione that didn't dampen anyone's mood it was a great party.  I received a lot of compliments of the little personalized details that I did to make this Baby Minnie Mouse 1st birthday my baby girl's own and I got a lot of great emotional pictures to remember it by. Tip: Ask a photographer friend to be responsible for taking pictures of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. It not only saves you money but it saves you the worry of being hostess and photographer at the same time; but do make sure to keep them in line and not let them enjoy themselve too much at the party that they forget THEY ARE THE PARTY PHOTOGRAPER! :)   Side bar: I love it when it rains at a important personal event. It is said that a passed loved one is there with you and regrets that they can't be there; and since I had just lost an aunt a few months before unexpectedly to cancer I enjoyed every rain drop. :)"