Christopher's Giraffe Party

My son, Christopher, turned one this past weekend and since we live in Southern California, I decided to host his birthday at the park. The party was from 9:30-11:30 am. We served brunch and chose a giraffe theme.

My son's nursery is decorated in blue, yellow and white and is full of elephants and giraffes. He loves his little giraffe stuffed animals and his Sophie the Giraffe teether, and so I decided to turn his room theme into his first birthday theme. Here is how it all turned out:

I created some birthday banners out of card stock to line the food tables. This triangle banner motif was then incorporated as decor for the ice bucket, both cakes and my son's high chair.

I took some of the giraffes from my son's room and used them to decorate the food tables.

We served brunch which included: mini cinnamon rolls, lemon cakes, powdered doughnuts, strawberries, grapes, a variety of yogurts, cheerios with milk, and cake. Then to drink we served Starbucks coffee, apple juice and orange juice.

The ice bucket donned it's own mini triangle banner.

We served Cheerios with milk as it is one of my son's favorite foods. For this party we called them "Giraffe Spots".

To serve the Cheerios, I decorated regular plastic cups by hot gluing giraffe print ribbon around the middle (fun find at Wal-Mart!) and then pasting on giraffe stickers, which I had made.

I baked a four tiered, almond cake with raspberry filling and butter cream frosting. I am definitely not a great cake decorator, so I kept it simple and added a little flair with a triangle banner strung between two decorative straws.

The "Smash Cake". Using a Pyrex bowl I made a little cake just for Christopher. 

On the outside of the canopy that covered the food tables, I hung yellow and blue paper pom poms and a Month by Month Banner showing how Christopher has grown!

The favors were little white gift boxes (15 for $1 at the 99 cents store) that I had decorated with giraffe stickers on one side and "Thank You" stickers on the other side. I then filled them with animal crackers and tied them with a simple yellow ribbon. Simple and sweet, and perfect for a first birthday!

He was one happy Birthday Boy!

Happy 1st Birthday Christopher!