The Rainbow Party

This past weekend was Ruby's first birthday party! A first birthday party is such a fun event to plan for, probably because as the mama you can dictate the theme and make the decisions by yourself. One year olds can't voice their opinions yet to say that NO theyyyy want a My Little Pony Spongebob Squarepants Abby Caddaby party. I am not looking forward to planning that party... So I deemed Ruby's first birthday party a rainbow theme. Coupled with being born so close to St. Patty's day (that was her due date) and her name having a connection to Wizard of Oz where a rainbow plays a prominent role, I felt that there were all sorts of signs pointing me in the rainbow direction. Most notably, however, was my desire to bake one of these bad boys. Behold, the rainbow cake.

From Martha Stewart, Megan's Cooking and Oven Love, respectively.
Must. Make.
Add then I saw

(From Hoosier Homemade)And my mind was made up. In the end, I made the rainbow mini cupcakes for our party goers and a rainbow smash cake made dyed with fruits and veggies instead of artifical dye for Ruby. I will share how I made the mini cupcakes tomorrow and the naturally dyed rainbow cake on Wednesday.
Ruby's smash cake

Rainbow mini cupcakes

In terms of decor, I needed to stay simple because after all, it was a one year old's birthday party. My white house provided the most perfect backdrop for bright rainbow colors. I got tissue paper from Party City and matching streamers from Hobby Lobby. And while I watched the Blues dominate one night, I crafted up my tissue pompom rainbow.

Looking up from the dining room table at the rainbow over head.

I wanted to feature one of Ruby's newborn pictures and I decided to do that with a big wall picture. Looks really intricate, but it was actually fairly easy to install. First of all, I uploaded the picture I wanted to use to the website, Block Posters. After you upload your pic, you select the size you want to make it (how many single sheets you want to print) and then the website slices your image and you download a PDF. When you print it, lay it out and step back, you are AMAZED.

I tiled it easily using Fotoclips from Photojojo. As you can see from the picture, I also went a little crazy with the flowers and bought a bouquet of each color. Again, I went to my favorite Wholesale florist (Harold's Wholesale, a division of Walter Knoll) and got all my flowers on Wednesday.

I printed off (at Walgreens) the 52 weekly pictures I captured during Ruby's first year and would put up here on the blog. Those went on display downstairs in the basement.

Food was catered by Kenrick's and SO GOOD. We feasted on BBQ beef brisket, baked beans, pasta salad, plus a delicious salad made by mother-in-law. No, pictures, I guess, oops.
I also made "rainbow water" which was just water that I put slices of oranges, cucumber, lemon, and frozen strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. It was delicious!

And finally, I taped up the reverse side of a small role of wrapping paper and asked everyone to sign it with a little note for Ruby on her birthday. This is something that we would do back in college, and it was an awesome memory to look at the day after a party. I had some rainbow stickers and markers for everyone to use.


Ruby was so thrilled to see everyone there. She had 3 outfit changes, not because I planned it, but because we were eating BBQ and it warmed up quite a bit. So her outfit kept evolving.

She loved the graffiti banner and drew on it herself.
Before people arrived, she was waiting at the door. I guess she could tell it was going to be a special day.

Outfit #3

When everyone left, Ruby once again took her place at the front door waving good bye to everyone. She had an awesome first birthday. And then she crashed for a long afternoon nap.