Donovan's Birthday... We had a ball!

My baby turned one last week!  I can't believe a whole year has gone by.  He's grown and changed so much.  He's talking now and his very first word was "Ball!"  His second word, you wonder?  It was "Roll!"  So of course, his party had to have a ball theme.  I saw an adorable red ball birthday on Hostess with the Mostess, and took some inspiration from that to create this invitation, to set the tone.

His other favorite thing right now, is taking a bath.  Whenever he hears water running, or the word bath, or even if we leave the bathroom door open, he starts running across the house yelling, "Ba! Ba!  Baf!!"  It's the cutest little shriek ever.  So I chose beach balls, and a water party!  Here's a link to the pinterest board I created for this party: http://pinterest.com/chrissiebair/donovan-s-birthday/. 

Here's the party plan:

Balls:  I ordered three dozen beach balls from Oriental Trading.  The look on the birthday boy's face when he saw the huge pile of balls was the perfect moment =) 

Water: I built a water wall for our backyard!  This project was so easy to do, and all the kids love it!  When I spend money for a party I try to make it something that we will get a lot of use for, like the rainbow tent I bought for Serenity's birthday last year which kept us cool the rest of the insanely hot summer.  So I invested a little money in the water wall, and it was perfect for the party, and we're still using it!  I made the banner out of cardstock, duct tape and a ruffle made of streamers!  So inexpensive and cute =) 

Water & Balls:  For favors I made homemade sponge balls.  The kids had a blast soaking each other with these!

Basically we just played in the backyard with all these fun things.  I turned on the sprinkler, my dad got the kids a water slide for their birthday gift and everyone enjoyed splashing in that!  I made olympic style hoops for the kids to throw the beach balls through (My nephews ended up diving through them themselves instead!).  I filled a second kiddie pool with water and ball pit balls for the younger group to enjoy.  We also used our parachute to play with the beach balls a bit.  And that was it!  Nothing else required for the kids to have a blast.  =) 

Menu: 
Donovan's favorite food is pizza (almost the first food he'd eat, he ignored purees for three solid months!)  With the help of my fabulous sister I made pizza crusts the night before, so the day of all I had to do was top and heat through.  We also had a lot of fruit and a veggie tray. 

Dessert:
Donovan's smash cake was a ball!  Literally.  He didn't know whether to eat it or throw it.  Or roll it, or kick it, he tried all three!  It was adorable, and I love the icing on his little foot.  He enjoyed eating a cupcake more later, but he loved his ball!  He went nuts when he saw it, reaching for it and yelling, "Ball, ball, ball!"  I love it =)  For everyone else, I did snickerdoodle cupcakes and chocolate cake balls.  And we had icee pops because it was a hot day, and they are a necessity!

Ball!  Ball!  Ball!

Notice the blue icing on my arm... White shirt and blue cake, I am a genius.

Gift:
For my daughter's first birthday, we had everyone read her a story and collected it into a birthday dvd that she still watches.  Donovan already loves her dvd, so we wanted him to have his own.  This time though, we gave everyone the option of either reading a book, or singing!  Donovan especially loves dancing.  He has a Laurie Berkner dvd that is the only tv he really watches.  So at his party, we had everyone do the Hokey Pokey for his birthday dvd!  And they sang Happy Birthday, of course.  We also collected videos from friends and family that live out of town, so he can watch all of them as well. 

Fishing:
In addition to the sponge balls and beach balls that everyone took home, we have a tradition of fishing at our birthday parties.  We collect little toys from the Dollar Store and Michael's and everyone takes turn fishing for a prize!  My dad built us a little dock to fish from, we made the pole out of bamboo, and we use a big blue tarp for the water.  It's a big hit every time! 

Birthday Outfit:

Oh, I nearly forgot, I made Donovan a special outfit to wear!  I just took a tie-dyed t-shirt and used my Silhouette and flocked heat transfer material to put a number 1 on it!  Then I did a running stitch in embroidery thread to embellish it.  I love how it turned out, so quick and cute!  I also made him a birthday hat, that he likes to pretend to wear until I get the camera out, then he pulls it off!  Of course =)  But it was easy and he loves to say hat so it works.  Here's the best pic I got of it =)

Whew!  Can you see why I've been too busy to post?  =)  I'll try and be better now!  More on Saturday!