So my son turns the big T-W-O in just 4 months – you’ll probably hear me saying this line over and over again but … How is he growing up so quickly!? I feel like we celebrated his first birthday just a few days ago!
I have linked everything I purchased or used for this party throughout this post. I have also explained how I made some of the DIY items shown in the photos. Hope you find this post helpful.
Since his first birthday photoshoot post has been one of my top hits on my blog, I thought I would share how we celebrated his first birthday and show pictures of his party on here! Yes, I know I’m late on writing this post (8 months late to be exact) but I figured better late than never right?!
I’ll also be sharing how I planned this party, where I purchased everything, and how we put everything together the day of!
The Theme
Choosing the theme for my son’s first birthday wasn’t difficult at all – actually we knew that it would be a superman themed party a few months before his birthday. How? Well my son always kept his hands in a fist form as a baby (like most babies – this is very common) but every time he would cry, my husband would lift him up in the air and sing the superman theme song and it would make him stop crying immediately. It was our magical way of distracting him from whatever was upsetting him.
Early in his first year, we started calling him superman because as my husband would lift him up, his arms would go back and he would look like superman. When it came time to choosing his theme, we knew it just had to be superman and never thought twice about it.
Of course during the birthday party, my husband had to lift him up and sing the theme song again. It’s become a little tradition now. I think we’re going to keep doing it as long as we can hold him because he enjoys it and it brings us back to when he was just an itty bitty baby.
The Outfit
We decided we wanted his outfit to match the theme of his birthday as well as have it personlaized . I wanted it to be obvious what we were celebrating in his photos and what would do that more than a huge ONE on his chest. We also added a superman symbol (to match his theme) and his name on it – it turned out adorable! I ordered the onesie from the KristenPCreations shop on Etsy and it was made perfectly and shipped quickly.
Next, I decided to pair his personalized onesie with a pair of jeans and suspenders purchased from H&M. Click here for similar ones available on their site right now.
Lastly, SHOES! I knew I wanted him to wear a pair of shoes that were comfortable but also had a pop of color. I love the style of converse shoes and decided to go with a pair of red ones for his birthday. I think they completed his outfit perfectly!
He looked like he was dressed up but also looked comfortable – which was the look I was going for! (He dressed up in a formal suit for his first birthday photoshoot and so I wanted to make sure he was a little more casual for his party).
The lawn signs
I wanted the setup to be very colorful and obvious as to match the theme. Since this was a backyard party, I wanted to make sure our entire home was decorated – from the front lawn to the back of the house. I started off by having a local company install lawn letters that spelt out Happy Birthday. I thought this would add a unique decor element to his first party. They even used balloon signs which matched the color of his superman theme – how cute is that?!
Backyard Decor – Backdrop and table setup
We decided to make our own backdrop for our dessert and cake table. We wanted to make a backdrop that displayed the city buildings often shown in the superman movies. To make the backdrop, we cut out building shapes out of black bristol board that we purchased from a dollar store. Then we cut out little white windows and glued them on the buildings. Next, we glued the buildings onto a blue tablecloth along with some gold stars right above them. My dad (being the handyman) stapled our tablecloth onto four pieces of wood so it would stay straight and stay up during the party. We then hung our backdrop on our garage door using command hooks and it worked perfectly!
I wanted a lot of the decor to go around our dessert table since this is where my son was going to take most of his pictures and where we sang him his first ever birthday song. I used a red tablecloth to cover the table and a smaller yellow tablecloth to go under the cake. I thought the red, yellow, and blue (from the backdrop) were the perfect way to decorate for the theme. I then put two skyscraper building towers at the back of the table to display some of the desserts. We decorated around the table with a superman themed garland banner, some red and blue pompoms, and jumpo superhero word cutouts.
On the dessert table, I put twizzlers on top of shredded yellow paper for some decor (and of course, a treat!). I purchased superhero swirl lollipop and regular lollipop kits from online and put them together, placed them in clear glass vases on top of some red and yellow shredded paper. Each of the lollipops came with their own cape and mask – they were the cutest and the kids loved them.
I decorated clear cups with red glitter along the bottom a few days before the party and filled them with red jello and a cheesecake dessert. I topped the cheesecake dessert with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries (colors of fruits that would match the superman theme). These cups were displayed on the two skyscraper building towers.
Next, I purchased personalized labels for our water and soda bottles. The labels were created by a shop on Etsy and emailed back to me within 24 hours. I then went to staples and printed as many labels as I needed. We glued the labels onto the bottles a few days before the party. We also cut little red capes for our water bottles out of red felt fabric I found at Michaels. These were the talk of the party amongst our guests!
I had a local baker make a customized superman themed birthday cake along with matching cupcakes. They tasted amazing and looked great on the dessert table.
Next, we made a few gift bags for the kids that would be attending the party. I purchased the red bags from Michaels and cut out blue capes using construction paper and glued them on there. I then added a little superhero sticker onto each bag. They were filled with favors I purchased from a dollar store along with superman themed favors I purchased from party city.
Our second table was decorated using a red tablecloth and months numbers baby banner purchased from Target. I couldn’t find a banner that was the same color as our theme (blue and red), so I purchased the gold and pink one I found and changed the colors myself. I went over the gold glitter on the numbers with red loose glitter and I traded out the gold clothespins to navy blue ones I found at Michaels.
I placed a superhero city tray on this table and displayed the customized superman sugar cookies that were purchased from a local baker on it. We then put the fruits, veggies and dip, and chips and salsa on this table as well.
The food. My beautiful mother stood in the kitchen for hours making delicious Middle Eastern food for the party. She made two types of rice, fattoush (a traditional salad), roasted chicken, roasted patatoes, pasta, kebab, meat and veggies, humus, and mtabal. We ordered some spinach pies from a restaurant just to complete the table. It was delicious! We placed the food on a third table that was covered in a red tablecloth and decorated it with some jumpo superhero word cutouts.
We set up three tables that we covered in superman table covers on the back lawn for guest seating. I had also made my own centerpieces for the tables by using boxes I found at Michales that I covered with blue wrapping paper and red felt fabric. I glued the boxes on top of each other and filled them with blue shredded paper I found at the dollar store. I then made my own superman word cutout signs and glued them to wooden skewers and placed them inside the top box. I decorated the boxes with red, blue, and yellow glitter stars I found at Staples. We then added red, yellow, and blue balloons to each of them. They made a gorgeous centerpiece for each of the tables and were so easy to make!
We also placed superman and justice league themed paper plates, napkins, and cups around the tables for the guests to use for the food and desserts.
Lastly, we rented a jumping castle for the children to enjoy during the birthday from a local party rental company. They even had a Justice League themed castle that went so well with the theme of our party – how awesome was that?!
And that is everything for how I planned and decorated my sons first birthday party. The day was beautiful and we were lucky to have been able to celebrate my sons first year with close family and friends. I am happy with how it turned out and we all enjoyed every minute of it. I can’t believe in a few weeks I will start planning his second birthday … How!? I feel like I just finished planning this party!
I hope you enjoyed this post and found some helpful information. If you have any questions, please make sure to ask me in the comments or send me an email.
I will end the post with a few more photos from the day because … you can’t have too many photos of a cute little boy’s birthday party now can you?!
Sincerely,
Mama Malak
2 comments
Maloukaaa i loveee this bloggg everything looked Amazing😍 its soo very exciting planning and making all of these things isnt it😍I got two birthdays to plan this year im already super excited! Cant wait to see what you come up with this year for aloushi allah ye7mi yarab. Did you make the cheesecake cups yourself? Would love to to see a recepie for thoseee😍
Thank you so much Donna!!! It really is exciting!!😍😍😍 it’s so much fun planning it and then seeing it come to life. Your babies are adorable I can’t wait to see what you come up with for them. Yes, I made the cheesecake cups and best thing is they’re non bake cheesecakes and you can make them the day before! (That’s what I did for his party!) I’ll share the link with you here – https://www.allcreated.com/no-bake-cheesecake-in-a-mason-jar/ . XOXO