Planning Baby's First Birthday Party

It seems like only yesterday Sprout was born. . . I can’t believe that it’s really almost been a year!!!!!

As you can imagine Mr.B and I are BEYOND excited to celebrate her
first year of life, we had so many ideas pertaining to themes, how we want to celebrate, where we want to celebrate and narrowed it down to a small, budget friendly party in our apartment.

Here is PART 1 of tips for “A Stress-Free 1^ST Birthday Party”

1) BUDGET, BUDGET, BUDGET- I don’t know how many times I can say that or how important it is to BUDGET. Of course in my mind I pictured a huge party for Sprout filled with ponies, endless candy, a Ferris wheel, fireworks as we cut the cake. . . and that’s when Mr. B snapped me back to reality and reminded me of our budget. It is so easy to get off track, so you want to stay focused! Decide if you want a small party (just family and a few close friends) or you want something huge (invite the whole neighborhood) whichever you may decide just keep in mind your spending limit. Creating a guest list is so handy.

2) PICK YOUR THEME- Pinterest is literally the best thing ever created besides bacon! Seriously, Pinterest is a great source to get party ideas, decoration ideas, anything you can possibly think of they have it. The best part is you can “Pin” what you like and always go back and look at it later.

Choosing a theme was the hardest part for us because Sprout LOVES everything (Sesame Street, Bubble Guppies, Curious George, etc..) so we decided to ditch the characters and stick to what we know, which is Arts & Crafts. I found our adorable and FREE invitations via Handmade Charlotte blog crush Mr. Printables which brings us to tip number. .

3) INVITATIONS- As I mentioned before we used FREE printable invitations from Mr. Printables which is awesome you just print, write the name, date, and time, and mail them out, DONE! So printing out pre-made invitations is always an option, you can of course make your own, or digital file invitations, or pick some up at your local craft store or Walmart.

4) SAY CHEESE (PHOTOGRAPHY) – Of course you’re going to want to take millions of pictures of your little one of their special day, but keep in mind you don’t want to miss out on the fun. We are going to take pictures of course but I asked my uncle to be the party photography since he has an awesome DSLR camera. The key is to invest your time into the actually party, relax and have someone capture the moments.

5) WATCH THE CLOCK (TIME)- Timing is literally everything when it comes to 1 year olds, we planned Sprout’s party based off of her schedule: She’s up from 7am-10am goes down for a nap around 11 and by 12 she’s back up again until about 3. Her party is scheduled from 12-3:30 that way she’s a happy baby for the guest

That’s all the tips for now, I have two weeks to prepare for Sprout’s big day, I’ll be sure to update additional steps once the party is over!

***BONUS: Here’s some photo shoot pictures of Peanut's 1st Birthday, and the girls 10 month and 4 year old pictures that I took with my Galaxy S3 and Iphone. I guess I should do a "How to take DSLR camera photos with your Smart phone tutorial"soon.