A Frozen First Birthday

When little CJC turned one, she was obsessed with Frozen.  At first it started as "oh look, she sits still long enough to fall asleep when we watch this."  At some point though, she started actually getting into it and it no longer put her to sleep, because she really wanted to watch it.  So, our theme became obvious for her first birthday.

We decided to go all out, because let's be honest, why not?  Your first child only turns one once and getting through that first year is something to celebrate for the parents just as much as it is for the kid.  Since CJC is the first grandchild on both sides, it seemed only right that everyone got the same experience at the same time.  Patrick's family lives about two hours away, so we invited everyone over to our house for the party.  Of course the first task was to send out invitations.  I found these amazing movie style invitations online at rookno17.com.  This site provided the template for free and then I was able to  edit it myself to add all the information.  I didn't have a lot of experience with this, but I was happy with how it turned out.  (Obviously, the crown and bow tie weren't printed when I sent out the invites.)

 After these were sent out, the real planning began.  Naturally, I dressed CJC in a simple snowflake skirt and white top to match the theme.  The table in the background was for gifts, and I covered our bookshelf to make the backdrop.  The large 1 was cut out of a cereal box, and then covered with blue cupcake liners.  And of course, snowflakes were added all over.

Since I knew she would be in her high chair to eat her cake and everyone would be taking pictures, I thought it would be nice to add a little something to it.  Plus, this way we will always remember what event this was.

We had everyone over for lunch, and I themed all the food to tie in with the movie.  We offered soups and sandwiches as the main course, and I admit I may have gone overboard on the desserts.

My mom made the awesome snowflake cookies.  Then we had "icicles" chocolate covered pretzels, "snowballs" blue chocolate covered popcorn, "frostbites" blue sugar dipped marshmallows, and "krispie mountains" rice krispie treats.  I decided to save money, and made the cakes myself.  Again, I didn't really have any experience with this, and it was far from perfect, but it worked for me.  I topped the cake with a toy Elsa and Olaf.  The blue ice behind them was melted blue Jolly Ranchers.  For CJC's small cake, I just made a sprinkled shadow of the 1 candle.

One of our awesome local libraries has a die-cut machine that anyone can use as long as you bring your own paper.  I decided to take advantage of this to help decorate the house.    I also made a happy birthday banner using foam snowflakes.  Instead of writing on both sides of the snowflakes, I used two for each letter.  By doing this, I was able to glue a section of a drinking straw between the snowflakes that I used to string them together.

I decorated my mantle with some Christmas decorations I already had, an Elsa doll, an Olaf book, and sprinkled Hugs candies around.  I also frosted the mirror, and it says "Let it Go" even though you can't read it in the picture.  I topped the piano with "frozen moments" or pictures of CJC.

Olaf's Summerland was in our backyard, where we had some yard games set up for everyone to play, since most of our guest were adults.

I also covered our yard barn with snowflakes to make a photo op for our guest.  We provided some props and a large frame for everyone to have fun with. 

After the party, I made this thank you note to send out to all our guest.

Thanks for checking out our Frozen first birthday, and be sure to check out our next adventure!