Happy Birthday, Evie!

My baby girl turned one year old on Wednesday, March 21st! Because she shares a birthday with her older cousin Kevin and he had family visiting from out of town, we threw Evie's party on the Saturday before, which turned out to be St. Patrick's Day. I've had these pictures on the camera since then, but I misplaced the camera cord in the move, and couldn't upload them until my mom reminded me yesterday that the camera SIM card should plug directly into my computer...I feel so silly! But now I can finally blog about my baby's birthday party!
Ever since Evie was born, we've decorated her room with a jungle theme. Rather than break with tradition, I scoured the Internet for cute jungle birthday ideas. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I outright stole several ideas from this website. However, I did come up with some other ideas on my own, so I'm justifying to myself that it's not total plagiarism.
In keeping with the jungle theme, the tablecloth was green, and we taped green streamers all over the place to simulate vines while the balloons were supposed to bring tropical flowers to mind. It didn't turn out exactly the way I'd hoped, but we had people arriving while we were finishing everything up, so we did the best we could, and I think it was fine.  

We also used Evie's various jungle toys as decorations on the table: her beloved giraffe in the first picture, and her lion and a new giraffe in the second.

On the wall behind the table, I put up the following banner:

It's a little hard to read because of the glare, but it says Hip-"Hippo"-Ray for Evie's 1st Birthday!!!
I really poured my whole self into planning this party. All of the food was themed, and I spent hours shopping for materials and hand-making the banner, her birthday hat, and the food place-cards. The first thing I made when I woke up Saturday morning, was Evie's personal 6" cake. In an attempt at being clever, I bought two cake mixes, chocolate and yellow, and swirled them together in the pan so the cake would come out striped like a tiger. Once it was cool, I decorated it in the shape of a lion's head, because lions are Evie's favorite animals:

I had Evie "help" me decorate her cake, which means I put some frosting on one of the lids and let her go wild. The end product wasn't perfect, but I was trying to get everything done in a hurry, while also staving off a grouchy birthday girl who had run out of yummy frosting and wanted more NOW! I think it turned out pretty cute, all things considered. Evie was put down for a nap so she would be in a good mood when her guests arrived, and I threw myself back into work.

Next came the cupcakes for the guests. Todd and I had poured some of each of the remaining cake mixes into cute little zebra striped cups, and swirled each cupcake. I was originally planning on swirling the frosting too, but ran out of time. So I ended up just decorating half of them with yellow frosting, and the other half with chocolate. Then each cupcake had a Hershey's Hug placed on top, just to complete the stripy theme. I named them "Wild Cupcakes" and set them on the table.

Meanwhile, Todd was making my "Elephant Trunks"-- celery sticks filled with peanut butter. After all, elephants love peanuts! I was particularly proud of this idea (although I don't like celery OR peanut butter, and have no idea why anyone ever thought they should go together).

I hurried and poured our "Tiger Tails" (Cheetos puffs) and "Animal Crackers" (...animal crackers) into their respective bowls. The "Tiger Tails" bowl helped the puffs look "stripy."

The "Zebra Cakes" were a little tricky because the skewers kept poking completely through the cakes, but that was the only thing overall that I was disappointed in. Like the bowl for the "Tiger Tails," the cups with black rocks were supposed to look like zebra stripes.

People kept asking me if I'd made the Zebra Cakes myself. I was flattered, but no: they're snacks made by Little Debbie.
Then Todd helped me make my "Monkey Pudding," which consisted of layering banana pudding, sliced bananas, and whipped cream twice each into 9 oz cups before putting 'Nilla Wafers on top.

These were Todd's favorite food of the day, and I have to agree: they were really yummy!
Our last menu item was "Giraffe Juice." It was half pineapple soda and half ginger ale and was surprisingly delicious!

If I'd been any more of an overachiever, I would have frozen some dark liquid into ice cube trays so the drink would have looked more splotchy like a giraffe, but I couldn't think of anything that would have gone well with those flavors, and I'm glad I didn't try!
Once all of the food was done, I took a couple of last-minute pictures and then it was time to open presents!

Usually in Todd's family, we have food first and then open presents, but we didn't want Evie to get her new things all sticky after eating her cake, so we switched the order of events.

Evie wasn't thrilled about wearing the birthday hat that I made for her, and Todd said he kept thinking of it as a dunce cap. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the elastic cord came undone before she was able to actually open any of her presents. (Just to alleviate confusion, the date-stamped pictures are from my camera, but since I have lots of sun-glare in my pictures, I'm also using ones that my father-in-law took.)
The first couple of presents that she opened were the Noah's Ark and additional animals that I'd ordered for her. They were even cuter in person, and Evie seemed pleased by them.

 

Up next were a couple of packages from Tia and Uncle (Todd's sister Jenette, and her husband, Greg). The first contained a fuzzy yellow duck holding a fuzzy yellow blanket. Evie loved it! Before any of us could get a picture, she swooped in and gave the duck a kiss on the head! It was so cute, and I'm sad I didn't get a picture or video of it.

The second package contained a couple more lift-the-flap books. Evie thought they were okay, but she really wanted to know where her new duck was!

Evie's last couple of gift bags were from her Uncle John/Aunt Margot and their kids. She's really getting good at "working" gift bags, and she had no trouble pulling out her present, revealing...

Elmo sippy cups! I know that I've mentioned on multiple occasions that I HATE Elmo! And I told all of our family and friends well before Evie was born that we were not going to welcome anything Elmo into our little family. I'm a little relieved that Evie doesn't seem happy about them, either, in the above picture.

However, I tried to be polite and didn't react at all to the sippy cups, except that I apparently stopped taking pictures. Instead, I sat quietly and waited to see what was in the last bag.

 Imagine my horror when it turned out to be a little plush Elmo!

In fact, I whipped around and came face-to-face with a wickedly grinning John. It turns out that he went into the store and headed straight for the Elmo stuff. I'm getting the last laugh, though, because the stuffed Elmo stays upstairs where the other grandkid toys live, so Evie doesn't really have a strong emotional attachment to it. In fact, I plan to "accidentally" leave him here when we move out. And she'll be done using the sippy cups before she's old enough to recognize and want him. Ha ha! Ha ha!
After all of the presents had been opened, I lit the candle on Evie's cake and brought it in to her while we all sang "Happy Birthday." 

Daddy helped her blow out her candle, and then everyone cheered.

All of the noise scared her, so after Daddy and the new ducky helped calm her down, we stripped her down to her diaper and let her dig in to her cake.

Evie is such a ladylike little girl, so instead of destroying her cake like most other babies I've seen, she used her forefingers and thumbs to very daintily pick up pinches of frosting and put them into her mouth. Todd finally showed her where a piece of cake had sheared off from the rest, and she started burrowing into the cake itself, all the while leaving the picture on top alone. Meanwhile, everyone else ate and talked. Overall, the food seemed to be a success!
After everyone else left to go home, Todd pulled out his present for Evie: three new rubber duckies! He got her a pink one, a green one, and a purple one wearing a birthday hat and holding a birthday cake. Since she was messy (although not as messy as I'd expected, actually), we thought it would be fun to give her a bath and let her play with her new duckies. I took a few last pictures of her frosting-bearded face, and then took her into the bathroom, where Todd had the water ready.

 Evie loved those duckies! She hugged them and chased them all over the tub:

While Todd dried her off and dressed her, I snuck back out to the living room so I could start taking her Noah's Ark animals out of the packaging. Well before I was even close to done (whoever packages those little critters has a sadistic personality!) Evie came crawling over at top speed and grabbed the ones that I'd already managed to extricate. She promptly started playing with them, and I whipped the camera out and got a quick and fuzzy shot.

I think, all in all, she had a pretty great day. I was really pleased with how all of the food and decorations turned out, and I'm happy that Evie really loves playing with her Noah's Ark. Her duckies are part of every bath, but we've started an end-of-bath tradition where we squeeze all of the water out of them and she kisses them bye-bye.
Honestly, I'm also a little relieved that I don't have to throw another themed birthday party for at least another year!

For those crafty people out there who might care, I have a list of where I bought everything. I had a $100 budget for Evie's birthday, including presents, and I pulled it off--it can be done!

Hobby Lobby:
Felt place-mats
Giraffe paper used for banner, hat, and place-cards*
Leopard napkins
Zebra plates
Zebra cupcake cups
Skewers
Black rocks
Elastic cord for hat

Wal-Mart:
Tablecloth
Streamers
Balloons
6" cake pan
"Giraffe Juice" pitcher
Most, if not all, of the food
Rubber duckies
Little giraffe

Dollar Tree:
"Tiger Tails" bowl
"Zebra Cakes" cups 
Tissue paper on cups, pitcher, and spoons
Wrapping paper on Evie's presents

King Soopers (local grocery store):
9 oz cups
Whatever food we didn't get at Wal-Mart

Babies "R" Us:
Little People Noah's Ark
Additional animals

I've had the "Animal Crackers" bowl and the platter for the cupcakes and "Elephant Trunks" for a long time.
*The font I used on the banner/place-cards is called "Matisse."