Ethan's Baseball Themed Birthday Party

Jeff made the invitations on photoshop and printed them
on brown card-stock.

I'm sorry I've been neglecting the blog for a few weeks.  With the end of the school year and Ethan's first birthday, I didn't know if I was coming or going.  Now that that's all over with, I can start posting again. I know my 10 followers must be super excited.

For those of you who don't personally know me, my husband is a huge Dodger fan.  So when we were planning Ethan's first birthday party, of course Jeff wanted it to be baseball themed.  We decided to keep it broad and make it baseball instead of Dodger themed because it would be easier to make decorations that way. I also love the vintage look and I wanted it to have an old timey feel.

We started planning, and there were two things at the top of our list: it needs to be in our budget (which is always small), and the menu needs to be plentiful and delicious.  I have a huge family so accomplishing these two tasks is not an easy one.  Luckily, the baseball theme lends itself to delicious (incredibly unhealthy) cheap food, but hey it's once a year lets indulge a little.

The menu consisted of Frito boats (they are like nachos but with Fritos instead), chili cheese hot dogs, potato salad, and green salad.  For snacking purposes we had a popcorn machine, and the centerpieces were full of peanuts, sunflower seeds, and licorice.

My mom was the popcorn vendor for this venue. FYI
she's wearing her favorite Dodger player's number (Adrian
Gonzales, 23).  So if Adrian enjoys reading mom blogs
and is reading this right now, my mom would love
an autograph.

Whenever I come up with centerpieces I try to make it something
that's functional, or edible so that I'm not stuck with a bunch
of centerpieces that I have to throw away.  That is what inspired
the snack filled paper bags that were on every table.

We decorated with red, white, and blue decor.  The reason we did this was that a lot of the original teams (the Dodgers included) use red, white, and blue as their team colors.  I also liked the fact that I could re-use all of the decorations for our annual 4th of July party. Although I love planning parties, I also hate waste, and anytime I can re-purpose something I jump at the chance.

The pennant flag banners were made by my mom.

My sister who is an amazing microbiologist by day, and baker by night, made the birthday cake and cupcakes.  She made a chocolate cake from scratch with homemade chocolate ganache filling.  She was really nervous about the decorating aspect, but all in all the cakes turned out how I pictured them, and they tasted amazing!

This pennant banner with Ethan's name was made for Ethan
by my friend Hilda.  The baseball cake was his
smash cake.

For the cupcakes my sister cut out and made small flags.
She cut out a baseball hat, bat, and glove to go on each
of the flags (my family is so awesome).

I had the bright idea to make "grass" on top of the cupcakes.
Turns out making frosting look like grass is a lot harder
than pinterest makes it look.

Finally the cake.  My mom made the pennant banners.  This
cake fed 80 people and we had more than half
of the bottom layer left over!

 As if we hadn't stuffed the kids with enough junk food I made special goodie bags for the little ones, and the older kids.  Jeff made the "Ethan's Snackbar" tags in photoshop and printed them on the same card-stock as the invitations.

The little ones got Goldfish Crackers,
an organic fruit pouch, and a baseball
with a mustache inside.

The older kids got Big League Chew, Cracker
Jack, and a small baseball with a mustache
inside.

 We ended the day with a gigantic baseball pinata that my brother bought in L.A.  It was HUGE, and had so much candy Jeff was having a hard time keeping it away from the kids.

It was so much fun to get to see all of our family and friends, so that we could celebrate Ethan's first birthday; we ended the day feeling truly blessed and grateful to have this wonderful little boy in our lives.