Picnic Birthday Party Inspiration

Last year around this time, I was planning Sadie's rainbow 1st birthday party! I love how it turned out - bright, fun and relatively easy to pull off. The party matched her bright and sunny personality and I had so much fun making the rainbow birthday cake, something I'd wanted to tackle for a long time!

Well, time has magically flown by and my little girl is turning the big 2! I initially thought that we would not do much of a party this year, but of course I've got the planning bug and am ready to jump into party planning again.

Steve and I were brainstorming what we wanted to do when we started talking about pie for some reason (Sadie fell in love with apple pie last fall, and pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving!). From pie we jumped to picnics and that's where we've landed: an indoor picnic birthday party! I'm having so much fun starting to pull things together, with some great inspiration.

Picnic invite via Boo and Lou Design

 

Ants on a log cake via The Partiologist

 

Pie cupcakes via Oprah.com

 

A simple, rustic food table via Honest to Nod

 

Easy picnic blanket seating via Kate Spade (sadly, amazing blanket no longer available!)

 

With a few simple touches - some gingham fabric here, picnic baskets there - this party should be simple to put together but delightfully adorable. Oh, and why an indoor picnic, you ask? As the party will fall in April, there is no telling what Chicago's weather will be like! We could have a gorgeous warm-ish day or snow. So we'll be playing it safe indoors!

 

Do you have any fabulous picnic party inspiration to share?



Sadie's Rainbow First Birthday!

I'm so excited to share that Sadie is a one year old! I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by, and I never stop thinking about how immensely lucky we are to have a happy, healthy, silly little daughter. Even if she overtired or sick with a cold, our little miss Sadie is so happy - I wish I could have her sunny outlook on life!

Ok, onward to Sadie's first birthday party! We chose a rainbow theme because Sadie is such a bright, sunny little girl so it only made sense to feature bright colors. And since I always love to know all kinds of details (where, what, how), I'm going to be incredibly thorough.

Party Timeline
The party was scheduled from 11am-1pm. If I could go back and change it, I would shift it to a little bit later to fit better with nap schedules - Sadie barely napped that morning, and the other kids at the party didn't either! Here's a rough timeline of how things worked out that day:

11am: Everything for the party was set and guests started arriving
11am-11:15am: I got Miss H up from her short nap, gave her a bottle, changed her outfit, and brought her up to a room full of people (she loved it!)
11:15am-11:45am: guests mingled, kids played
11:45am: We dressed Miss H in her Korean hanbok (traditional dress) and did the doljabi ceremony
12pm: We gave Miss H her smash cake and then cut the big cake for the guests
12:20pm: We helped Miss H open up her birthday gifts
1:15pm: The last guest left and it was time to clean up!

Food
Since the party was over the lunch hour, I wanted to make sure we had somewhat substantial food. But I also wanted to make sure everything we made wasn't temperature specific (i.e. didn't need to be served hot) and that everything was easy for us to prepare ourselves. To top it all off, we had one guest who is gluten free and one who is vegan and gluten free. We served:

• Egg salad finger sandwiches
• Cucumber finger sandwiches
• Black olive tapenade crostinis
• Mediterranean quinoa salad
• Chips and guacamole (which many of the babies enjoyed too!)
• Skewers of fresh fruit (rainbow colors, of course!)
• Cake pops
• Cake
• Izze sparkling drinks
• Bottled water
• Applesauce pouches for the LOs

There was more than enough food for our (roughly) 15 guests and everything was budget friendly!

Details
The details of the day are what I'm most proud of! I spent a lot of time gathering items, making various pieces of decor, and just trying to create a rainbow theme that was fun and bright. And I'm proud to say that I did all of my planning, crafting and baking when Sadie was sleeping - I never prioritized anything over her.

I've been blogging Sadie's week-by-week photos we've taken, so of course I wanted to share these photos at the party! These are 5x5 prints that we hung on twine and attached with mini clothespins. We hung these low enough on the wall (the top row is about 6 feet high) so that our guests would easily be able to look at all of them. It was fun hearing people comment on what their favorite photos were and how much Sadie has changed!



I made cake pops the Monday before the party. These are great treats that can keep for a week, so they're easy to make in advance! I'd found this little planter with a chalkboard on the front from an Etsy seller (their shop is currently unavailable) and I thought it would be so much fun to have "cake pop flowers" in it!



The "Happy Birthday" banner on the wall was by the talented Chelsey Emery, who also did the party invitations. It was a perfect addition to the room and I love that we can easily save it and use it year after year! We hung it with the same twine we used for the weekly photos.



As mentioned above, we prepared all of our food ourselves for the day. I decorated the table with scalloped paper circles punched out of cardstock in all colors of the rainbow!



I ordered spoons and forks from Sucre Shop, napkins with rainbow dots from Target, and plates in rainbow stripes and solids from Oriental Trading.



As mentioned above, we served Izze drinks (in all of the flavors they have for great color variety!), and bottles of water (which I may or may not have wrapped in washi tape purchased from In The Clear), and applesauce pouches for the kiddos.



Favors were copies of the book Planting a Rainbow and little individual pots and seeds (found in Target's dollar aisle!) for growing their own flower. Since we only had 3 children as guests at the party, I could afford to gift books.



I fell in love with the look of paper rosettes! I used this tutorial for them (there are many tutorials for rosettes if you look; it's a pretty simple concept), found cardstock in solids and patterns, and afixed them to the wall with removable mounting tape. I was worried about them not staying on the wall, but I hung them 2 days before the party and only one had fallen off the wall a day after the party, so we did really well! It was an inexpensive piece of decor that added a lot of fun to the room.



I found these fabulous rainbow colored bottles/vases on Etsy (also from the shop where I got the cake pop box, shop currently unavailable). They were incredibly affordable and so much fun! I plan on keeping them up year round in our dining room. The day before the party I bought white spider chrysanthemums for each vase.



Korean Doljabi Ceremony
After all of our guests had arrived, Steve's mother and grandmother helped me dress Sadie in her traditional hanbok that they had gifted her. It was a bit large on her but we were able to tuck the sleeves under. She did amazingly well in the dress!



For the doljabi, you set items out in front of the baby and the item they choose indicates something about his or her future. The items we opted to use were: a pencil (scholarly), a tennis ball (athletic), a paintbrush (artistic), money (good fortune), and string (long life). She hadn't seen any of these items before so we knew she wouldn't be playing favorites!

I predicted she would choose the paintbrush and Steve  thought the tennis ball. I was right! After some pondering, she touched the paintbrush, then took her hand back. And then she went for the paintbrush again. It looks like we have a budding artist on our hands!



Cake!
The cakes were a labor of love, as I made both of them. I like the idea of making her birthday cake every year as something special that I do. I made banners for the cakes using washi tape, baker's twine, and paper straws. The big cake said "Sadie!" and the small cake said "One." (They're hard to read because I used metallic pens and it was really sunny). I'm going to do a follow up post and share the recipes I used and the decorating tutorials that I referenced.





We put Sadie in her high chair (in her "Rainbows Make Me Smile" t-shirt, naturally) and the smash cake right in front of her. She eventually decided she would touch the cake...



...and even sample some of the buttercream...before she picked the whole thing up and tossed it on the floor! I had been borderline worried about her shoveling a lot of cake her mouth and then choking on it (morbid, I know), so part of me was relieved that she wasn't that into it. She was definitely fun to watch!



After Sadie had her cake, it was time to cut the guest cake! I always enjoy the "big reveal" when a cake is fun on the inside.



I was incredibly pleased with how vibrant my rainbow colored layers turned out, and how neatly they were stacked!



I had been planning this cake in my head since January, so it was incredibly rewarding seeing it come to life, and it was even more rewarding sampling the delicious cake!



We almost forgot a family picture! So here we are at the very end of the day!



And that, in a nutshell, was Sadie's rainbow first birthday party! It was such a wonderful day and it was worth all of the prep and hard work! Keep your eyes out for a more detailed post on the cakes, including the recipes and tutorials I used for inspirationg, baking, and decorating.

Happy birthday to our little "Say Say!"

Letterpress Sugar Cookies

I've been making a lot of plans for Sadie's first birthday party! Party planning for an almost-one-year-old is incredibly fun as you know they will be happy with whatever you choose. So I've been enjoying dreaming up a lot of little details that I will probably enjoy and care about far more than anyone else.

I picked up this letter pressed cookie cutter set a little while ago (you can buy it here). It was supposed to be for a holiday party gift exchange, but when I ended up not attending at the last minute I ended up keeping the set for myself. I imagined all of the fun I would have stamping away creating little letter cookies.

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The set comes with each letter of the alphabet, plus "!" and "&". Each character is a rectangle or a square, which you use to cut out the shape. You then flip the cutter over and press the letter onto the dough, imprinting the character. After baking, you can fill the indented letter with icing or leave as-is. Simple, right?

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I made up a basic batch of sugar cookie dough - any recipe will do. My first batch was a total flop. If you don't press the letter hard enough into the dough, the impression will disappear as the cookie bakes. If you press too hard, you'll completely deform the dough and/or cause the dough to rip. My suggestion is to make a few as a test batch and bake them before wasting an entire tray of cookies (like I did).

And although the instructions provide absolutely no detail, I have a hunch that if you pressed the letter onto the dough first and then cut out the rectangle/square shape around the indentation, you would be able to avoid deforming everything. That's my experiment for next time.

Anyway, I managed to get one batch with really good impressions.




After pulling them from the oven, you can see that while they puffed up some, most of the impressions were still fairly deep (with the exception of the letter "s." You know, the one letter I absolutely want to do, as "s" is for "Sadie.").

I then made up a batch of icing. While it is suggested you use royal icing, I don't care for the taste of royal icing. I ended up making something that consisted of powdered sugar, almond extract, light corn syrup and milk. It tasted delicious and the corn syrup ensured the icing was both glossy and firmed up pretty well (not as hard as royal icing, but definitely set up well enough to stack and transport the cookies without ruining them).

Making sure the icing was fairly running, I tinted it different colors and put the icing into decorating squeeze bottles. From there, I simply filled the impressions with icing. All of the cookies that had really good impressions were very easy to fill.

Voila!

They are far from perfect, which is why I tested these out 2 months before Sadie's birthday rather than 2 days before. I think by the time I do them for the party I'll have my technique completely perfect and will make some beautiful S - A - D - I and E's!

 

Celebrating with a Little Adventure

I love, love, love giving presents - I'd be the ultimate philanthropist if I actually had any money. However, since I don't anticipate ever having oodles of money to just give away as I please, I make sure to put a lot of time and effort into gifts for my loved ones.

However because Steve's birthday is in the middle of January, I tend to be a wee bit tapped out on great ideas that will dazzle him. So, last year I decided to take him out for a total splurge dinner at a restaurant we had wanted to try (which I fully intend to blog about soon, Steve and I still talk about it a year later). This year, it only made sense to continue with tradition and hit up another great restaurant.

Since Steve had been talking non-stop about Top Chef finalist Dale Levinsky's new endeavor, Sprout, my decision of where to go was pretty easily made. Check out this article to read about how Dale ended up at Sprout and the inspiration behind his menu.

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I love that Sprout is doing a prix fixe menu but calling it an adventure. Who wouldn't love to go out to dinner and choose the adventure option? For $60 per person on weekends ($40 on weeknights) it includes a starter, main, and dessert, along with a splash of wine, a little sorbet between courses and a yummy cheese course. The weeknights adventures are cheaper because they don't include the little extras, but the little extras were totally worth it in my book.

Ok, enough details - let's dig in! (Oh, and please note: we got to the restaurant and I realized that my camera was dead - so sad! Fortunately, Sprout has so fabulous pics of their food on the Web site.)

Steve started off with the scallop, which featured corn, parsnip, sage and peanut. I really really really wanted this dish, but it was his birthday so I let him win. I had a bite, though, and it was divine. I started with a yummy veal dish, however, no pictures or description are on their site right now.

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Steve chose the rabbit for his main course, featuring celery root, chamomile, golden beet and hazelnut. Yum! We flip-flopped dishes so that we could try each other's mains.

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I had read online that the short rib was amazing, but I was still torn as to what to order. I asked our waitress for suggestions, and when I ended up choosing the short rib her eyes just lit up. I knew I had hit the entree jackpot.

The short rib was super tender, flavorful and featured mushrooms, chicory, manchengo and TRUFFLE. Well, truffle dumplings, to be exact. TO. DIE. FOR. I really could have just eaten a whole bowl of the dumplings and been a happy camper. Since it was Steve's birthday, I managed to share two of them with him before scarfing the rest down.

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No culinary adventure is complete without a cheese course, and I really don't think any cheese course could compare to Sprout's grilled cheese with sharp, aged cheddar, sauteed onions and Dijon mustard. Yummers. (And yes, you are correct - the whole top half of the sandwich is cheese that has gotten all brown and crackly in the pan, the best part!)

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Our desserts were just as good as the rest of the meal. Steve went for the chocolate option, which featured a milk chocolate (I think) mousse, a dark chocolate dipping sauce, and a cookie for dipping. I chose the lemon, which included a cherry lemon poundcake and a tart lemon filling.

We had so much fun at Sprout from start to finish. We realized we hadn't been out to dinner just the two of us since our honeymoon back in September. It felt good to splurge a little.

The truffle dumplings were hands down the highlight of the evening. The only down side to the night? While Dale came into the dining room multiple times, surveying the room like a proud parent, he did not stop by our table. Waaah. I would loved to have told him in person how great our meal was, and that he most definitely should have won Top Chef, of course. He was totally robbed.

A happy happy birthday to my wonderful husband - I will make sure every year's celebration is filled with fabulous food and wine!