Owl Theme- Birthday Party

Earlier this month, I mentioned that my little one was turning one.  Today, I thought I’d give you a peek at how the day unfolded.  In keeping with picking a theme based on my kid’s favorite book at the time of their birthday, we came up with an owl theme to go with Peek-a Who? by Nina Laden.

We had a small family party.  There were five kids (ages 1, 2, 5, 7 and 8) plus aunts, uncles and grandparents.  They were all staying at our house for the weekend, so the events you’ll see took place over the course of the day.

Every party needs decorations.  The kids did a great job creating owls out of paper, markers and toilet paper rolls.  We scattered them across the dinner table.

I loved the owl paper plates and coordinating napkins that I found from Big Dot of Happiness.  I had to refrain from buying lots of other coordinating products.  I was really amazed at how fast the items shipped and the care in the packaging.  No, they did not compensate me in any way to say that.  It was the first time I used the company and I just like to share when I find things I like!

The placecards were alphabet letters that I downloaded free from the amazing Carolyn Wilhem of The Wise Owl Factory.  Each person sat at a spot with the first letter of their first name.  For table conversation, we brainstormed animals that began with each letter of our name.  The kids AND adults enjoyed the challenge.  We also used some of Carolyn’s printables at the serving table to identify each dish.  My husband and I stayed up late the night before coming up with the creative menu item names:  Hootin Hamburgers, Barn Owl Beans, Sweet Talon Taters, Crepuscular Cucumber Dip, and Spotted Owl Slaw.

I love to cook and bake, but must confess that I’m an amateur cake decorator.  However, I thought the owl cake turned out pretty well.  It was a Humming Bird Cake (one of my family favorites) from Southern Living.  It is usually made with a cream cheese frosting.  However, the April issue of Southern Living magazine had an updated recipe of this classic cake with a brown butter frosting.  Yummy!!  Bonus, I didn’t have to refrigerate the cake which freed up space for other party food.   I baked the cake in 2 round 9-inch pans.  One round was used as the main body and the other round was cut for the head, wings, feet and ears.  The owl stomach is crushed pecans.  The eyes are chocolate wafers with a white paper circle placed on topped.  The nose is a broken chocolate wafer, frosted and covered in yellow decorating sugar.  Feet are covered in brown candy sprinkles.

After dinner, the kids played Hoot Owl Hoot! which is a cooperative board game from Barefoot Books.  The kids had to work together to move all the owls to the nest before the sun rose.

To end the evening, we all settled in for a bedtime story.  Little Owl’s Night was the perfect ending to a perfect 1st birthday!

 

We’ll see what next year’s birthday brings!

*I was not compensated in any form to promote any of the products listed in this post.  These are things that I found and used/purchased for my own personal use.

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