Party Preparations

I began planning Westyn's 1st birthday party months before his birthday. I started picking up items here and there that would make great decorations or party favors as I saw them on sale clearance.

Pretty soon it was time to create the all important invitation. Fortunately, I have a Cricut machine, so I purchased the Mickey and Friends cartrige on sale. Justin and I played with the design several times, tweaking little things here and there. And, even though Justin thought I added a few too many steps that weren't needed like adding the Mickey Mouse paper to the envelope and using a Mickey hand as a closure, I was very happy with how they turned out.

  About two weeks before the party I started preparing some of the sweets that would save well...like chocolate covered pretzel rods (Mickey's Magic Wands) and chocolate covered Oreos.
 
  We also made the food labels, party hats, confetti, etc. in the weeks leading up to the party.

  The week before the party, I baked the cakes and prepared the fondant. Garytt was very excited to help bake the cakes.
 
  I froze the cakes and just hoped that they would travel well to Topeka. My hope was that I could get most of the preparation done at our house and thus not trash my mom's kitchen. Despite having the cakes baked and fondant prepared, this is how my mom's kitchen ended up looking Friday night before the party on Saturday...let me just say that working with fondant is messy business.

  Justin worked on cutting up the fruits and veggies while I worked on the cake.

  The highest stress item for me at every party is the cake...it can't be done until last minute, so it doesn't leave a lot of time to come up with a different plan if something goes terribly wrong. Fortunately, this cake went together pretty smoothly. This is a picture when it was almost done. I would put the finishing touches on it in the morning.
 
Finally, it was time to get a little bit of rest before the big party!