Veggie Mama

Where friendly veg recipes and the 90s combine.

Veggie Baby’s first birthday party

by 51 Comments

While I totally dig a kid party, I’ve not got a lot of experience being at the helm of them.
I did throw a Cars 2-themed party a little while ago, but left it mostly in the hands of my party-savvy sister.
What I DO know is party food. Especially kid party food. But I am old school and I don’t make smiley faces out of things and elaborate cupcake animals, though that may come later.
No, I’m good at thinking its 1985 and basing the menu from that. For my 30th, the food was exactly the same as what was at my first birthday party, give or take a few things. I wanted to go as 80s as I could, even if most people were frightened of the red and green pickled onions. Now I just cast my mind back to whatever I ate at parties as a kid and figure “that’ll do”.
Now I, for one, loathe fairy bread. Someone else had to make this, I didn’t even think of it. I’m not into the idea of a sugar sandwich… probably because I’m not into sandwiches. bread… butter… sugar. I am shuddering.
The one thing I do need to pick up my game on is serving dishes. Given that this party had a very loose gingham theme, I filled cupcake liners with candy. Not because it was cute or different… but because I had run out of bowls.
1985 represent.
Barbecue shapes. In a colander shaped like a strawberry. That whole lack of bowls business.
Please note the three (THREE) plates of egg sandwiches. Half regular, half curry. Abby’s favourite … or so I told everyone. They were mostly for me.
They are her favourite though.
Honest.
HOW fabulous are the girls from Lovely Little Parties, who sent us these straws, the tablecloth and party bags when they heard I was having a gingham-themed party after being inspired by their website. SO kind of them.
The candy was a hit with my nephew, who put a lot of effort into making sure all the gingham cupcake wrappers had an even amount at all times…
But the funnest part of the day was when I was trying to make a red-and-white checkerboard cake with white frosting, so when you cut into it, it looked like gingham. And I baked two cakes and did various other things for the party, and the baby wouldn’t sleep and I was trying to keep her away from the oven, and I cut the cakes into strips and made the frosting, and had to make extra because there were two cakes, and I needed stuff to make the strips stick together and I piled them all on carefully, pasting between them with frosting, all the while with a baby hanging off my leg and putting god knows what in her mouth, then I trimmed the cake and kept assembling it and the baby kept crawling to the oven so I put her in her walker, put the last row of the cake on, along with the frosting on the top and sides, and watched that row repeatedly fall over and refuse to stick. And I was getting frosting everywhere and bits of red cake were bleeding into the white frosting and I wondered if I could save it but end up throwing the lot in the bin, and turn around to see this:
The baby unrolling all the paper towels ever made in the whole universe.
Oh and as a side note – if you want to have a whinge that putting my kid in a walker every now and then is bad for her, or bad for her hips or her development or whatever else you’d like to say, don’t worry because somebody already took the time to tell me on instagram and I took the time to tell them I don’t care. I highly doubt the 30 minutes she’s in it every week is doing anything except giving her better access to paper towels.
Anyway, we bought a cake and presented it to her and she dived straight in like nobody’s business. I was expecting her to slap it around a bit and possibly try to feed herself, but definitlely wasn’t expecting her to attack it mouth-first.
Yay for birthdays!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  3. Love the gingham theme! So cheerful, by the way… My daughter spent most of her time at her grandmas house in the same walker…. She's fine and her hips are not displaced or whatever. Bugger people and their soap boxes.

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  7. Happy to hear I wasn't the only one who threw out the birthday cake! I tried to make a pink ombre cake for my little girls 1st but I cut the layers wrong >.< All in the bin it went.
    I bet Veggie Baby had fun and thats the main thing 🙂 

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  8. Are you kidding me? Cheezels in a WOODEN BOWL? Now THAT'S authentic 80's party fare. Wooden serving bowls – the bowls of my childhood! I think they're from the same family as those cane paper plate holders at barbeques, right? And Nikki is right, cutest baby in the world!

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  10. Huh! Apparently the jolly jumper that my son loved so much is in the Choice list of the 10 things you should never give your child access too (along with said walker and trampolines). Try telling him that when he was totally rocking out in it to guns'n'roses with the biggest grin on his face…and he lived to see another day. And has no mobility problems… poo to the haters

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  12. I have the same 'wooden' salad bowl in my cupboard. Swiped it from my Mum when I moved out.

    Love the gingham theme and love Veggie babies birthday cake eating method, she doesn't mess around, does she?!

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  13. I have a pic of Miss Charisma doing something similar on her first birthday. Looks like a great party. x

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  19. My mother in law tried to tell me that if you put a baby in a jolly jumper, they will forever walk on their toes instead of normally. My brain cannot comprehend somebody thinks this is fact. so poo.

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  23. Haha I'm firmly of the belief that unless a child is in immediate danger, people should keep quiet about what they consider to be “dangerous” for other people's children.

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  27. That is an awesome photo of Abby getting stuck into the Birthday cake!!! Keep that one for her 21st 😀
    I can't believe someone had the hide to get stuck into you about the walker. Some people have too much time on their hands!!!

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  30. Ha! Great post. As I was reading it I was thinking, I bet someone has a whine about the walker….so your pre-emptive to comments on the blog/response to instagram cracked me up big time! Love the picture of veggie baby tucking into her b'day cake with style. Hope you all had a gorgeous day x x x

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  32. Drives me mental that I have to defend my choices! But I can usually tell when they're coming and I have NO patience for it, so I tell them not to bother 😉

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  37. Heaven on a stick is that pic of Veggie Baby setting stuck into her cake!! Oh you poor mama tho, all that work making her a checked cake …never mind! Hope the laughs eventually came when you saw her at the paper towels. What is not to love!!
    I so get 80s themed parties…they were the cakes from out of the women's weekly birthday cake book. Some I made, others mum created for my kids. Sweet times. I love the picked onions too! And those brown salad bowls..let me see, I think I stil have some!
    Love Denyse xx

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  38. I'm slightly scared by all of this…  My parents gave me 100's and 1000's on bread as a 'treat' which I always hated!

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  39. Have I told you that you're my hero? This is my kinda party! Cheezels! Holla! Love it all. ^_^ You're amazing. And your little Vegglette is the most adorbz bubba ever. But, you know this.

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  40. Happy birthday Veggie Baby!

    That last photo? Pure gold.

    And that walker? That was my daily shower. And sometimes still is 🙂

    Good luck to the person who wants to take my shower away from me. Seriously.

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  41.  My baby girl looooooooves her walker! chases the dogs around the house, very cute to watch. Happy Birthday Baby! now i want cake! 😉

    Reply

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