I thought a good follow up to my previous post would be to share some photos from my son Sterling’s 2nd birthday party earlier this summer. Like almost everyone’s birthdays this year, our celebration was just family, and not the big outdoor gathering I had been planning for. But since I had already found much of the décor (and I truly think it’s important to celebrate and preserve special moments even in a quarantine) I decided to still use a lot of it and make the most of the day.
About nine months prior to his birthday, we took Sterling to Disneyland for the first time and to our surprise he really gravitated towards Donald Duck. Through the next several months, Donald remained a favorite for our guy. I started thinking about putting together a Donald theme for his upcoming birthday.
I loved the idea of giving it a nautical spin (Donald is a sailor, afterall) and I thought it could be a fun and colorful party.
Of course there is an abundance of branded Disney, Mickey and Donald items out there. I think the party store has a whole aisle filled with it. Outside of a stuffed Donald and Mickey and a pin the tail on Donald poster, I tried not to use anything with a trademark. Instead, I wanted the party to feel like something Donald and Mickey might attend themselves. In keeping with “Simplicity in Abundance” I picked up on Donald’s colors: Blue, Red, Yellow, and White and used these throughout the décor along with stripes and some polka dots.
I liked the idea of dressing Sterling in a fun outfit, but everything I searched for seemed like a costume or a printed tee shirt. (I'm also accutely aware that the days of me getting to pick his clothes are numbered and I really wanted to make the most of them)
My mom, who can do just about anything on a sewing machine, made Sterling a fun vintage style Jon Jon sailor’s outfit that felt like it fit right in with our theme, but was also cute outside of the party. (She also sewed our patriotic colored bunting!)
For birthday cake and dessert, I put together a treat table and tried my hand at a design I found on Pinterest that mimicked Donald's outfit using two colors of buttercream and making his accessories out of fondant. If you're like me and a little baking challenged, I highly recommend the book Eat More Dessert from Jenny Keller. (she also has a great blog full of amazing ideas!) It uses simple recipes and techniques and it is a great learning tool. I baked a funfetti layer (because what is birthday cake without funfetti?) and a salted peanut butter chocolate layer. The beauty of the simplicity of the cake's design is that my end result was far from perfect, but it still looked passable, albeit a little rustic (next time I'll work with colder buttercream).
To accompany the cake I made peanut butter crunch cookies, also from the book, and filled a variety of apothocary jars with coordinating candy.
I made a simple cake topper of Donald's hat out of scrapbooking paper
Pictured with a beloved birthday gift, a leaf blower. I don't think he put it down all day!
When it was cake time we changed him into some comfier party clothes (translation, I snapped enough pictures in his other outfit)
The party was a hit with Sters. He loved helping put up all the decorations and played with the beach balls and balloons for the rest of the week!
For a peak at how we celebrated his first birthday, I have a blog post here from my wedding website.
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