Ice Cream Social Avery's 1st Birthday Party

I know every parent says, babies grow up so fast and its so true! My babies are getting big, and I use the term extremely loose on my big baby, the one who just graduated 6th grade, lol. But seriously the last year has flown by and I've treasured every moment I've had with Avery. Every every moment has been special , even the spit ups lol. We really wanted Avery to have a special celebration for his birthday that would be full of full and love. One day I was looking though and old Martha Stewart magazine, when I came across an adult Ice Cream Social party, I loved the idea of having an ice cream social 1st birthday party! The idea seemed so fitting, and since his first is June 3, what better way to kick off the hot Summer days ahead then cooling off with ice cream and fun toppings :)


I like making simple, yet sweet invitations when we have events. In the past I made our wedding invitations (click here) and my baby shower invites, so of course I had to make his one year birthday party invitations! My idea was to make the invitations modern with whimsical touches. I used publisher, my go to program for making prints & invitations. I wanted the invitation to feel like there was confetti or sprinkles falling down on the invite to celebrate Avery turning one. I also wanted to include cute information about Avery, for that I made mini Popsicle that had information about my baby, his first words, likes etc. I love the color chartreuse and it always reminds me of Avery's curtains when ever I see the color, so it popped up on his invite & envelopes. I bought the envelopes for Paper Source, my go to spot for envelopes they have an amazing color section and I'm a sucker for the style. I printed all the invites on our color printer at home using white card stock paper for my stash. It's hard to tell in the picture but in real life, the background of the invitation is light grey.

We decided the perfect spot for the party would be our backyard, you may remember we recently re-seeded our backyard lawn, which made a huge improvement on our grass situation. We had a crazy little heat wave a few days before the party, which sadly made some grass a little dry. We decided to use two six foot long tables for the desert and food table. We placed them under our vintage chalk board, yep its hung!! I rented the tables locally for only $ 7.00 each. It made it so practical to rent tables, instead of spending money on tables we'd only use once. I dressed up the white table cloths (also rented, super cheap) with two table cloths I found at Target, they reminded me of confetti and they were the perfect shade of blue. They were placed over the table cloths as runners, and added the perfect whimsical touch I was looking for.


I love making appetizers, they are easy and crowd pleasers the Appetizer menu: Mini Cheese burgers, Asian Chicken Salad, Meatball Wraps, Lumpia (Filipino Egg roll) Tortilla Chips & Salsa and Guacamole. All the food was homemade by me and my mom and everyone raved about the Lumpia. I used this recipe, and made close to 60 Lumpia for the party. The Lumpia was actually pretty easy to make & roll, I bought wrappers from our local International market in the freezer section. Everyone raved about how yummy the lumpia was! They went super fast, I think I only had three! One before the party, one during and one I begged Hasani for aftre the party lol. Here's the menu i made for the appetizers. 

For the desert table, I made two types of cupcakes. Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes with sprinkles, using Martha Stewart's recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes, I just added sprinkles to the batter before baking. I also made Banana Split cupcakes, they were so good and so freaking cute! Summer was such a sweetheart and came over early to help me set up the party and she kindly frosted and decorated the 20 something banana cupcakes and made to make sure my vision happened. Not only did Summer come early to help me out with the party stuff that morning, she and her family drove up from Southern California all the way to Northern California!!! Which meant so MUCH TO ME!! I'm doing a full recap of her visit and our friendship Tuesday, in the meantime checkout her blog for more details on the trip and and our friendship, love you Summer :) I loved how cute the cupcakes turned out! Again I used Martha Stewart's recipe from her cupcake book, I recently purchased. 

I also made M&M Peanut Butter bars using this recipe, but I added more 1/2 cup more brown sugar to make them moist. Last time i made them there were on the dry side and added extra sugar helped! My mom made Rice Crispy balls and placed them in cupcake wrappers to up the cute factor and it made it easier for little hands. Oh and the chocolate chip cookies, I bought those!

For drinks we had bottle water a few bottles of soda { Grape Crush & Cream Soda } I also served up Lemonade in large Mason jars and added lemons, renaming the it Lemony Lemonade. My sis helped out and made a large batch of my favorite summer drink, Passion Tea  Lemonade, tastes just like Starbucks and was a crowd pleasesr, even the little kids loved it. I shared how I make the drink here, last Summer on the blog. 

I also made little flags for all the straws using left over paper scraps from the bunting flags

We kept the decor simple, I made paper banners using an array of colorful paper bought on sale at Micheal. Steamers and colorful balloons helped spread the cheer. 

We had nine kiddos attending the party, and I wanted each one to go away with something sweet that would help them remember Avery's Ice Cream Social Birthday. I cut regular brown paper lunch bags in half using scrap book scissors and added ribbon handles so the bags could be carried, then added a 'Thank You' label on the front of the bag along with mini bunting flags that matched the big bunting flags. I used left over paper scraps from the flags for the bags. Inside each bag contained a canning jar with sprinkles inside and an ice cream cone with a not that said, 'Just Add Ice Cream & Top With Sprinkles' 

Everyone enjoyed catching up with family and friends.

After our guests enjoyed food and deserts, we moved the food inside and brought out the ice cream! Hasani served up the ice cream to all the little kids and then the adults helped themselves to ice cream. We had a little toppings bar that consisted of: Reeses's Pieces, Kit Kat Bars, M&Ms, Gummy Worms and Cherries. I used my small white fruit bowls for the toppings and placed the cheeries in a small half pint jar. 

Next its was time for Avery to enjoy is mini cake. I found a mini cake pan set at Micheal's and used a 40% off coupon spending only $ 3.60 on the set. The mini cake was banana with vanilla cream cheese frosting, yumm! Orgianlly I planned to frost the entire cake, but at the last minute I decided frosting only the layers would be perfect. We placed Avery's highchair outside under a tree, and tied a bunch of balloons too it, making the first cake tasting extra sweet. 

We all gathered around Avery out of the sun { it was 90 degrees that day } and sung happy brithday to Avery. I placed his cake on his high chair, thinking he'd smash is like crazy. Nope not my child, instead his little chubby hands picked up the entire cake and placed it his mouth only getting a little frosting in it! I could have died right there, it was freaking cute!! All of our family and friends snapped pictures like crazy of Avery eating his cake! it was such a special momment! I'm glad we got tons of pictures :) 

I hoped you all enjoyed seeing Avery's first birthday party!! The day was so much fun! I love him so much and like I said, its hard to believe we now have a one year old, I know for a fact I'll continue to enjoy all the little moments the next 12 months leading up to his next birthday.