It's Never Too Early

To start planning your only child's First Birthday Party, right??  I mean it's only 11 weeks and 2 days till the party!  And there are so many things to get ready!  I am notorious for waiting till the last minute to plan stuff, but not this time.  I hope to have everything for Jack's party ready by the first of July.  The party is on July 17th.  I hope that on the day of, we'll only have to pick up his cake and some balloons.

I decided on a "Beach Monkey" theme.  Think Luau with some cute monkeys thrown in.  Truth be told, I have been eyeing these invitations for a while and found some other beach monkey stuff, so it just fit. 
Plus it will be the middle of the summer and in Texas that means it will be at least 100 degrees that day! HA!  I ordered the invitations yesterday from Polka Dot Design.  I love this website (my favorite brands are Paper so Pretty and Cross My Heart) and have ordered invitations from here for several parties and have never been disappointed.  They will even print and assemble them, too.

I have also ordered plates, napkins and goodie boxes from Oriental Trading, along with all the goodies to fill the boxes.  So fun!

My mom ordered these really cute table covers and some leis from Target.  Target also has some cool backdrops that I hope to have, so it will really feel like we're at the beach, even though we're just in our backyard.  HA!

Table Covers

And, I'm going to have this talented lady make a custom shirt and party hat to match Jack's swimsuit.  I found the PERFECT swimsuit, but of course it is sold out of his size.  I guess I'll have to keep looking, or maybe he will be in a 4T by July - he is growing fast! HA!

I plan to have a banana split table set up similar to this, but not so girlie.  We'll go with red, blue, green and yellow buckets.  I do hope to make the little tags to go on all the buckets, along with a matching banner.  See why I need to start all of this so early!  I would love for Polkadots-Pirates to create everything for me, but unfortunately she's not taking anymore orders this year, but visit her blog anyway because she has some GREAT ideas!

We'll also have a splash pool or two, hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and dips and a fabulous cake.  I'm still looking for a bakery to create the cake, so if you're in the Dallas area and know of a great bakery, please let me know!

So, that's what I've got planned so far.  What did you do for your kid's first birthdays?  I'm open to any and all suggestions!