A few weeks ago we threw a camping birthday party in celebration of our littlest guy Phinehas turning one. How has it already been a whole year since he was born?
He sure is a happy boy and everyone here in Oregon has loved snuggling him like crazy since we moved back home.
We decided on a camping theme mostly (let’s be honest) because I really wanted to make these S’more cupcakes and Phin so far doesn’t have any real favorites for a theme. But it ended up working out perfectly because he is our “happy camper”. Ha!
I try to err on the side of being frugal and not going totally overboard with our parties so Mr. Bear was hijacked out of Mom’s garden as a perfect table decoration…
And plenty of dainty little pinecones from their prolific pine tree were gathered up as a festive (and free!) decoration.
All the girlie cousins helped me make up this great little canvas Happy Birthday banner. We cut out matching triangles from a paper template and wrote the letters with a permanent marker free hand. Then strung them together with some of this adorable twine from Joanne’s (cappuccino color). We didn’t have a large darning needle so we used one of the girls hairpins to weave it in and out!
We had a few friends who are lactose intolerant so everything we made was tweaked slightly to accommodate this.
The S’more cupcakes turned out fabulous and were a dairy free twist on the original chocolate buttermilk olive oil cupcakes I made the week prior. These were made with coconut milk in the base instead of buttermilk and a coconut cream chocolate ganache. You couldn’t even taste the coconut and they were so incredibly moist! Recipe coming tomorrow for those so be sure to come on back!
A big bag of Costco’s salty snack mix was perfect for fending off the children until we could get dinner ready to go. Of course the sugar cookies with chocolate chips didn’t hurt either…
And my aunt’s favorite peanut butter cookies finally made an appearance at a family event again! It’s been years since we made these and I remembered her always asking for them so it was a fun surprise.
We brewed up a big batch of Ice Tea and had a variety of beer and wine for the adults in the kitchen.
The gray straws were from Joann’s and the green dotted and striped straws were in a multipack I found at Walmart in the party section.
We served bratwursts on pretzel buns…..yes I got all inspired to make them and then discovered that making pretzel buns for 40 people was probably not my brightest idea. In all the craziness I managed not to catch any photos of the savory side dishes that came in via potluck style but it was delicious.
All in all we had a fabulous time, tons of family came and all the baby cousins came to play and Phin couldn’t have been happier.
His great grandma Bonnie even made it all the way up from California to see him and steal some sweet baby snuggles.
Big brother has pretty much decided that parties are the best thing ever.
This busy boy got so tuckered out that he completely slept through cake time at his big party. But we caught a few videos of him with his cupcakes on his actual birthday.
Happy birthday sweet Phin we love you!!!