Care Bears Party {First Birthday}

Last month my baby girl turned one!  I love watching her grow into a beautiful little girl with the most precious personality, but I don't want her growing up too fast!  There just isn't enough time to watch her laugh and smile and play...melts my heart when I see that gorgeous smile.

I wanted to do something extra special and super cute for her first birthday.  I went back and forth for a while before I made a final decision for a Care Bear birthday party.  I love Care Bears and last summer I went a little crazy on EBay and bought a few Care Bears for Miss Priss.  Okay, not a few, a lot!  More than I really needed too, but they are all so cute and I couldn't help myself.

The most special part of this birthday theme is though that my nursery was Care Bears.  What a wonderful reason to pick it for my little girls first birthday party!  I am not the only one that likes Care Bears though...Miss Priss loves to carry her Care Bears around the house and drag them out of her closet after I pick them all up.

I was so excited for the Care Bears theme and the rainbow colors!  We had the party at the public library and there were several stipulations about hanging things on the walls, balloons, etc.  By the time I got through with the list, I realized that we couldn't do anything except for table decorations and so I had to get creative.

Colored tablecloths were draped in order across the table and bright blue plates and napkins stood out on top of the pastel rainbow colors.  I am not big on pink...I just hate that everything for girls is always pink!  I don't mind pink being a part of the party, but I didn't want it to be ALL pink just becuase it is for a little girl.

My aunt and I made rainbow pinwheels with colorful buttons in the middle to place on the tables.  I found some cute tins in the dollar spot at Target.  They were perfect toplace the pinwheels in...and since I recycle gift bags and tissue paper, I had paper in every color to help hold the pinwheels in place.  And of course, I had to sit some Care Bears around too. 

I printed a few Care Bears pictures off the internet and placed them in painted frames from the Dollar Tree.  Rainbow candy was placed in bowls around the cake.  Jolly Ranchers, Licorice, M&M's, Gumballs and Life Savers are the candies that I chose that were rainbow colored, though there are a lot more that you can choose from.

My mom is awesome!  She spent two nights after work making that rainbow with colored tulle glued onto a piece of cardboard which is attached to a bent piece of rebar cemented into two plastic cups.  We used pillow polyfill to cover the cups and look like clouds.

My mom even had the help of my sister and aunt from time to time and it still took that long to make.  We decided that we will have to find a way to fit it into every party we throw from now on since it took so much time to make!  LOL

Strawberry and orange flavored cookies and sherbert punch finished up the tables goodies.  Oh, and another Care Bear!  :)

I made a few rainbow wands for the little girls at the party to keep them entertained as well.  Winter birthdays can be hard to keep the little ones entertained inside so I thought this might help.

Check out the Rainbow Ribbon Wand Tutorial and Template here.

And finally for the cake!  The cake was super yummy and exactly what I was wanting.  I was going to make the cake myself because I have taken some cake decorating classes, but had so many other things to do that I decided to keep my stress level down, buy a cake at the grocery store and focus on the rest of the party. 

I wanted a cake with blue icing, Care Bear figurines, a rainbow and clouds...everything that represents what we all know about Care Bears!  It turned out just like I wanted and it was so good!  Yeah!

And just like every first birthday, a smash cake for the birthday girl was made to match.

Miss Priss just loved opening her presents and sitting in her birthday rocking chair that memew and poppa got her. 

Oh, and I almost forgot...for all the other Care Bears that we had that wouldn't fit on the big table, we put on clouds of polyfill in the middle of the guest tables for a little Care Bear touch there too.  I just love those cute little Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins too!

After presents we let Miss Priss have some cake too!  She wasn't really that into it and I think by the time it was over with she had more cake on her feet than her hands and I think I might have had more icing on me than she had on her!  I knew to take a change of clothes for the baby, but no one ever told me that I would need a change of clothes for myself!  LOL

And then of course, every first birthday has to have an episode like this..

It was a simple, yet perfect birthday party for such a perfect little girl!  Love those Care Bears and love the baby girl even more!