It's a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Party!

When Jackson was very little I would take him into my bed for his nap at 10:00 every morning and turn on the Disney Channel more just for me, but also, it's appropriate for kids and it calmed us both down to just lay and watch a quick cartoon before nap! Well, at 10:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse comes on! We would sit and watch the other shows that came on before and he never really cared…but when that silly mouse came strolling down that polka dotted sidewalk, my boy's eyes would LIGHT up! He would have his pacifier in mouth and behind it I could see the hugest smile ever. Sometimes the pacifier would even drop clear out of his mouth to make room for that gummy grin! He was obsessed… I started DVRing it and very quickly our lineup was full, over 80 episodes of MMC! haha. When he got a little older we stopped watching before naps because he just won't sit still for a cartoon anymore, AT ALL. He could care less. But, I still turned it on in the afternoon for some background noise and he would be across the house and the second the "hot dog song" came on….that little booger would come scooting/crawling/walking/running and the dancing would commence! Still obsessed… So, when it came time to start planning his first birthday party (TEAR!) I knew exactly what it would be!

 M I C K E Y      M O U S E!

So, here is a description of everything I did for the party and how I made everything! Have fun!

Here is the Mickey flower arrangement we had outside the front porch. My mom planted it and just used a few pony packs…well, it looked like a heart, not Mickey, and nobody even noticed. Maybe more flowers would have been better, or just single flowers instead of pony packs? Either way, it was probably the least impressive of al decor. Wish it had turned out cuter! Oh well!

The banner I made! I got a big pack of black cardstock and a pack of these simple colored/patterned cardstock and some red polka dotted ribbon at Michaels. I cut out the black squares and then the colored ones a bit smaller using fun patterned scissors. I hole punched two holes in the back of the black cardstock and strung the ribbon through. Piece of advice, try stringing it at the TOP of the letters so they don't flip over like mine did (I had to tape the middle ones to the window!) After I strung them I glued on the colored cardstock and taped the back of the black to the ribbon to keep it evenly spaced. I printed out the letters and the Mickeys and glued them on.  Super easy, but time consuming and it really hurt my fingers using the fun scissors so much!

I had a TON of the black cardstock left, and a few of the red polka dotted paper, so I printed up each of the clubhouse members and glued them onto the red and then black background and I just punched one hole at the top and strung it with some red ribbon and cut them to different lengths and taped them to the fireplace, in the center of course, is the cutest little Mickey Mouse in the world :) Anyway, the clubhouse was all here!!! 

These water bottle labels were SO fun and easy to make! It took me forever to find a background but I eventually found one on google images and then used Word to type the words "Happy Birthday Jackson" onto it. I used the fun scissors again to cut out the banner and then glued it into red cardstock that I measured using the original label. I then wrapped it around the water bottle directly over the label and used packing tape to seal 'er up! Super easy! And they held up great even in the ice chest!

Door hanger/welcome sign! One of my favorites, it was just so cute! Pretty self explanatory, downloaded Mickey font and printed up the words onto red cardstock, cut out, again with fun scissors, and glued onto yellow cardstock and then glued that onto a big piece of red! I also put some extra little Club member stickers on the sides to make it a little more attractive. I also printed that Mickey at the bottom.

Now THIS was probably my favorite piece!!! My mom made it! SOO cute! We got this medium sized blue pot at walmart for like 2 bucks and then planted some cute yellow flowers in there! She used a wooden dowel and wrapped it in some really cute red checkered ribbon. She used 1 big round piece of styrofoam and 2 smaller pieces and painted them…. using spray paint! Ah….the styrofoam melted! So, we salvaged it and painted with ACRYLIC this time! She then used stencils and red paint to paint his name across it and then wrapped a cute Mickey head ribbon under it. She fastened the ears and the ribbon on using toothpicks.

This was the fruit tray I made, I really tried to stick with the color theme as well, so we did watermelon, pineapple and blueberries! Red yellow and blue! We used a Mickey cookie cutter and it worked GREAT on the watermelon, but the pineapple was a disaster, I had to hide most of them under the few good ones I got. 

The cupcake tree! I bought this at party city it was so cute! I also got stickers to write Jackson on the top, but silly me…I bought black stickers. Don't know WHAT I was thinking!! So, I made rainbow chip cupcakes using the mickey baking cups and then I used a pastry bag and regular frosting to ice the cupcakes. I put yellow and red sprinkles on each of them and then on some I cut out blue polka dots from fondant to put on the edges. We ran out of frosting so we used fondant on a few of the cupcakes like you can see in the middle, and put on some Mickey sprinkles…REALLY cute, but of course, no one at them…who wants to eat a fondant cupcake?! When they were done I stuck in Mickey toothpicks! Turned out really cute!

A view of the food table, the fruit platter and that is hummus and flatbread that I also cut into Mickey shapes. For lunch we barbecued hamburgers and hot diggity dogs! I wanted to make sure that everything was yummy for adults and also easy for tiny toddler fingers!

Here are the shirts I made….round 2. I made the cutest shirts for the 3 of us and they were PERFECT, took HOURS upon HOURS of work and time to design on the computer, and I used an iron on transfer.. FAIL. I can't believe Michaels would sell such a product! The transfers did NOT stick to the shirt and peeled off, and what did stick ripped right in half as soon as I stretched the shirt over my head! So frustrating… I cried! We tried using fabric glue to adhere them..no luck. Puff paint around the edges..no luck. Okay, day before party, we are starting over friends! Walmart 3 shirts for about 4 bucks each and one teal flat sheet… I cut out the number ones from the flat sheet and hand sewed them on. I then used stencils to trace letters (Mommy, Daddy, Jackson) onto the front and traced over it with puff paint. On the back I used the same stencils but with teal acrylic paint to paint "West" across the back like a jersey. I loved them… even if they were second choice :)

My cutie booty tooty boy and his giant one year old hands!

Really bad view, but this is my cake! Well, Jackson's cake (whose birthday is it again?!) .. It turned out PERFECTLY! I practiced several times and finally figured out how to get it perfect! I baked two rounds, cooled COMPLETELY and then flipped and cut the top off to make them even, frosted the top of one and stuck the other on top. I then put a plate on top of the whole thing to flatten it out and stuck it in the freezer and let it freeze for a couple hours. I then used a template that I just printed up on Word to cut it into the Mickey shape. I then brushed off the crumbs and froze it again! I iced it once and then…froze it again! Iced it a second time and then used fondant and circle fondant cutters to make polka dots and then I cut out a JGW for the corner of it. Love love love...

Enjoying my cake, I ate til I threw up! That's the way it should be!!

Yum mommy yummmm!!!!

All in all, we had a BLAST! We had great friends come out for it and everyone had a good time. It was so great to see how many people love my boy! I also made a video of his first year and it was about 30 minutes, to my surprise, most people actually watched it! I couldn't watch it…I cried everytime and I had to chase around my track star, but it was great to feel the love! My baby boy is such a special little man and is SO very, very blessed to have so many people love him! We were even fortunate enough to have several friends send birthday gifts for him from out of state! What a blessing! His birthday party was perfect, and as I brought out his cake to him and started the birthday song, my eyes welled up and I realized that THIS was what I had waited for my entire life… THIS boy is my life, my whole world, everything I ever dreamed of and ever wanted to be. I love being a mommy :) can't wait for the many, many more birthday parties to come!