Our littlest man turned one halfway through October. It’s been a whirlwind of a couple of months at our house, but we definitely wanted to celebrate our second rainbow baby in style. One of our nicknames for Mason is “monster”– he’s the sweet one, but he’s also going to be the kid in class who gets everyone ELSE in trouble, no question. With that in mind, we had no choice but to have a Cookie Monster birthday party for him! I think it turned out super cute, and all the kiddos had a good time playing, eating yummy food, and decorating cookies. We made sure to have a little of both of our cultures involved– Filipino food from Daddy’s side and lots of cookies and milk from Mama’s sweet tooth!
It was a lot of work, because I made everything myself, but it meant that it was a far more inexpensive party than it would have been otherwise. Plus, I love doing crafty things and getting to think about how big my baby has gotten while I did them just made the end-products that much sweeter. I thought I’d share some pictures and recipes with y’all so you might get a little inspiration for your own little monster’s birthday party!
The Wardrobe
The most important part of any first birthday party, in my humble opinion, is to have the birthday boy looking ADORABLE. This is the one piece I didn’t make myself. My sewing machine and I are in a fight, and frankly, even if we weren’t, I don’t think I’m quite this talented. Luckily, I found the cutest little outfit on Amazon that was perfect for his big day. It came with leg warmers in case it was cool (Texas in October could be 40* or 100*) and a onesie with Cookie-Monster-blue suspenders!
Decorations
We’ve taken pictures of Mason in our rocking chair every month since he was born, so it only felt appropriate that we’d do one last one at 12 months. It’s been so much fun watching him grow through the pictures, so I made a banner with the monthly pictures and cookies in between each one. All I needed was some light brown paper cut into rough circles (because cookies aren’t perfectly round!) with darker brown circles for chocolate chips. I used twine and mini clothespins to hang them up.
I printed out clipart of Cookie Monster onto card stock to use as food labels. Then, I took a white Sharpie marker and a little Pinterest lettering magic on Cookie Monster’s mouth to let everyone know what deliciousness they were looking at on the table. There were touches of blue and brown all over the place, but I think my single favorite decoration was definitely the chalkboard First Birthday sign that my ridiculously-talented friend, Tori of Framboise Design Co, created for Mason. She even put chocolate chip cookies on it! Tori is the one who created all of my logos and amazing branding– I HIGHLY recommend her for any of your graphic design work!
Food
The food is the second-most important. Because our boys can’t have dairy, I wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t have to tell them no once during the party. That meant making practically everything from scratch so that they could have it all. We used strawberries and blackberries to make Elmo and blueberries with blackberries to make Cookie Monster. Then, we took little blue shot glasses of dairy-free wild orange fruit dip with one blueberry in each to make their eyes.
We include traditions from both sides of our families since we come from such completely different cultures. For the Filipino side, my sweet mother-in-law made lumpia (Filipino egg rolls) and turon (banana and jackfruit-filled egg rolls fried in melted brown sugar candy). I’m pretty sure Matthew ate his weight in the turon and I KNOW I ate my weight in the lumpia. Good stuff, y’all.
Of course, we HAD to have a cake for him to get covered in. I made a dairy-free chocolate cake (is there any other kind?!) with blue frosting to match the theme. We sang to him, put it in front of him, and he stuck one finger in it, only to decide he was NOT thrilled. Apparently our boys are just not fans of first birthday cake, because Matthew had a full-on meltdown when he got his!
To go with the theme, I decided to do cookies instead of cupcakes (which are also easier to make dairy-free with plenty of flavors to suit everyone’s tastes). We made dairy-free peanut butter cookies for everyone, plus dairy-free sugar cookies to decorate. After all, what’s a party without some sort of messy, fun activity for the kiddos?
When you have cookies, you HAVE to have milk, of course! We had a little milk bar with glass milk bottles, blue cups, and blue striped paper straws. We had one bottle of cashew milk and two of whole milk for the non-dairy-allergic people.
Favors
Some moms do favor bags, but I feel like those are often filled with candy (much of which my kids can’t have) or cheap toys that just clutter up our house. I didn’t want to do that to my sweet cousin, so I decided to do something a little different for our Cookie Monster birthday party. Instead, I made dairy-free chocolate chip cookie dough ahead of time, filled mason jars with it, and then I stuck them in the freezer. I made tags with directions for how to bake them and tied them onto the jars. The best thing is, not only does it not clutter up your house, but it gives the kids an easy way to spend time with their mamas doing something that turns out with a yummy treat!
Cookie Monster Birthday Party Wrap-Up
Whew… That was a mega-post if I’ve ever seen one, but I hope it gave you some great inspiration for your own Cookie Monster birthday party! I had SO much fun putting it all together for our sweet no-longer-a-baby. For more recipes, tips, tricks, and toddler ridiculousness, make sure you subscribe over there on the right!
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