Nolan's Banana First Birthday Bash

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When we were trying to decide on a theme for Nolan’s first birthday, it was a no brainer- bananas! The kid has literally bitten me for not giving him a bite of my banana, so to say he loves them would be an understatement. I figured it was an easy enough theme, and what could a banana even cost? $10? (Name that show!)

As far as first birthdays go, this one was pretty low key. Mostly family and a few close friends in our backyard. The party was at 2pm, so we served snacks, which is appropriate for a kids’ party since that’s all they really eat anyway. Since the menu and location were pretty simple, I took the banana theme and ran.

Honeycomb bananas

We have a long entry hallway, so I printed off basically every picture from this past year, hung them with washi tape and made the wall of Nolan. (Balloon // Target Dollar Spot)

I ordered the cutest custom tattoos from Love&Lion for party favors. These were a hit with the kids and the adults! The banana invites by none other than Brittany Garner.

Of course we all had to put on our best banana gear. I found my banana shirt on Amazon. Nolan’s was a Nordstrom Rack find

We don’t have a pool, but I ordered an inflatable banana raft mostly because it was a giant inflatable banana, and I definitely think that was the favorite. Between that, the bubble machine and all the random toys in the backyard, the kids were more than entertained.

My favorite part of the party, by far, was the smash cake. Or as I’ve been referring to it, my piece de resistance. I like to think of myself as a pretty capable baker, but I really exceeded my own expectations. I had a banana shaped smash cake in mind, but with all the other party prep I was doing at the same time, I doubted my abilities to pull it off. I was totally making it up on the fly and I have the bad iPhone photos to prove how little faith I had in my abilities.

I put the cake batter in an oval shaped casserole dish and used a serrated knife to cut a banana shape free hand. That turned out like crap, so I literally traced a banana and it worked surprisingly well. I frosted it yellow and originally was just going to do the black icing at the top for a stem, but it felt like it was lacking. At this point, I was already proud of myself and didn’t want to keep going and ruin it. I think I sat there for like 5 minutes trying to decide if I should add more to it. Sometimes with that kind of stuff you keep going thinking you’re going to make it better and you just end up making it worse. I thought it looked really flat, so I ended up going for it and I’m so glad I did. I was so proud of how it turned out. I’m pretty sure my conversation with every guest went something like this, “Hi! How’s it going? Did you see the smash cake I made?!” If only the birthday boy was as impressed.

I made cupcakes for the rest of the guests. Nolan makes the best faces, so I wanted to incorporate that somehow. I ended up printing about a million pictures too many, so I cut out the goofiest pictures, taped them to skewers I cut to size and used them as cupcake toppers.

Overall, the party was a success. I like having small parties at home for the younger birthdays. There will be plenty more chances for the obnoxious bouncy places when they’re older, but for now low key parties with ridiculous themes for me to work with is our jam. I’m pretty sure the birthday boy enjoyed himself.