JD's Nursery Rhyme Themed First Birthday at Museo Pambata

Hi I'm back!!! Well not totally. I just had a few minutes to spare in documenting this special detail in our lives. JD is one year old! How time flies really.

Amidst all the busyness, I was actually able to pull-off JD's first birthday and my first events styling stint! So just to give you all a glimpse, I'll let the pictures do the talking. Warning photo heavy.

The invite
As what I usually do for my kid's invites, a few cliparts and rhymes from the internet, and here's what I came up with.

The stage
From conceptualizing the backdrop, painting Jack & Jill's well and the Old Woman's Shoe, as well as creating the cardboard tree for the baby, yep that's all me. The cardboard letters and fabric buntings were care of Mama. The Japanese lanterns were all from Divisoria. The pompoms were made by me from Japanese paper and with the help of Martha Stewart's video tutorial. These were all created just a day before JD's birthday (finished painting around midnight). With a little help from my kids' yayas and my eager beaver R, here are the results, voila!

The centerpieces

I searched the net, particularly Pinterest, for various centerpieces. However, surprisingly, there were limited nursery rhyme themed parties that really captured my eye. I just raked through Divisoria, National Bookstore and SM for various knicknacks and those are what I came up with. I just had to mention again, assembly was all done the day before. Yup I really am killing myself (just kidding), it was a break from all the busyness at work. For the flower baskets, I scored great deals at Dangwa and supervised the kids' yayas in the arrangements.

The candy/dessert buffet table and cake

For the backdrop, I made paper medallions out of colored cartolina and printed out JD's monthly pictures and hanged them using wooden clothespins. The carrot cupcakes were care of Mama. Bought the candy from SM supermarket. Containers were from SM as well. The cupcake tier/stand was from Divisoria. To stay in line with the nursery rhyme theme, see the baker (from Pat-a-cake) figurine which I got from Dapitan arcade. It held the scoop and tongs with its little niche at the back.

The cute and delicious cake was from Midnight Snacks. I was so lucky to have found Larisse in FB. I already saw a pic in Pinterest of the cake I wanted. It turned out she was the one who made it! Her prices are very reasonable considering the craftsmanship and the yumminess. I highly recommend her.

The venue and caterer

Daddy A and I really want our events to be a fun and meaningful experience for our guests. We had R's birthday in  a zoo right?! So why not a museum this time. Museo Pambata is literally a museum for kids. Unlike the traditional museum where you can't touch anything. Here, the kids are free to play and interact in the various areas of the museum. One sad thing though is that Museo Pambata does not have a standby generator. And what are the odds that a 15 minute power outage came in time for our party! Bummer I know =( If not for that, I'd give the place a perfect ten.

Our caterer was one of the accredited ones of the venue, Sta. Ines-Pablo Catering. Mr. Andy Pablo was very accommodating and really made his clients the top priority.

The AVP

The songs I used for this AVP were Colby Calait's "Capri", Parokia ni Edgar's "Your Song" and John Lennon's classic "Beautiful Boy". Watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCA0olkEn_Q

The entertainment

In line with our theme, we got a puppet show from Roppets Puppeteers. The Three Little Pigs was great, The Backyardigans was kind of dragging and The Tatlong Sikat, albeit the lesson in the end was maybe not for kids of all ages. Maybe we should've sticked to the classics such as Goldilocks and Jack& the Beanstalk.

The loot bags

The canvas bags were care of Mama's shop. We filled it with story books, craft kits, colored pencils and modeling clay.

Photo/video

Again we went with the very professional Marvin Rosello, whom we first worked with during R's 1st birthday.

Happy first birthday JD! We love you so much. May God continue to bless you with good health and cover you with his mantle of protection. Hope you grow up to be God-fearing and kind.

You may not be able to remember this party, but when you look back at this post, hope you'll know how much love and effort we put in just to make your day special.