The Potter & His Clay: Bud's Flood- Leo is ONE!

It's been a minute since I've blogged! But I had to shake the dust off of my computer for this one because my baby boy just turned 1! He's basically a grown man now so my job is done, right? LOL. He is a handful. He has SO MUCH ENERGY but is just the sweetest, smiliest little Bud and I love every inch of him. We're so proud to be his parents. God has richly blessed us.

So when he was about 6 months I started my birthday brainstorming (as I do). Plus Presley's birthday is in January so I just kinda start doing it all together way earlier than what's socially acceptable. I went through a lot of ideas but the one I kept coming back to is Noah's ark! I knew I could incorporate a lot of cute details from the story into the party plus I loved the idea of planning an event around a Bible story.

The first thing I did was start with a poem and go from there. During this process I found my party title, "Bud's Flood." His name is Leo but just about everyone calls him Bud (my fault) so I thought this title was too perfect. So naturally I got pretty obnoxious with that. So back to the poem. I love writing. I mean I HATED writing papers and things in school but I really enjoy writing for pleasure. One thing I especially love doing is writing poems about funny situations. I incorporated that hobby into Leo's invitation that I sent out to friends and family via Facebook. I also wrote a poem for PURResley's kitty cat party a few years ago and hope to make it a tradition for my kids. Although it may be something just I get excited about but hey that's fine too!

I also included this pic that I enjoyed way too much:

God told Noah and his fam to build a great big boat.

"Here are my plans and supplies too to make it stay afloat!"

The people said, "That's crazy!" and laughed at them all day long.

But it didn't take much time to find that they had been all wrong.

With 2 of every animal Noah's family board to stay.

The days began to pass them by; they didn't hesitate to pray.

Darkening hues of grays and blacks start to fill the weary skies.

Now the rains are coming down; the floods begin to rise.

But Noah remains faithful until he sees God's sign.

Then swirls of colors paint the skies; the sun begins to shine!

In honor of God's covenant He made by this great flood.

We will throw a special party to celebrate our Bud!

We're thankful for this year and that God's promises ring true.

And how amazed are we to see how much this boy grew!

365 days and nights have passed of filling our hearts with sunlight,

so come celebrate our Leo with us and share in our great delight!

And because the homemade beard was a huge fail but these pics also brought my an immense amount of joy:

There unfortunately weren't a ton of ideas with this theme online but I did a lot of research and pulled things I liked from here and there and came up with something that worked for me. I really wanted guests to feel immersed in the story as they walked in. I like to start the themeing outside and move it in through the house in a logical order. Okay as I type this I'm realizing how ridiculous it is that I've put this much emotion and preparation into a baby's birthday party but they JUST MAKE ME SO EXCITED! I think that the things that make a themed party so special are the little, thought out details that I get so excited about thinking through and putting together. And when they all come together it's as if the rains stops and the flood begins to recede and the rainbow beams brightly out of the clouds.

I'm just going to walk through the party with pictures so you can experience it the same way as our guests did. I used the lyrics from the Rise and Shine/Arky Arky song to pave the way. Part of me really was hoping that it would rain because THE FLOODS ARE COMING! But it was actually a stunningly beautiful day so that was great too.

I wanted the door frame to resemble an ancient ark, only I didn't measure correctly and it didn't quite touch the bottom which REALLY bothered me but it is what it is. I also used scrapbook paper to put in the windows to resemble the floods rising inside.

And I was also v excited about my 2 little turtles filing in.

So side note, this is a cute, well-known Bible story but like this really happened. Can you imagine?? The WHOLE EARTH WAS FLOODED! I got curious and started researching and it is estimated that Noah and his fam had approximately 7,000 animals to take care of on a BOAT that they HAND MADE! And they couldn't go to Lowes in their pickup truck, pickup a few 2x4s, mallets and nails. NO! They had to make their supplies! SO it took like 55-75 YEARS just to build this ark. Also take into consideration that Noah was SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD when the floods came. Now I found all of this info on the internet and I'm just assuming it's Biblical/factual but WOW. Now just imagine if I had 80 years to plan this party!

Anyways, so at this point everyone is getting the point that THE FLOODS ARE COMING! So the animals are loading two by twosies. Then they walk into the entry and the rains are comin down! I used Leo's sound machine on the thunderstorm setting to make this more of an immersive experience. I made the gray tissue balls then used transparent paper to cut out raindrops and clear thread to attach them. I got the rain walls in the doorways at Hobby Lobby (duh the best).

Then it was time. The dove returned with the olive branch. The flood was over and God's promise was fulfilled. Enter...the rainbow room.

My mom actually smocked me this dress Pres is wearing when I was her age and I love that she kept it because it was so perfect for the party!

Okay. So the balloon arch. It was so easy and definitely recommend. I bought the kit on Amazon for $20 and a pack of 100 rainbow balloons (only used 50) but like DEFINITELY USE THE PUMP! Actually the pump it came with was crap but if you have another pump, use it. I really built it up with my husband that YEAH WE'RE GOING TO BUILD A BALLOON RAINBOW TOGETHER the night before the party. He insisted on blowing them up himself and legit almost passed out. Granted he was going so fast and not taking a break but I was terrified. Like I didn't know what to do. So DON'T BE LIKE MATT! JUST USE A PUMP! So it didn't take too long and besides the near-death experience I think it was worth it! The clips that came with the kit made it super easy to assemble and I love how it turned out. Just think about the possibilities! I can't wait to use it again.

Here's a better pic of it in a naked room:

As I do, I struggled for months when it came to deciding party food. Should I go all colorful/rainbow food? Food that looks like food for the animals? ANIMAL-SHAPED FOOD? The internet was v unhelpful. I just couldn't decide! 3 days before the party I finally decided on an array of food themes and came up with this. A Trader Joe's feast (we just got a TJs in Memphis like 2 min from my house and it is just about as magical as Hobby Lobby. Like I'm already obsessed). Also, the party was at 3:30 so this was supposed to be light snackage.

These prosciutto-wrapped asparagus were SUPER easy and were supposed to resemble olive branches. I cut the meat in half before I wrapped so it would go further. They were a big hit and completely gone at the end. Actually

Animal crackers (I've shamelessly eaten an entire bucket of these completely alone).

Rainbow KaBUDs. These were fun to make. I take that back. If you know how to cut up round, robust, oddly shaped and sometimes hairy fruits, these would have been fun to make. LOL at me on the struggle bus just trying to cut up a kiwi. Also, cantaloupe. How.

I found these Vegi Sticks at Traders Joes because I thought they looked like straw and thought "no one will eat these they look disqusting" but people loved them!! Presley was chowin down by the handful. So good to know, right?

Lastly is this cake I spent SO MANY HOURS preparing. The ark alone took me 6 straight hours. I haven't made a cake in so long and haven't been super active with my cake business in general since Leo was born, so I was really nervous. I actually forgot how to make my buttercream that I used to crank out by the pound and had to look it up in my recipe book. Oops. But anyways, I wasn't super happy with the outcome. Maybe it's the colors. I'm not sure. I couldn't put my finger on what went wrong but I think everyone else enjoyed it. It is supposed to be the ark landed on top of Mount Ararat with the floods receding below. Also, fun fact. When I was in high school I was obsessed with Mt Ararat and would research it in my spare time because I thought it was SO COOL that we can know the location(ish) of where the ark landed. They found evidence of gopher wood here and other things but I'm a bit rusty on my facts here. I'm nerding out again. Also, I love space. WHAT IS IT? It's so big. So vast. I have so many questions! Ahem. So turning Mt Ararat into a cake kinda thrilled my soul a little bit...or alot. Okay alot.

And here's the cake with the last part of the song to finish out the story.

The other little table was for plates/forks/napkins, Leo's smash cake and I always like to have a themed book for everyone to sign and I put them in my kids' keepsake boxes for them to have forever. I made the little chalkboard out of a wood slice (Hobby Lobby) and chalk paint for Presley's Pooh party earlier this year.

I did love his smash cake. The different colored cake layers made me feel v happy.

Bud agreed.

So the kitchen was boring. I just put a blue table cloth on our kitchen table with a Noah's ark toy and totes forgot to take a pic.

Here are some pics of the living room. I made the ark out of poster board from Michaels. I found the animals in the wood aisle at Hobby Lobby and my dad cut them to make them fit in the window. And I couldn't resist adding a pic of Floody Buddy in his Noah suit. I cut out 12 pieces of paper to make the rainbow above and included his monthly pictures. I used blue tissue paper to make the "water" and the Happy Birthday banner was recycled from Presley's Pooh Party as well.

I totally forgot about the high chair banner (tragic) until kinda last minute so I only used supplies I had in my craft room. I tied on misc ribbons and used a fusible interfacing to attach the "1" to the banner.

For the drink bar I made this rainbow banner out of different tones of rainbow colors. I just had Coke, water ("Rain Drops") and a blue punch ("Flood Waters"). The punch was 2 packages of frozen pineapple juice concentrate, about 3/4 container of blue Hawaiian punch and a 2 liter of lemon lime soda. It was surprisingly tasty!