Sunday was a big day in the Kagan-Wachtel household. We had Teddy's first birthday party! Now, a baby only turns 1 once, so I had to make sure his party was perfect. I sent out invitations weeks ago and I've been planning the menu for days. I decided on finger foods so that I wouldn't have to do a sit down meal (since we don't have enough room for that), and to keep it casual. After all, it was a dogs birthday party. The hardest part of the whole event was figuring out how to "dog-ify" everything, from the food to the decorations, but I think I managed :)
First things first, I started buying decorations and party supplies months ago. Petco was having a sale on their dog dishes at the beginning of the summer, so I stocked up. I bought 8 blue plastic dog bowls in different sizes to use as the serving platters. I thought this would be fun for a dog party and now that the party is over, the bowls have been donated to a dog rescue. Mostly everything else came from Amazon. They had different dog themed party supplies and I decided to go with primary color paw-print as the motif. I thought the primary color was most appropriate for a first birthday party. We got plates, napkins, cups, balloons, party hats, sprinkles for the cake, etc. I also made sure to buy a bone shaped silicone cake pan, bone shaped muffin tins and bone shaped cookie cutters.
Next came the menu planning. After a lot of back and forth, I decided on the following menu of finger foods:
- Mini spinach and artichoke dip in bread bowls
- Bite sized baked brie
- Mini hot dogs (what kind of party would this be without hot dogs?!)
- Mini empanadas with a spicy avocado dipping sauce
- Deviled eggs
- Mac and cheese bites
- Homemade Cheez-its
- Fresh veggies
- Cake (human and canine)
- Plain and chocolate sugar cookies for the goodie bags
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| Bone-ified Cheez-its |
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| Baked brie bites |
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| Mini hotdogs |
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| Bone shaped mac and cheese |
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| The spread! Deviled eggs, mac and cheese, spinach artichoke bread bowls, mini empanadas with spicy avocado dip |
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| Teddy's carob cake with yogurt frosting |
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| People cake! |
In the end, it was all worth it. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and have a good time. Most importantly though, Teddy got a day to spend with everyone who loves him!
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| stop singing so I can eat this cake! |
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| One of his many gifts - official MLB Yankee jersey |
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| One pooped pup after a day of partying :) |
