Sock MOnkeys,Pirates and Pumpkins

Those are the themes for Ethan's first birthday. Now I know none of them have anything to do with each other but here is why. Before Ethan was born, I used to despise everything jungle or monkey themed for a boy. Hated it! Until I bought him all these cute newborn clothes with monkeys on them and fell in love with sock monkeys. So from the time he was a month old I knew his first birthday party would be sock monkey themed

Ive had the decorations for his party made for a while now and while I was planning out his bday bash I forgot to take into consideration that fact that his birthday was in October and that Halloween is my favorite holiday. I debated about not putting up any halloween decorations until after the party but let's be honest, I started decorating for Halloween Sept 1st. I found some Halloween themed sock monkeys at cracker barrel and amazon so figured that would at least pull the sock monkey decorations together with the halloween decor that is out around my house.

I also saw on the blogosphere a lot of people throwing pumpkin patch inspired birthday parties which I just loved so I decided that for party favors I would just pick up a mini pumpkin for every kid that was coming and we could decorate them like sock monkeys. Easy, fun and cheap! Plus I hate those little goody bags of plastic crap that I throw away anyway.

But the hardest part of planning his birthday was figuring out what to get him. Ethan suffers from second child syndrome. And since Gianna and him are so close in age her hand me down toys were only played with for a few months before they became Ethan's. WE have 3 walking toys, 2 riding toys, a nice wooden kitchen, a canvas teepee and all sorts of other toys that would make perfect first birthday gifts. And they were all Gianna's and now Ethan's of course. So figuring out what to buy him was hard. I want to make his birthday special since he does get jipped in the toy area so I picked up a few things for him but nothing major. Then through a coupon book I purchased from a friends daughter I saw that one of the coupons was for a pirate cruise in destin. Buy one get one free and kids 3 and under ride free. Perfect! My parents will be in town to help me corral the kiddos and I think it will be a blast. So I booked the pirate cruise yesterday. And at walmart I happened to find some cute pirate pajamas in his size to wear on the cruise. And I found a pirate sock monkey on etsy. I couldn't have planned it any better. So while he may not get the most presents from us his birthday will still be extra special. I am so excited to celebrate his birthday week. And sad of course that this is my last week with an 11 month old!