Pancakes and Pajamas: A First Birthday Party

My daughter just turned one year old a few weeks ago and I had so much fun planning and throwing her a party.  One weekend morning when we were sitting down for breakfast I thought that doing a pancake/breakfast themed birthday party where everyone wore their pajamas would be a lot of fun and a little different.  Later on that day with a quick internet search I found out that I am not the only one that thinks Pancakes & Pajamas would be a fun party idea.  I had so much fun putting it all together and the party was a big hit, so I wanted to share the details with you here.

The Pajamas
Of course since I like to sew, my girls couldn’t have just any pajamas for the pajama party.  I ordered an adorable pancake shirt for the birthday girl off of Etsy and then made ruffled pajama pants for both of my daughters.  My older daughter liked hers so much that she asked every day leading up to the party to wear them.

The Food
Breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day so we really enjoyed all of the food.  Of course, there were pancakes, but I also served bacon, sausage links, fruit and a hash brown casserole.  To go with the pancakes I put syrup, homemade strawberry sauce and chocolate sauce in squeeze bottles and also made homemade whipped cream.
For dessert, there was, of course, cake made by the very talented Melanie at Ph.D-serts & Cakes.  I didn’t want a cake that was too themey, I just wanted something pretty that would mesh well with the decorations and Melanie really nailed in, plus it was delicious!

The Decorations
I had ordered invitations that were pink and yellow, so that set the tone for the colors for the party.  I love the flower arrangement idea that I found online, and I recreated it by using two cylindrical glass vases that I bought at my local craft store.  I bought two larger ones and two smaller ones.  I purchased some spray roses and tulips from the grocery store and placed those in the smaller vase, placed that vase in the larger vase and filled the empty space with colorful cereal.  I loved how they turned out…they were fun, cheery and easy to do.  I also found some polka dot lanterns at Target that I placed on the table.  I made name cards for the food using word and then printing them on cardstock and decorating with ribbons and other trim.  I also made a simple garland for above the table and for my daughters high chair by cutting out triangles from cardstock and stinging them from curling ribbon.  Overall the decorations were really easy and I think they turned out really cute.

The Favors
For favors, I stuck with the sleepover type theme and made all of the kids pillowcases and had my mom embroider each child’s name on it (my super easy directions for making a pillowcase can be found here).  When the parents RSVPed I just asked what the primary colors in their room is so that I could match up the pillowcase.  I included with each pillowcase a bag of cookies and a milk, as well as a little poem that I wrote myself (I know I’m a CPA and not Dr. Seuss, but I just couldn’t help myself).

The Pancakes and Pajamas party was a huge success and so much fun.  If you would like to see more of my inspiration for the party, check out my Pinterest board.