Gotta be honest, Knox’s 1st birthday totally snuck up on me! We were just a few weeks out from his birthday, and I had nothing planned. When I say nothing, like I didn’t even have an idea of what I wanted to do or even a theme in mind. So, of course, I went straight to Pinterest. I started jotting down some ideas and getting Austin’s feedback. He quickly said to go with the theme “My 1st Rodeo!”, and I felt like it was a perfect fit for our boy in our little town!
In the past for birthday parties, I have used Etsy for a lot of the party décor and of course, Amazon. But this year I was limited on time, so I kept it easy and ordered just about everything on Amazon. What would we do without Amazon!?
I started thinking back to what we ordered for Ansley’s first birthday and made a list. Usually when I think of a first birthday party, I think of a smash cake! So, I made sure we had a fun banner for his highchair to do the smash cake. I ordered a backdrop banner to put on the wall behind his highchair, and a cake topper for his cake. We like to do a small cake for the smash cake and a separate cake for the guest, along with either cupcakes or cookies.
I also personally love to have a banner of monthly photos from the first year of our baby’s life. It adds a fun personal touch and guests enjoy looking back at how your baby has changed in the first year of life. We hung this over the food table. We also made sure to have plenty of table cloths for the food table and guests’ tables, plates, utensils, napkins, and an extra “My First Rodeo” banner for the theme near the cake and balloons. This year we did minimal balloons because in the past the heat has popped a lot of the balloons with the parties being mostly outside. We just grabbed a few from the store the morning of the party.
For Knox’s outfit, I grabbed an easy pair of dark denim overalls from Walmart and got a cowboy hat off of Amazon, and it made the pictures even cuter! Austin and I also dressed in rodeo theme with cowboy boots, flannels, and more!
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Since it was so hot, we decided last minute to rent a giant waterslide too. It was a hit. We debated whether or not we were going to have the party inside or outside, but we were able to do both. We kept the food inside, and we had seating options inside and outside to keep everyone comfortable.
We usually try to keep our birthday parties in the 2 hour range. Let everyone arrive in the first 30 minutes or so, then start opening up the food, let everyone hang out, eat, and mingle. From there, we do cake time (smash cake, then cut guest cake), presents (optional) and let everyone leave as needed.
This whole party was such a fun gathering, and we had the best time celebrating our Baby Knox’s First Rodeo! If you’re considering this theme, I highly recommend it. It was so cute and really simple to plan! If you have any questions, be sure to drop them below.
We will never forget this day!
