Layne's UNO Birthday Party

                                                Layne turned UNO!  And we had a party!
(12 month blog update still to come)

Here are the deets from the party:

Theme: UNO!  (get it she's one... the card game??)  Andrew's sister helped me come up with it from Pinterest.  Oh pinterest, Layne's party would have been real dull without it!


Location:  Pequod's Pizza   It's a great bar with great pizza and pitchers of beer!  We rented out the party room it was a free rental for "off prime time" i.e.: before 4pm on a Saturday.  I found it by googling.... "baby's first birthday party in Chicago..."  and Pequod's Pizza popped up a few times!


Date:  Saturday October 19, 2013  - Layne's actual Birthday!


Invitations:  I used a website called Punch Bowl to virtually send out the invitations.
Here is a sample of what the guests received via email  - then it opened it with more info for the guests (which i can't seem to find now that the party is past.)

Guests:  We invited family and a few close friends. :)
There were 33 adults
4 kids
5 babies
Great turn out!

Food:  We ordered 8 pizzas,  3 cheese, 3 sausage, 2 pepperoni
and 10+ pitchers of beer (I lost track once the beer started flowing)
and sodas.
We were able to bring in our own appetizers and my new Mama friend and (friend, friend) brought  some amazing mozzerella sticks and a wonderful salad from a restaurant called Roots, that her husband is the executive chef and one of the partners of the restaurant. ;)

And Andrew's mom made some great appetizers too!
So much good food.

Pizza Spread 

Appetizer Table

The CAKE!:  We ordered the cake from Andrew's good friend Donald's fiance Laura who is baker at a bakery here in Chicago.    The bakery is called Sensational Bites.
We ordered a smash cake.
A sheet cake to feed up to 40
and mini cupcakes.
UNO themed of course..
And after putting in the order, Laura told me that since her and Donald (her fiancé) couldn't make it to Layne's birthday party the cakes were their gift to Layne.  SO NICE!

Smash cake, mini cup cakes, CAKE CAKE!

Better picture of the cake (for Pinterest folks!) :)

Decorations:  Again, thank you to Pinterest! I have had a "secret" board on pinterest for a few months now with ideas for Layne's party.  I invited a couple of people on the board that could help me with ideas and were able to pin things.

Here is the BOARD   with all of my ideas.  

I think we did a great job in recreating it.

A special thank you to Aimee and Alison and Andrew and Grandma Chobot for their help in decorating. 

Here are some of our DIY projects:

Layne's Onsie- I ordered a black onsie on Amazon (because they are very hard to find in stores) ;/ And Aimee (Andrew's sister) bought this fabric transfer sheet, and Andrew printed out the UNO after googling the image and printing it on a colored printer- then ironed it on.  It worked out great! 

Before

After

Outfit:  Skirt Made by Aimee, Tights ordered on line (by Aimee) Bow: Made by Aimee. I have the BEST Sister in law ever! Not pictured RED CONVERSE! love them.

The Banner:

Andrew's mom is VERY crafty.  She made this amazing UNO banner for Layne - that most people thought I ordered on Etsy. NOPE!  DIY by Grandma Chobot. LOVE IT

It will be going on the wall in her room 

The high chair: idea from my secret pinterest board. I brought a booster seat from home so I could decorate it ahead of time and make sure she had a tray to eat the smash cake on. 

I went to the dollar store (where all of my decorations were bought) and got some colored construction paper and cut it out into triangles Red, Yellow & Green with a black background on all. 

Then I taped UNO cards to the triangles (ordered the UNO cards on Amazon) and taped it up to the booster seat!  This is the best pic. I got of it. 

The backdrop! I also found this on pinterest and I showed it to Alison who showed up early to help me decorate and she got it up in no time!  Perfect for all of the pictures of the smash cake in action. 

Pretty simple - streamers and balloons- turned out great!

oh!  Andrew made himself an UNO shirt too! ;)

The sign in book!  - I made the sign in book which was a photo book on Shutterfly    I used around 70 photos that we have taken of Layne throughout her first year, and we let everyone sign on any page they wanted to.  And the book ended up being FREE! Because i googled - "Shutterfly coupons", and I found one for a free 8x8 photo book for first time orders, I just paid for shipping.  SCORE!

Andrew made the sign to remind everyone to sign in. It says:  

Don't SKIP the sign in book!

It's WILD that it has been a year!

We can't REVERSE how big and fast they grow

So let's celebrate Layne's big UNO!

Please sign in on her first year of photos, book. 

On the front, the back or any of the pages. It's some thing will treasure for all of her ages!

thank you for celebrating with us, 

Love: Andrew, Jessica & Layne

(I got the wording from Pinterest as well and just re-worded it to make sense for a sign in book)

Here's Aimee in action. - Cover of photo book is from Layne's 9 Month photo shoot

We also did party favors for all the kiddos. Which I am sad to say i didn't get any photos of.  But we had really cute little canvas bags (dollar store) and mini uno cards, a mini maraca, and a mini trumpet. All UNO colors.  All party favors were bought at Party City.

I think that's it!  Thanks for following along. It was a great party! Here are some more shots from the party.

so gentle

she had some help ;)

Tyler smashing pops' face in the cake

Thank you for all your help Alison! 

Great friends

The Katz's

Me and the birthday girl

And a special shout out to Auntie Aimee.  Thank you for everything!!

Happy FIRST BIRTHDAY Layne!  We Love you so much!  

Love, Mama and Dada

The Chobot's went to Portland Oregon

My friend Sarah and her husband Travis had a baby 9 days after us and they live there! We got the babies together in Dallas when they were 2 months (see pic below)

Sleepy peanuts...

Andrew and I were also invited to a wedding in Portland, an old co- worker of his, and we decided to go and Sarah so graciously offered her home for us to stay in while we were there! 

Here's what we did:  (and i just emailed Sarah, saying that i didn't take ONE picture of her OR us together with our babies.  As i mentioned before I heard some really bad news while I was there- so my documenting skills were not up to par. 

We begin:

on the plane... 

I mean... this woman could have been Fred Armisen from Portlandia.  I thought it was awesome, so i noted it. ;) (please note the fanny pack & water bottle). 

We got to Portland on Saturday afternoon and that night we went to a wedding at the Portland Art Museum.  It was a beautiful venue. At 8 pm they opened the museum and we had our own private viewing.  

bride and groom first dance. 

Sarah & Travis watched Layne that night and Sarah texted me this gem of a photo...

it was HOT the first day we got there, naked pool day! 

On Sunday we got ourselves together and went out sightseeing.  

Sarah and Travis took us to Bonneville Fish Hatchery  to see the Salmon swim up stream to spawn and end their lives.  ;)  I learned a lot that day, but i'll let the interwebs explain it to you....

It was really cool- millions of salmon jumping and splashing- I wish I could have gotten a better picture of it. 

Salmon sculputre/water fountain

Can you see the salmon??

Yep, that's about as good as MY pictures get.  Andrew had the good camera and took a ton of photos, but this is all I got. It was really cool though. And beautiful

Then we went to Multnomah Falls   I've seen this a few times before in people's picture that visit Oregon, and it was worth the visit!  Even with a 21 pound sleeping baby hanging on me whilst walking up the hill to get to the bridge.

Sarah and Travis walking up to the falls  

Us (and Layne sleeping) standing on the bridge you see in the pic above. 

The next day Andrew and I (and Layne) took off for the coast.  We drove about 2 hours west to Astoria, Oregon.  The home of the Goonies Home.  

I finally got to drive on the 101 ! 

Beautiful

This is the Columbia River

Unbelievable

The sun came out on our walk down the boardwalk

We went to the Oregon Film Museum  It was in the old prison of the town (also featured in the Goonies.)  The museum was pretty small but cool. Lot's of movies were filmed in Oregon.! 

They had a live movie set were you could sit in front a green screen and film some scences from your favorite Oregon films. i.e.. The Goodnies, Twilight- so on and so forth. 

Hallway of Goonies

pretty cool

Data's actual outfit in a prison cell

Layne and I in the truck that the Fratelli's drove (actual truck) with Andrew filming us  driving away..

Then we drove through the little town and went to the Goonie's house! You have to park down the street and walk up the hill to the house.  The view was beautiful.

Layne and I

Family Shot. 

And here are some cute photos around the house of the babes. 

Travis reading to the little ones

and feeding them

i mean.......

Dinner Date. 

Car date

Books before bedtime.

Here are a few places we went to and enjoyed. 

Stanich's  Great, greasy burgers and cheap beer

Pip's Original  - We went here for coffee every morning and the donuts here were AMAZING. Nutella, chocolate.... OMG.

Pine State Biscuits.  I have a picture of this..

Andrew's fried chicken with blue cheese dressing

Mine- fried chicken with fried green tomatoes and ranch. 

YUM.

Then we went across the street to Salt & Straw Ice Cream (i just had some samples cause i was FULL) but also yum! 

And of course- Voodoo Donuts.  The donuts were huge and much more affordable then i thought they would be.  But i still liked Pip's better. 

But that Maple Bacon donut up there. DROOOOOL.....

Thanks again for your hospitality Sarah, Travis and Ike!  

Sarah & Ike outside of their adorable house

Portland was beautiful. I hope to go back under different circumstances and see more and take more pictures!

xoxo