Here were the invites (I had these made from Etsy seller NvitationsByRachelle):
We just invited over family and sent the invites by email. For decorations, I bought latex balloons in Uno colors (red, blue, green, yellow, and black). We also just taped some uno cards to the patio door/window which was behind Lachlan's high chair. I'd definitely recommend this theme cause it would be really easy to do a lot of decorations by just buying things in the color scheme which you could probably find at the dollar store.
I made sugar cookies that looked like little Uno Cards. These turned out pretty good and were surprisingly easy. I used pre-made sugar cookie dough. I couldn't find my rolling pin, so I just put some flour on the counter and patted it as evenly flat as I could. Next, I took a knife and just cut out something that looked like a rounded rectangle. Baked according to the directions on the package. I made some icing following this recipe, but used Lemon Extract in place of the Almond. I began by painting a white oval in the center of all the cookies-- I used just regular watercolor paintbrushes- the cheap kind you would buy your kids. By the time you get to the last one, the early ones have already dried.
So then I divided up the icing into little bowls and colored it. I then painted around the oval with the desired color and the number one on the oval. Lastly, I had saved a small amount of the white icing and used a toothpick to paint on really small number ones in the corners. It took a little bit of time to do the painting, but not too bad.
The cake I spent a little too much time on, but I always remembered the huge excitement of our birthday cakes growing up and what a big deal it was...so I just felt like I owed this to Lachlan and want him to be excited each year for a cool cake. I had scoured the internet for Uno birthday cake photos and found some cool ones, but ultimately decided I would just do a rectangular cake and make it look like a large uno card with the number one on it. And to take it a step further, I was doing a version of a rainbow layer cake, so that it consisted of 4 layers- one of each of the uno colors. I used 2 box white cake mixes and just tried to divide up the batter evenly once mixed. I used the gel food coloring cause read that it was much more vibrant. I lined my pan with wax paper and sprayed it with nonstick spray before pouring the batter in. I baked the cakes and let them cool. Once cool, I laid wax paper on the counter and flipped them out of the pan and then turned them over again, so they were back to how they were in the pan. I used a bread knife and tried to cut off any excess of the tops of the cake to make them flat...that was harder than it seems and I didn't do a very good job, but oh well. Next, I made icing with this recipe-- and it took a TON in order to go between my layers and ice the outside of the cake! I put my first cake layer on the platter and tried to spread a thin layer of the icing. Repeated that until my cakes were gone. I then iced the top and sides fairly generously so I didn't have any cake poking through.
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| It wasn't looking too glamorous at this point |
Lachlan was comfy napping while my sister and I were frantically finishing getting things ready for the party. Dustin was unfortunately not feeling well, so he was resting up.
Another simple thing we did was hang all of Lachlan's monthly pictures so we could all see how much he has changed and grown! Dustin says he peaked around 3-4 months with his cuteness...I disagree.
Lachlan was not in the best of moods, but I think was just a little overwhelming to have so many people in the house. He usually wanted mom or dad in sight at all times. He enjoyed the cake, but didn't go crazy loving it.
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| The layers looked great once we cut into it! |
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| We got him a mini chair from Land of Nod- he liked it more than I thought he would! |
