Mateo's One Year Fiesta!

I am not someone who is known as a planner, but I have to pat myself on the back for for throwing together a nice little fiesta for Mateo's first birthday. Of course, this would not have happened without the help of my wonderful parents [and a minor breakdown in the parking lot of party city].

Mateo's grandpartents are the best!  They offered to host the party, which was perfect beacuase I really wanted my family to be there and knew they would not be able to come to Atlanta.

As soon as I saw this invitation from Etsy seller Inviting Printables, a theme was born.  I sent her the details for the party and asked if she could add this little picture of my mexi-can.  How cute is this?

I found a lot of inspiration for this fiesta on Pinterest.  (shocker, right?)

As usual it was overload, and I had too many ideas....but no plan.  This is why I had the aforementioned breakdown in the parking lot of Party City.  

(On a side note, I am not a fan of this store, it seems pricey and although they carry every color you could want for party essentials, it isn't at all stylish like good 'ol Target.  Bottom line: Go to Target first!)

I didn't specify a dress code, but was happy to see that my brother Bill and his family took the Mexican theme and ran with it.  (see middle pic below)  We supplied mustaches to anyone who felt "under dressed."

I used the invitation and made up a little menu card.  

A few notes about the food.  

The Smoked Pork recipe is from Bobby Flay. And although not a traditional Mexican dish, it had a Mexican flare.   It was tasty, but next time I would definitely go with the carnitas we have made in the past.

I burnt the flan.  Yep, no flan at the party.  Mi suegra would be so disappointed in me.  I used her recipe and really screwed it up.  Burnt.  Luckily we had several other desserts.  

I found these cute sombrero cookies from edible crafts and they turned out so cute and delish! We used my mom's sour cream sugar cookie recipe) 

I whipped up the easiest dessert called Pastel de galleta al limon.  Ernesto's cousin gave it to me and it is a repeater for sure. It's basically lime juice, vanilla cookies and 3 different kinds of canned milk.  You will die! (I'll write a separate post with the recipe)

I thought it would be fun to serve one of my favorite treats when I go to Mexico.  Fruit cups with chile and lime.  Mateo loved this!  Yes, even the chile. 

Since there was so much to do for the party, I opted for a box marble cake (gasp!) and it was delicious.  I used store bought frosting as well, but added food coloring and used my friends Pampered Chef decorator bottle set (I'm definitely buying this!) to turn it into a sombrero cake.  Cute, right?

I made one special cupcake for my little Mexi-can and boy did he like that frosting.

I was singing happy birthday to him all morning so when everyone sang to him at the party he was ready to clap at the end. 

We tricked him into wearing this hat and he didn't even know it.  Ahh the power of distraction.

 The decorating was easy.  Just having everything colorful on the table was so cute.  I printed out all the monthly photos of Mateo, pasted them to card stock and strung them along the window.  Below that I hung a cute little "Feliz Cumpleaños" sign.

Ernesto cut tissue paper into strips and hung it from my parents porch roof and hung a bunch of balloons.  It was festive. 

And of course, no birthday fiesta is complete without a piñata.  Fortunately the Target in Canton Ohio carries them.  This burro was a strong little sucker and took quite a few hits to break open.

Mateo did his best, but then we passed the stick to some older kids!  Here is the before and after.

The next morning Mateo woke up refreshed and had a blast fiddling with his new toys.

It was a great party!  Thanks to everyone who came and made Mateo's first birthday memorable.  Thank god I have this blog so Mateo will be able to look back on it!