I have two October babies so what better way to celebrate than throwing a double birthday party?! Due to Covid-19, we could not invite as many people as we wanted to but we still had a good time with a few family members.
My baby just turned one and my former baby will be four this week. My boys are a week apart. The baby was actually due on the other one's birthday but we had him a week early. Since their birthdays are a week apart, we decided to have a double birthday party and we probably will from here on out. As a family we will celebrate their birthdays on their birthday but if we have a party, it's just easier to invite everyone down at once and throw a big party than two back to back weekends.
We threw an Apple party for my boy's birthdays. My former baby, child #3, has always been obsessed with apples. He loves fruit over sweets, which is definitely not a bad thing. He even calls people apple for some weird reason and thinks it's hilarious when they say, "I'm not an apple". Ever since I can remember he has talked about apples. He even says it's one of his favorite foods so I figured, what better way to celebrate his birthday than with an apple party.
I originally looked into having the party at an apple orchard so we could go apple picking since there was only going to be a few of us, but all of the local orchards only have apples in bins to pick from this year due to a late frost so we decided to have the party at our new house.
An apple party is a great theme for fall. You can easily throw an apple party as a birthday party like I did or have it as a general fall themed party.
Since it was my baby's first birthday, I wanted to go all out. I will admit it was hard for me knowing that I was mainly decorating for my own sake because my son won't remember it but hopefully my kids will look back at pictures and know that their mommy and daddy tried to give them the best birthday that they could have!
First birthday parties are usually bigger than other birthday parties. I honestly have no clue as to why other than a "we survived the first year of life" moment. Since we had a double birthday party, I tried to do the same decorations aside from the high chair decorations for my almost four-year-old so that he didn't feel left out.
It's not fair that a baby gets his own cake and the four-year-old gets a cupcake right?!?
The Outfit
I bought two red shirts in their sizes from Hobby Lobby and had my brother print and add the vinyl to the shirts since he has a Circuit.
I replaced to "O's" in the words "one" and "four" with an apple.
The Food
The plus side to having an apple party is that there are so many different recipes out there that have apples in them. On top of that, it is fall and there are tons of fall foods, flavors, and spices that you can add to the party.
Here is how we set up all out apple themed food:
The party food consisted of:
- Ham & Cheese Pinwheels
- Taco Tortilla Pinwheels
- Veggie Straws
- Fruit Salsa & Homemade Tortilla Cinnamon Chips
- Caramel Apple Fudge (recipe from The First Year Blog)
- Apple Danishes
- Apple Nutrigrain Bars
- Coffee Cakes
- Caramel Apple Nacho Bar - Cut up apples, Caramel, M&M's, mini chocolate chips, crushed graham crackers, granola, crushed nuts, red & green sprinkles
- Apples
- Apple Sauce
- Apple Cider Cupcakes
- Apple Cider Donuts - we had these for breakfast the day of the party
The Caramel Apple Nachos were so fun! I topped mine with mini chocolate chips, M&M's, caramel, and crushed graham cracker.
I had hotdog containers that matched the theme to put the apple nachos in so it didn't make a huge mess.
I love coming up with food ideas to match the party theme. There are tons of apple food recipes out there. Here are some other apple food ideas:
- Caramel Apples
- Caramel Apple Bar
- Sugar cookies in shape of apples
- Apple Oatmeal Cookies
- Apple No Bake Cookies
- Apple Crisp
- Apple Pie
- Apple Cobbler
- Apple Fritters
- Apple Dump Cake
- Apple Rice Cake
- Apple Cinnamon Muffins
- Baked Apples
- Homemade Applesauce
Sandwiches, potato salad, and pasta salad would also go great with the apple theme. When thinking of food to serve, you can think of what you would serve at a fall picnic.
There are tons of apple recipes out there, these are just a few apple foods I thought of off the top of my head that you could add. Pinterest is a great place for to search for recipes.
The Cake & Cupcakes
We had an Apple Cider Smash cake with homemade Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting. We doubled the recipe to make two small cakes, one for each kid, and then we used the rest to make cupcakes. We followed the recipe from the blog, Oh, Sweet Basil.
The cake was a little dry for my liking, but the frosting was amazing!
I then decorated the cake with a round Wilton 21 tip making dots all the way around the cake. The cake was topped with thinly sliced apple slices and caramel drizzled over the apple slices. The icing taste amazing but it was a little to heavy for cake decorating so we had to keep the cakes in the fridge to avoid the icing melting.
If you are making a smash cake for a one year old, keep an eye on them and make sure they don't eat the apple slices as they may be to hard for them to eat and can be a choking hazard.
Don't like Apple Cider? You can try these other different cake/cupcake flavors:
- Caramel Apple Cupcakes
- Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream Frosting
- Applesauce Cupcakes
- Apple Crisp Cupcakes
- Apple Pie Cupcakes
- Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes
- Make any cupcake look like apples using red frosting
The Beverages
We had red solo cups to go with the apple theme. If you really want to get creative, you can use green construction paper to add a green leaf to the cups or a straw to make them look like apples.
We had a variety of drinks to choose from:
- Apple Cider
- Apple Juice Boxes
- Sweet Tea
- a few 2Liters
- Water
The Decorations
You can't have a first birthday party without a smash cake and a decorated high chair. For the high chair, I used the apple O-N-E I made for their shirts and printed it off in the shape of banner flags. I cut the letters out and mounted them to red construction paper. I then hole punched two holes in the top and stringed the letters with twine. I cut strips of ribbon Burlap and stapled them to the twine. I taped the banner to the high chair with clear packaging tape.
I hung a table cloth behind the high chair as a backdrop.
The birthday boy fell asleep during the smash cake session. This was a first for my family, but made for a cute picture. I guess all the birthday fun wore him out.
The table cloths used were a red and white buffalo plaid design that looked like picnic blankets.
The centerpiece for the main table was a basket full of apples that the guest could also eat.
I set up a little table for gifts with a chalkboard sign above it that said, "A Bushel of Fun!"
Below is the food set up. I cut apples out of construction paper and taped them to the counter top. I also pulled some pretend apples out of the kids kitchen and set them around the food.
The "I love you a bushel and a peck" sign is hanging by the high chair along with the cute high chair decorations and table cloth backdrop for pictures.
I had another letter board hanging that said, "Apple of our Eyes" along with the kids names and ages they were turning. I hung pictures I had recently taken of my one year old in an apple bath and my four year old eating an apple.
I also printed out signs with their weight, height, favorite foods, favorite toys, what they can do (milestones), and what they love. I know this is something that you usually only do for the first birthday but since we were having a double birthday party, I thought it was only fair to make one for my four year old.
I decorated the "Apple of our Eyes" area with construction paper apples I cut out, red streamers hanging in the doorway, and red balloons all over the ground.
This was a fun way to display my kids milestones and new pictures. I also hung a "Happy Birthday" banner.
The Game - Apple Tree Toss
Since we recently moved, we had a bunch of boxes. I drew a tree outline on one of the large boxes and cut it out with a box knife. I traced a bowl and cut out some holes in the top of the tree. I painted the top green, added a few apples with a red paint pen, drew some lines on the tree's base with a brown sharpie to make it look like bark, and rigged the bottom to make the tree stand up.
I picked out all the red ball pit balls we had and put them in a basket to represent apples.
You could also use a corn hole board instead for your apple tree toss. Other games that may be fun are:
- Apples to Apples
- Hi Ho Cherry-O
- Corn Hole
- Bobbing for Apples
- Decorating your own Apple Tree Craft
- Color Apple Pages
- Pin the Apple on the Tree
There is surprisingly a lot of things you can do for an apple party. From apple food to apple decorations to apple games, and more. You can even go to an apple orchard. An apple party is a great birthday party idea for anyone born in fall. It is also a great gender-neutral party. You could easily use this theme as a baby shower as well. So many fun options! I think one of the best parts about the theme is all the fall food you can incorporate.
The boys had a good time. My four-year-old got a hooded Yoda blanket, several Yoda shirts, tons of coloring books, and legos. My one year old got a toddler car track, baby cars and animals, Pajamas, and several yogurt melts. He also got a squishy cheeseburger and baby shakers that he was obsessed with. My one-year-old didn't want to open gift because he was tired and then fell asleep during the cake smash. My four-year-old could't wait to play with his gift and has been coloring almost everyday since. Overall I think it's safe to say they had a good time.
I'd love to know what you think. Comment below!
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