Now that we are two years into it, I’m finding that every milestone with your littlest baby is bittersweet because you’re cognizant it’s the last time you are probably going to go through that experience. I find myself definitely holding on to things more (like hey, she still prefers using her baby bottle before bedtime…I’m completely OK with that!). As she approached her second birthday, I started to think about how we could celebrate meaningfully this year. Though she does attend some enrichment classes outside the home, since they aren’t every day and sometimes the attendance is spotty, her closest “friends” are her siblings and cousins, so I wanted to keep it small. It just so happened that we had a little vacation to Santa Barbara planned with both of my sisters and their families (the first time we’ve done that), so it seemed like the perfect opportunity since she would be together with all of her cousins on my side in one place.
I mentioned before that I’ve always loved Winnie-The-Pooh and wanted to do a party in that theme, but none of my other kids ever really became a big fan so I knew it wouldn’t be right for them. To my delight, earlier this year when my littlest one was introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh, she absolutely fell in love (finally!). “Pooh” and “Piglet” (“Gigg-Get”) became some of her earlier words, and for a while, the first two words she would say when we woke her up each morning! It was her favorite storybook and the theme song also became her favorite bedtime lullaby (lyrics adjusted from “Christopher Robin” to “Josie-Bear”). I have to say, I was pretty excited that I would finally get to plan a Winnie-The-Pooh party!
Since it was going to be family only, I wanted to keep it pretty casual and low-key. Plus, it was going to be out of town, so the amount of setup would have to be minimal. I am not very familiar with Santa Barbara, so I had to scout out the town online. I wanted a concept where we could hopefully just show up and the environment would make up for most of the “decor” and it would keep kids of a range of ages (age 1-11) entertained.
In researching fun things to do for families in Santa Barbara, one of the attractions I came across was “Kids World“, which declared itself as the biggest playground for kids. It was pretty central to the town, and from the pictures, it looked fun and surrounded by plenty of picnic tables. That sparked the idea of making it a picnic party, which fit nicely since Piglet and Pooh would sometimes go on picnics anyway.
Since my baby girl and my eldest son both have food allergies, I had to look for a bakery that could make gluten-free and vegan cakes. I knew the park was the place for us when I found the only bakery in town that could do that was only about a mile away from the park! They couldn’t really do custom decorations, but that was OK because it was something I could plan for. They had a super simple website where I could order a plain white gluten-free, vegan cake in advance. So easy!
Going off the picnic theme, I also started researching places I could pick up some sandwiches or salads. My husband mentioned a French cafe he had heard great things about. When I looked it up, I couldn’t believe that they not only offered catering packages but they were ALSO less than a mile away from the park! It was all too perfect!
With those big elements taken care of, now I could focus on the fun part – all the little details to personalize the party. It was going to be relatively small – 7 kids in total and 6 adults. And a picnic meant it would be super casual. So really, I only needed a few things to set the scene.
I landed on getting a cute picnic basket that would double as a prop but also as a practicality – it held the Pooh plates, yellow Gingham napkins, and wooden cutlery during the party, and it also allowed me to put a bunch of other stuff in it to carry to the park for our set up. I brought my daughter’s Pooh and Piglet stuffies to help set the scene as well.
For a simple backdrop, I created my own Winnie-the-Pooh banner off my computer (which I’ve also made as a downloadable print file on Etsy for anyone interested). I found a party vendor that could blow up some balloons for me that I was able to pick up on the way. I didn’t quite know exactly where I would hang up all these things, figuring we could just show up and we’d figure it out. We were lucky that the shaded picnic table was open and right next to the fence, which made for the perfect spot for our banner.
Next, some simple decorations for the “centerpiece” which was the cake. Since I had purchased a plain white cake, I would need to bring in all of the decorations. I’ve always found the easiest way to make a cake look festive is with fondant decor. I found this amazing vendor on Etsy who could make these adorable Pooh characters. Since the bakery couldn’t do custom icing or decor, I wanted to find something that could easily decorate the side of the cake as well. After some research, I discovered these “printed” icing sheets, and there were a couple of Etsy vendors that had Pooh themed ones available. Since I already had the characters on top of the cake, I decided on this one that was a map of the Hundred Acre Wood. And for the cake topper, to make sure I was justifying the cost of my Cricut, I designed and made a custom glitter topper myself.
Additional treats for kids with food allergies is never easy, even more so if you’re out of town. I ended up pre-baking and icing some gluten-free sugar cookies, and doing the same thing with the printed icing sheets options.
I also found these adorable honeybee cake pops that I felt like would fit in with the theme! It wasn’t exactly Winnie-the-Pooh, but still fit in closely enough! The Etsy vendor I worked with was so sweet. It isn’t something typical she offers, but she was kind enough to try out a new gluten-free and egg-free recipe for us. They turned out absolutely adorable!
For party favors, I kept them super simple as well. As usual, I forgot to take a photo of what is IN the favor. I have a thing with not wanting to put in too much junk. For these, I kept them pretty simple with these Winnie-the-Pooh lollipop holders, Pooh tattoos, and I found some Pooh-themed socks that I thought would be useful and on theme! I added them to these ready-made Pooh honey pots, created my own tag that matched my DIY banner, and wrapped it in some cellophane.
It was such a sweet simple celebration. Not too over-the-top, yet still personalized and special for her. We had a wonderful picnic lunch with our family as we got to celebrate her.
(And I finally got to have my Pooh party ☺️.)
That Celebration Life 