Just last month, I was writing a post on how we celebrated Olivia’s first birthday 2.5 years ago. I was trying my best to recall all of the fun things we did for her party, by getting lost in all of the photos from that day.
As I was remembering and writing, I started to get so excited for how we could celebrate Ella’s big day. None of us could have imagined that we would be in the midst of a completely uncertain time, navigating a global pandemic, just a month later. Birthdays during a pandemic can be tough to say the least. Priorities totally shift and social distancing keeps celebrations small, but what this has taught us more than anything else, is that our health and our ability to stay safe at home are the greatest gifts that any of us can ask for.
Even though Ella won’t remember a bit, we still wanted to make the day feel special, because we all did it…together! The sleepless nights, big sis (mostly) learning to share – we all got through the first year together and we all love our little peanut so much!
With nothing but extra time on my hands, I welcomed the distraction to take on a few DIY projects for our party of four. So, as we do with all our celebration posts, here’s something smart, something sweet, something to make and something to eat – the self-isolating birthday edition!
Something Smart
This is for anyone who is unable to celebrate a milestone the way they wanted to during this time. Our “something smart” may be obvious, but the smartest way to celebrate right now is with whoever lives in your house. My heart breaks for people who have had to cancel and postpone life’s biggest parties, like weddings, but this is time is truly an exercise in keeping perspective. If you and your loved ones are safe, that is the greatest thing to celebrate while we all try to stay hopeful.
Some fun ideas for smart celebrating during this time are:
- Take tons of videos and photos to share with friends and family
- Facetime, Skype or Zoom to keep loved ones present in real time
- Do a porch drop off if you have left over cake or treats to share
- Try a birthday “drive by” parade. We saw our neighbours arrange this for their son. Friends and family drove by with signs and balloons, honking, playing music and waving. It was the sweetest thing and so special for the “bigger kids”
Something Sweet
Here are two traditions that I find to be super sweet to try for your little ones:
The first is very common: monthly photos! There are so many fun and creative ideas out there, just a quick Pinterest search of monthly milestone photos will bring up some awesome ideas. For consistency with big sis, we stuck with the flower theme for Ella. Sometimes in the moment, it feels super challenging to get a good shot, especially as they get older and more wiggly, but I promise it’s worth it. Even if you don’t love the monthly photoshoot idea, selecting a photo that was taken during each of the months is an adorable way to look back at the subtle changes over the course of the year.
The second sweet tradition that I love is writing a letter to your child for each birthday. We started this for Olivia and will be doing it for Ella too! It’s just a simple message to sum up what that year was like, what their favourite things were and what major events took place. If you are a “theme” type like me, I love matching the card to the theme of the party too.
Something to Make
To be completely honest, this tissue paper backdrop was a labour of love. It took some time and patience but I saw an image on Pinterest that I thought was so pretty, and I was inspired to give it a try.
To do this you need
- a variety of colored tissue paper
- white thread
- needle
- scotch tape
- packing tape (or tape that is stronger than scotch tape)
First, I folded the tissue paper and traced circles using a pencil onto the paper (my tracer was the lid to a cooking pot).
Next, I cut out all of the circles.
I then took a long piece of white thread (as long as you need your backdrop to be) and secured the needle to the end.
I pierced the center of the circles with the needle and threaded through each one so that they were strung on the thread.
Some of the pieces had the tendency to slide down the thread, so I took a tiny bit of scotch (clear) tape here and there and stuck a little bit on the underside attaching the tissue to the thread so that it wouldn’t slide down.
Finally, once I had them all spread out down the thread, spaced the way I wanted them, I secured the thread to the top of the window frame so the tissue strands would fall vertically.
The balloons at the top were able to hide the tape that was holding each strand.
Something to Eat
STRESSED is DESSERTS spelled backwards
I think I channelled all of my covid-19 stress into baking for this occasion. The rainbow cake was so fun! It did take a bit of extra work baking each colour in a separate pan and getting them to stack just right, but cutting into it to reveal the rainbow was so satisfying!
Ella’s smash cake was a simple little vanilla mini cake since I knew not much of it would get eaten.
The rainbow cake pops were also worth a few extra steps for a pretty cool reveal inside. These required the colours baked separately as well, before mixing each cake colour with some frosting and layering together.
I had decided on a rainbow theme for Ella long before our world got shaken up. But as it turns out, their symbolism for hope and beauty after a storm would be just what we needed to celebrate a quarantine birthday.
Best wishes for all of you who are also celebrating during this time!
Megan says
I love this theme so much! Great job on the rainbow cake – it looks amazing 😀. We had to celebrate my son’s 3rd bday in quarantine too. My daughter is 8 months and I’m adding this theme to the list! 😍
Selena McIntyre says
What a beautiful rainbow party. I LOVE your tissue paper backdrop and your traditional monthly photo and birthday letters. It’s awesome that you were able to give Ella such a beautiful party during the quarantine.
Lyndsey says
Thank you for sharing 🙂 My son turns one in July and I am hoping we can have a party, but if not I will do something at home just like you!