The Journey of the SLAM Family: Zackary's Viking Birthday Party

My little boy is turning two next month, so what better time than to re-cap his 1st birthday party! I knew from the beginning it would be a viking/Norway themed party with nautical hints thrown in. My husband is part Norwegian, and we made the nursery theme based off of a viking ship painting that was passed down to my husband, so the party theme made perfect sense!

We had a relaxed party at the house with family and a few friends. For decor, I mainly focused on the food area, which is our dining room.

I made the above invitation on Photoshop.

Behind the invitation I re-used spaghetti jars and painted them and added twine for vases.

Since his birthday is in the summer, there was lots of Red, White and Blue decor to choose from! I picked up some flowers at Michael's that were at a great price.

Fun nautical bucket that I used to hold the silverware. I wrapped the silverware in nautical napkins from Ikea, wrapped them in twine with life preservers (life saver candy).

The drink station was on our dining buffet. We had fruit punch Kool-aid for the kids and waters and sodas for the adults. My mom gave me the fabric scraps of Zack's quilt she made for him, so I made him a tassel garland and used some of the other scraps for table runners and additional decor.

I think the tassel garland is my favorite! I have it hanging in his room now above the changing table.

Some of the food - Viking Booty and Fish

I think this was my best food spread yet! The red, white and blue theme was so easy, didn't take much thought, and I had fun coming up with Viking/Nautical food ideas.

Smash Cake with Nautical Cookies

Since birthday parties are the only time I have time to bake or try out new recipes, I opted to try for some custom looking nautical cookies. I made anchors, life preservers and the Norway flag. It was definitely a trial and error on these bad boys, but I think they look pretty good, and I thought they tasted good too! I tried so many different icing recipes during this process!

Buoys (Marshmallows dipped in Red Colored White Chocolate) & Chips Ahoy

Norway Flag Cake

Me and the girl!

What we wore: For the first part of the party, Zack had a custom onesie embroidered by my mom with his name and a viking ship. We all had matching Viking shirts. One of Andrew's old college friends hand drew the viking and we had them made into shirts!