Beginning the New Year with a Birthday Celebration!!!

January 1 - the first day of the new year and a mere four days before my baby boy's 16th birthday.

And, today we welcomed the new year by celebrating that boy's birthday.
We chose to celebrate today so that Dad could be here and, really, any day, every day, is a good day to celebrate life with my kiddos.
So, celebrate we did!!!

Our birthday tradition is simply a family dinner with the menu selected by the birthday person.  Sometimes that dinner has a theme but often times it doesn't.  However, for this birthday we had a theme, a Mickey Mouse theme.  Bishop had been telling me how cool he thinks vintage Mickey Mouse is and while browsing the party section of the dollar store I jokingly suggested a Mickey Mouse party for his 16th birthday.  He surprised me by saying, "OK."  So I set out to create a Mickey Mouse party worthy of a soon-to-be 16 year old.

Here are the decorations...

Party favors - m&m's, glow stick flute, and oreo cookies dipped in chocolate and made to look a little like Mickey.

 ...and the cake...

...and the punch and the candy bar...

Black, red and white candies - red vines, black licorice, cherry sours, white chocolate covered kit kats and reese's.

 ...and the food.  Mickey Mouse's first words were "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" so we created a hot dog bar.  We had Boars Head beef hot dogs, chili, cheese, German mustard, saurkraut, onions, ketchup, mustard, buffalo ketchup, jalapeno mustard, chipotle mayo, relish, mayonnaise, and more.  YUM!

 There was definite silliness with the flutes!  Aaahhh, the simple pleasures in life!!

 Bishop chose the cake and ice cream for his special meal.  He chose a yellow cake and a chocolate cream cheese frosting.  For the ice cream he selected a chocolate vanilla split tub.

 This cake was very, very delicious!!!

He received a Mickey Mouse birthday card...

 ...and opened his Mickey Mouse wrapped package...

 ...to find shoes...

...pastel blue Addidas.  (And, yes, that is a spoon tucked under his hat with the handle dangling over his nose and, no, I don't know why.  There is always some ridiculousness).

 We concluded the evening by watching a 1930 Mickey Mouse film on my reel-to-reel film projector.

 So cool!!!

 Even the cat enjoyed the festivities!

It was a fun evening and a true celebration of our Bishop!!!
What a great way to begin the New Year!!!