Shane has always been our little monkey since the day he was born.  The first morning they met, his big brother Nathan had placed his gift of a sock monkey doll into Shane’s isolate at the hospital, and we have loved those little iconic monkeys ever since.   We had so many cute photos  of Shane with his beloved sock monkey that it seemed to the be obvious choice for a theme for his first birthday party!

I went with a color theme of red, white, light blue and brown and tried to incorporate a monkey theme into as much as I could.  We had a build-your-own sock monkey puppet station where the kids could make puppets and play with them in the little door theater I made.  There was also a sock monkey photo booth, a Pin the Tail on the Sock Monkey game, sock monkey coloring book pages and of course tons of sweet treats to  keep the kids entertained.  The monkey themed food included “Monkey mix”, banana chips, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Jungle Juice, and Monkey vine licorice ropes.

Each little guest got a party hat that I made for them as well as a sock monkey stuffed animal with their name on them!  They could also stock up on treats from the candy buffet   One of my favorite parts was having a sign near the photo booth with our own party hash tag for our friends and family to tag all their Instagram photos to.  After the party was over it was so much fun to look through all the photos that everyone posted!  Especially the ones of Shane devouring his entire smash cake handful by handful!

There was also a surprise guest!  For our other son’s first birthday Daddy surprised everyone (including me) by dressing up as Elmo.  This year he fooled us all again and came dressed in a giant turkey costume!  I know you’re thinking that has nothing to do with sock monkeys, but Shane was born the day before Thanksgiving so we all thought it was pretty funny!

Shane was all smiles his whole party and was so happy all his friends and family were there to monkey around on his very special day!  We had such a memorable time celebrating our Little Monkey’s first birthday!