For my son's 1st birthday party it was easy to decide on a theme.  Both he and his 3 yr old brother absolutely love the Backyardigans, so that was what I did.  I wanted to have a backyard� party but since his birthday was towards the end of October I did want to rely on the weather.  I rented out the local activity center, which had a huge room with lots a tables, kitchen and extra room for the kids to play. I decided to send photo invitations so that all of the out of town family could see how much he had grown. I ordered it off of ebay and was able to email it or print it out at walmart in a regular 4x6 photo form. The invitation read. . . My friends and I are here to say grass & flowers on the bottom half and blue sky clouds and balloons on the top half which was perfect for the party setting.  I set this up in a 12 x 18 foot corner of the room. My mother-in-law painted all five of the Backyardigan characters on 3 foot cardboard and we created wooden stands to stand them up in the backyard They looked just like the real thing- and it was great because they were taller than most of the children.  I brought many outside toys inside to add to the outside feel.  We had a slide a ball pit a large horse a tent shaped like a space ship some small toddler size patio chairs and a basket filled with Backyardigan books- we had Backyardigan balls and of course the Backyardigans Cd's were playing. There were also some backyardigan balloons blown up for the kids to play with- they really liked these. On the tables I had different colored plastic table clothes- all bright colors like the characters.  On each table were clusters of brightly colored balloons held down by a backyardians paper cup filled with green paper shred that looked like grass. Then I printed out the characters from nickjr.com and put them on popsicle sticks sticking out of the grass. I had got a couple of old backyardigans calendars at the dollar store and stuck the pictures all throughout the room on the walls.  On the cake table I had a Backyardigans table cover & his Backyardigan dolls along with my laptop computer playing a slideshow of him throughout the whole first year. Since there were about 6 babies his age and younger I had a changing station set up complete with wipes/changing pads/& purell. There were also baby walkers & booster seats to make them all comfortable.  The kids ages ranged from 7 months to 11 years so I had to really think about what sort of activities to do- the backyard area kept them all busy for a while- like one big backyard they were playing in. I had a coloring station set up on one of the tables which was a huge hit.  I had printed out coloring pages from nickjr.com and also made masks of each character.  They got to color their favorite characters face which was glued to a popsicle stick and use it as a mask. This was a huge hit- even for the older kids.  Next we did pin the bowtie on Pablo (the penguin) which I bought from an online party store. And next we did the limbo to one of the Backyardigans songs. This was a hit especially when my 3 yr old came running out dressed as Pablo- he was our special guest. I had normal food-chicken/rigatoni/salad/potatoes/chips/pretzels.  The cake was a Backyardigans cake I got from walmart and I made cupcakes with the Backyardigans cupcake holders and put huge one inch brightly colored sprinkles on them. Each child got a Backyardigans goodie bag filled with Backyardigans fruit snacks (puffs for the babies) Backyardigans whistle Backyardigans key chain and I made a CD with all of the Backyardigans song on it- complete with a homemade label thanking them for coming to the 1st birthday party.  For the thank you notes I took a picture of my son playing with or wearing each person's gift.  I went to shutterfly.com and put a border around the picture along with a caption thanking them each individually for whatever was given. If they gave a gift card or money I just used a picture of him eating the cake.  All of the kids young and old seemed to really have a good time. Even the older one's told me how much fun they had. It was a success.    "