Lucas's 1st Birthday!

Helping plan parties is one of my all time favorite things to do. I helped one of my dear friends, Cara, with her son's first birthday. We came up with a menu that not only served to be convenient but also comforting during frigid January days. 

One of favorite ideas was a hot chocolate bar! 

We made some delicious hot chocolate: 

14 cups milk (depending on the size of your party)

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate

6 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Scald the milk and pour in your chocolate, remove from heat and stir until the chocolate is melted competely. Add in sugar and spices. Put in a crockpot to keep warm for guests. 

Toppings: we made frozen whipped cream dollops! Easy and no mess, use either canned whipped cream or homemade. Serve with hot chocolate. We also had cinnamon sticks out as stirrers. 

Our main course was mini pizzas. We wanted them to be portable since moms were running after their kiddos and lil kids would be eating them too. We bought our dough from Whole Foods (super convenient!) and rolled them out very thin. We used a cookie cutter and baked them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then we added our toppings. You can choose whatever you'd like. We had mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, red, yellow and orange peppers, purple onion and spinach with marinara sauce. Everyone loved these little guys!

Lucas's 1st birthday was a huge success! Your next birthday party can be this simple too! 

Enjoy! xoxo Lo