My friend, Tracy, from Lexis designed Jonah's invite and she did a phenomenal job (she's also the one that designed Jonah's birth announcement)! All I told her was that I wanted a whale themed invitation and that incorporated a specific saying and Jonah's picture and this is what she came up with. She is an amazing designer and if you ever need an invite or card created she's definitely the gal for the job (see her shop on Etsy).
So after the invitation was designed and created I continued to plan, plan, plan! I got on every website from ETSY to Zazzle and tried to get as many whale ideas as possible....
I ordered this personalized birthday banner from Etsy!
I also got some great ideas from Etsy...including this 12 month photo timeline. It was a lot of fun to make and brought back a lot of memories looking through the pictures to find pictures from every month of Jonah's first year! Oh and the blue buckets on the table were what the kids used to collect their pinata loot.
I also got the idea for these centerpiece ideas from Etsy. Let's just say that I was a good loyal Michael's and Hobby Lobby customer this past month.
Of course in keeping with the whale theme, we had to have a whale cake of course. I ordered Jonah's cake from Ashley's Pastry Shop in Oakwood. Over the years, Ashley's has made some of the most beautiful cakes for some of our momentous occasions, including graduations, showers, birthdays and our wedding. They are definitely my go to bakery for any special occasion!
Jonah's desert table was filled with anything and everything imaginable. Of course there was cake, but there was also whale cookies compliments of Ashley's of course (ugh I can't tell you how hard it was to find a whale cookie cutter), cake pops, and blue candy galore! I bought any and all blue candy that I could get my hands on...
Here are some of the adorable whale cookies and Jonah's smash cupcake...it was so cute too!
Cake pops, blue gum balls, pixie sticks, m&m's ....
This was the picture on top of Jonah's whale cookie display...
I found these adorable blue buckets for the drink table at The Christmas Tree Shop (another one of my favorite shops). I love going there because you never know what you're gonna find when you go in there. I had a tub of Capri-Suns (for the kiddo's), a tub of bottled water and a tub of soda and the tiny tub in front was the ice bucket. It's also the same bucket that we used for Jonah's first year pics.
Momma and her baby boy!
Teta and Jonah!
The kids table was bumping...they had crayons and water color paints to keep them occupied.....
oh and did I mention that Uncle Mikey was face painting too.... He was a hit at the party. The kids enjoyed getting their faces painted.
Stella got a whale painted on her face!oh and Stella also wore her personalized whale shirt (thank you Etsy, again!)....
Jonah and his buddy Ryker had a blast playing together at the party.
Notice Jonah's personalized whale shirt (yup another Etsy purchase)...
And it was finally time to sing and have birthday cake!
Jonah loved being sung too and sitting near his cake. I was afraid at one point that he would dive right into it!
Time to get Jonah NAKED and let him at his smash cake! We stripped Jonah down to his diaper and put him in his high chair and he was ready to go. At first he put a finger or two in the icing. He just didn't know what to do....
Until he finally got some of the icing in his mouth...
And he got more and more into his cake....He absolutely loved it and by the end he had icing in his hair, his ear and God knows where else.
Finally it was time to tear into the whale pinata! It was actually it was a pull string pinata and the kids loved it. We lined them up youngest to oldest and passed out their favor buckets too collect their loot in.
Up first was the birthday boy of course. Jonah very much liked pulling the string!
Time for presents.... Jonah got very spoiled and received a lot of great presents.
Initially, Jonah didn't know what to do with the wrapping paper but when we began to tear off a corner or two he got the hang of it really quick...
Here is Jonah riding on one of the 6 ride on toys her received!
And Jonah riding on the blue whale his sister Stella bought him!
I had a blast planning Jonah's First Birthday Party and well it was a lot of fun! Jonah definitely had a great time. It's impossible to believe that Jonah is one already! We are so blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful friends and family to share with us these very special and momentous occasions and we look for many more wonderful celebrations to come!
