Julian's First Birthday Party!

Julian had his first birthday party last weekend, and it was a blast! It's kinda funny because when I first started thinking of his party seriously, I thought to myself "it's just going to be immediate family members, cake, and we're done." I had in my mind that doing anything bigger or more elaborate would be a lot of no-fun stress. BUT...then, the idea for the theme of his party came to me: SPOT! I also realized: I might not have another baby. I wanted to do it up for this baby boy in case that would be true.

Spot books are his FAVORITE books! He's loved them since he was a brand new baby. In fact, I'm sure Spot is the reason that "puppy" was Julian's first word. I was so excited about the theme, I couldn't help myself with all the planning and preparing! And I had so much fun doing it! AND, as his sincere and undying love for BEACH BALLS presented itself more and more each day, I knew I had to incorporate them into the party too. Lucky for me, one of Spot's favorite toys is a ball! (Which I forced into being a beach ball:) I was nervous up until the day of because I had had all of these ideas in my head and I just took as many as I could and ran with them, but I wasn't sure how it would all tie together.

It seemed like each day I had a new thing to do to prepare for the party, and I stayed busy doing so! But of course, I was still up until VERY late the night before the party with my awesome sister-in-law Candace, friend Keri Snyder, mother-in-law Elaine, and baby daddy, Stace:) They all helped me pull all the ideas together sooo much, and I am so grateful for them! Candace, Keri, and Elaine pretty much headed up the cooking and creating of all the food! YUM! They did an amazing job, too! Oh yes, and of course, Elaine and the family hosted the party in their home, which I was very grateful for!

So first I designed the invitations, and once I sent them out to our close friends in Tallahassee and our huge amount of family members, I realized: "oh wow! there's no turning back now!" eek!

So December 4th came and so did the guests! As they arrived, they saw lots of balloons on either side of the walkway leading up the front door, and then this:

Upon entry, you saw the painting on the left (below)! This was the first thing I painted for the party, and probably my favorite. Stace says we have to hang them in his room, but I say if we do, we'd just hang that one:) The one in the middle below is a painting of Spot on his birthday (from the book "Spot's Birthday Party" which was also displayed at the entrance).

To your right you saw Spot's Reading Nook (below) and on the other side of the room "Pin the Spot on Spot" (above). There was also a penant banner (see two pictures down) that said his name and had a little sparkly paw print on each letter leading into the reading nook room.

So below left is that penant banner I mentioned. The cutout Spot below was on the piano next to the first photo book I ever made of Julian. I made him out of foam board and acrylic paint (just like the "Pin the Spot on Spot" sign). The banner at the bottom of the collage below is the first thing I made for his party, other than the invite. I mounted each letter of "Happy Birthday" on brown card stock, and then the card stock went on alternating colors of card stock. I found a little "paw print" puncher and punched each of the colored card stocks papers along the edges.

The collage below is of the banner I made of pictures of Julian reading Spot books throughout his little life! That highlighted one of my favorite things about the party-- that if he could talk and could tell me what kind of party he wanted, he probably would have said a Spot and a beach ball party. :) That banner was the last thing I made, and I'm glad I decided to because it was probably my favorite decoration!

The room with the painting of Spot on his birthday was also the "decorate your own birthday hat" room! I made a "Spotty" table runner using yellow & brown felt:) There were also lots and lots of balloons! Julian was in heaven!

This was a hit at the party, so I'm glad we did it!

Outside there was "Spot's Beach Ball Bounce!" I found a tarp on Oriental Trader (along with the tons of beach balls, and hot dog holders) like the ones kids use in P.E. to bounce balls with. So I thought that would be a fun activity to incorporate the beach balls:) There were beach balls hanging in the trees, and two little Spot puppy dogs (again, made from foam board & acrylic paint) "playing" with beach balls hanging from the back porch.

I found a circle puncher on sale at Michael's and so I thought it would be cute to make "spotted" water bottle labels. And, so we did! We made waay too many, too! Tip: did you know that Lowe's has 24 packs of Zephryhills water bottles for like, $3.95?! AWESOME. Of course, we had to do hotDOGS! :) And then I found a bone shaped cookie cutter, and these little bone shaped dishes in the $1 aisle at Target! I at first wanted to do Oreo balls in all the colors of the party (red, yellow, blue, light blue, and green), but realized as the baking commenced that was just too much, so Candace, Keri, and Elaine just dipped them in yellow colored candy melts and milk chocolate brown candy melts. Candace and Keri made the bone sugar cookies and the AMAZING 3 layer chocolate Spot cake above! It was so delicious and decorated so perfectly! And then they also made the three layer white beach ball cake below, and made homemade marshmallow fondant to decorate it with!! They put so much time into the cakes; how can I ever repay them or thank them adequately?! No idea. But I'll try!

Julian had his own little penant banner on his high chair that matched the "Julian" banner. He also had a birthday crown like Spot's! And by the way, he LOVED the cake! It was hilarious! He had never had any refined sugar up until this day! He sure found out that we'd been holding out on him!

Daddy made Julian's bib by printing out a picture of Spot and his friends and then ironing it to a plane white bib. I got Julian's shirt made by a vendor on Etsy. I am so grateful for our family! And PS: I think my husband gets better and better looking, (ok, can I just say "hotter"?!) with age. haha! ;D

The picture on the top left is a detail pic of the blocks I made for the party and for his room. Each letter block has a picture of each of the first 12 months of his life:) Those were a LABOR of LOVE! Way more time was spent on them than it looks like:/ it's a little embarrassing. Then it was present time! It was so fun! He really knew just what to do! He took that tissue paper right out of the bag like it was his job, and had a blast looking at his new toys!

Above are pics of Julian's cousins Georgia and Levi playing with beach balls, and Julian playing with them and his Aunt Kathleen:)

Above are pics of some of the party guests, including Julian's Aunts Jessica and Marissa (we were laughing in this pic), my friend Hannah, Julian's cousin Caroline, and me with both of my "2nd mama's": my MIL Elaine and Marci Beck:)

Party favors were doggie bags filled with "puppy chow" (cocoa puffs and little red, green, blue and yellow dog bone candies-- also an Oriental Trader find), a beach ball, and then the babies got their very own Spot books that came complete with a modged podged picture of Julian that said "thank you for coming to my party!" I found the "spotted" cellophane bags at Target! I was very excited when I found them! Above is a picture of Julian's cousin Kate and she and her sisters' doggie bags.

To close out the party, he got a little bit of Aunt Sasa lovin, which he always loves! The middle picture above was us after church the next day, and the picture to the right was him right before bedtime on the day of his party. It was such a wonderful day-- I didn't want it to end! And I'm pretty sure he didn't either!