This past weekend we celebrated our littlest guy’s 1st birthday! As I reflected here last week, I can’t believe that a year has come and gone and what Jude has had to walk through already in his first year of life. He is a fighter!
I’ve discovered that what they say about having a third child is true: they are usually chill, not necessarily out of personality but out of necessity! And that quite often, you are so busy with the first two that the third child does go unnoticed, sometimes. I hate to admit it, but it is the fact of parenting three kids under the age of four. Everyone cannot have your attention at all times. And because Jude is such a calm and relaxed baby, he is totally ok with just falling in that third baby stereotype quite easily.
That being said, he still is my baby and I want to make sure he feels just as celebrated as our older two. For Leah and Gabriel, their first birthdays were HUGE. No detail was spared and therefore I knew I had to do something of significance for our little Judey-bear (as we all lovingly seem to call him).
But then again flipping back into crazy-busy-momma-of-three-under-four mode, who has the time to plan something like that?! Especially after we just came back from a two week vacation! So fast forward to the day before his party and my hubby and I were scrambling! We had invited about 30 people to come and knew we couldn’t disappoint! This party was literally thrown together in less than 24 hours, definitely not how I usually operate, but I would say it turned out well! As I look at pictures, there are MANY things I would love to go back and tweak (let’s talk about my leaning tower of cake!!! Like what happened there?!) but in the end, Jude was celebrated, in class and style, and we loved spending time with some our closest friends while eating way too many sweets!
The theme I came up with was Geometric Aztec. I have been loving seeing all the geometric-inspired party ideas lately and who doesn’t love a little native flair thrown in there complete with feathers, arrows and teepee’s!
My hubby and I designed and created the signage for the party, including the invitation, bunting banner, water bottle wraps and all other framed prints. I guess this is the perfect time to let the cat out of the bag that we are working HARD to open up our online SHOP where we will be selling party printables, like the ones here, as well as lovely prints that you can frame and hang in your home! We are SO EXCITED to launch this…but there is still LOTS of work to be done. But sit tight and get pumped, cause it’s coming!
I love having a handy husband…he can make just about anything I ask him to! He made the geometric shapes hanging from the ceiling and also painted the backdrop sign for the party. He was up til 3:00am creating this! Have I mentioned how much I love him?!
The menu included: chocolate & rainbow chip cake with vanilla cream frosting, chocolate fudge cupcakes with vanilla cream frosting, rice krispie squares dipped in melted candy (I will post a tutorial soon on how to do this as I have received many questions about how to use melting candy), lifesavor-flavored cotton candy, fieldberry yogurt, veggie stix and arrowroot cookies (I mean, Jude had to have his favorites too, right?!) and enough lollipops to feed a small village! To say the kids were buzzing from all the sugar is a HUGE understatement!
We also set up a craft station complete with native coloring pages and supplies to make native headdresses, which the kids all loved!
All in all, we had an amazing party! The birthday boy loved all his presents and of course, his cake! We are so blessed to be surrounded by a community of amazing friends, who are quickly becoming like family to us. When you don’t have immediate family living near you, it’s so critical to invest into friendships where you know you can count on them for just about anything and vice versa. And I’m blessed to say I’ve found many of these friends here in the GTA.
Well there, you have it! Our last babies 1st birthday party! What a joy to be his momma! What a privilege to parent these children! The days are long and I’ll be honest, I don’t always enjoy every.single.moment so making sure to find time to really celebrate birthdays and big milestones I think is so important in our crazy busy world. Amidst the chaos of our days, let’s remember to stop and celebrate the lives that make it so special!
Love & Blessings,
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