Some days honestly feel too big & too special to put into words…and Judah’s first birthday was 100% one of them. A whole year with our beautiful son! A year of reading to him every day/ night, watching him interact with the pictures, hearing him babble as Shawn & I read ‘I Want My Hat Back’ together to him, having him flip the pages. When it came time to plan his first birthday party, the theme was a no brainer for us: Judah’s First Chapter. ◡̈
We hosted the party at home on a Saturday, which was a week after Judah’s actual birthday. His actual bday was during the week and the weekend just made the most sense! Honestly, I think we’ll probably always do it that way (unless his birthday lands on a weekend). We invited about 50 people and had roughly 40 show up. It was the sweetest seeing Judah interact with the kids!
The Theme
The overarching theme was “Judah’s First Chapter”… a celebration of all the books we’ve already read together and all the ones still to come! We pulled in some of his favorites (aka the books he lets us read to him lol) I Want My Hat Back, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Llama Llama Red Pajama, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?…to name a few!!
I love the stories but also love that all of the books are full of color. So that became our color palette for the party.
The Decor
Decorating the entire first floor of the house took us a while! Shawn started making the paper chains the Monday before the party, and the prep basically took the whole rest of the week in the best way. We had so much fun! I kept telling Shawn I’m having the time of my life haha. It was just so fun using all the colors!
The paper chains are a game changer…I can’t recommend them enough! We found them on Amazon. They are pre-cut and sectioned by color, so you don’t have to do any cutting. And you link them however you want. We mixed and matched colors and it turned out so fun and festive. I tested out a thicker version of the paper chain, and it was really cute but I made exactly one chain before deciding it was way too time-consuming for the payoff LOL. That one chain ended up under the TV as decoration hahaha.
The other secret weapon of his bday party? Glue dots! You may have seen me raving about them on stories. They’re amazing!! I can’t believe I’ve been hosting parties for years and somehow never discovered these things, because they are THE BEST. About 90% of the decor was hung directly to the ceiling using glue dots….and they held. Days later…still holding! They’re still up as I type lol. The number one on the fireplace, the streamers that swoop down from the ceiling, the balloons in the kitchen that look like they’re floating but are actually secured up top…all glue dots. If you’re decorating for a party, highly recommend! Will save you so much time.
DIY Projects
On to the handmade stuff !!! this is where I had sooooo much fun.
Judah’s Birthday Banner
I originally planned to order a birthday banner but I waited too long and ran out of time. Which is honestly the best thing that could have happened! I ended up making one myself using scrap fabrics I’ve been collecting for years from DIY projects and curtains I’ve made, and it turned out more adorable than anything I could have ordered!! I used a fusible product to cut out the letters and fuse them directly onto the banner fabric… no sewing required. It’s a genius no-sew method. One tip for anyone who wants to try this: put the fusing on the fabric first, then cut the letters out. Cutting the letters after they’re fused took longer. But the end result was so worth it. I’m genuinely so happy I didn’t order one. We’re planning to reuse it for future birthdays too!! All of the fabric DIYs took about 1 day to make.
Fabric “J” Tablecloth
I also made a big fabric “J” to lay on the table cover. We have a black table, and having a lighter tablecloth just brightened up the whole space. Fit the theme so much better! It was such an easy touch but it made a huge difference visually. We’re actually thinking about making a permanent tablecloth now because we loved the look so much.
Adopt-a-Caterpillar Station
For party favors, I found the most perfect stuffed caterpillars. They’re about 12-13″ long and only $5.99 each! I set up a little “Adopt-a-Caterpillar” station, like those Adopt-A-Bear stations but with caterpillars…Inspired by The Very Hungry Caterpillar obvi! The kids loved it…the adults loved it. We had a few extras and even some of the adults ended up taking one home!
Custom Cookies
My cousin introduced me to an incredible cookie artist a little over a year ago now. We used her for Judah’s baby shower in January 2025, and I knew immediately she had to do the birthday cookies too! She’s amazing! She did 7 different designs, each one based on one of the books from the party theme. They were stunning…people were almost too impressed to eat them LOL. It really tied the whole theme together IMO!
The Cake
For the birthday cake, we went with our favorite bakery – Wildflower Bakery in Rocky River. If you’re in the Cleveland area and you haven’t tried their cake, you gotta try! The taste is our fave. They don’t do super ornate designs, so I just kept the design simple and on-theme with the primary color palette. We had a smash cake to match too 🙂 Judah was not interested LOL but I think it turned out so cute!
Food & Drinks
We catered the food from Whole Foods, which we’ve done before and love! We did wraps, sandwiches, and chicken tenders. The chicken tenders were for the kids, but honestly they were my favorite. It was my first time trying and I honestly wish I ordered more of those and less wraps haha. They come with this homemade ranch that is genuinely the best ranch I have ever tasted in my life!! I was still talking about it after the party!
For drinks, we had Poppi (PSA: Costco sells them in giant cases),Diet Coke (because it wouldn’t be a party without it in my family lololol), water, and juice boxes for the LO’s. It was the perfect spread IMO
Our Gift Request That Made Everything SO Special
This might be my favorite decision we made for the whole party. Instead of leaving gifts open-ended, we asked everyone to bring a book for Judah. I am seriously SO glad we did this. We got some of the most creative & thoughtful books. Books I’ve never seen before! Some guests also brought clothes / toys, which was so sweet and Judah loved opening them! Now Judah now has the most incredible little library. We’ll be reading some of these for years!!
Planning this party was a labor of love and I truly had so much fun getting ready for it. There were late nights and a lot of glue dots LOL. But watching Judah look around at all the color and the people who love him, interacting with his friends, it made my entire year!!
Judah adds so much color to our lives. This party was our way of reflecting that back to him. Happy 1st birthday Judah! We love you so so much. Excited to see what we do for year 2!
