Hudson’s first birthday party ended up being pretty much perfect. And I don’t say that to toot my own party-planning horn! I’m super happy with the way the party came together. But in retrospect, the success of the day was 100% due to the company and the huge smile on his face all day long, and had very little to do with food or decor. I am convinced he knew it was all for him and just hung out all day with his favorite people and got some new zoom-zoom’s. What more could a baby ask for?

The one thing that I was clear about from the very start was keeping it as small and simple as possible so that we could just relax and focus on Hudson… and also because I have a tendency to get a little crazy with these things 😃

I thought I’d recap how it all came together.

The Location + The Guest List

If you had told me a year ago how much time I would spend in our condo this year with Hudson, I would never have believed you. (I remember thinking how easy it would be to just bring him down to the pool this summer in a little crib to nap in while he wasn’t swimming with us. LOL.) But as it turns out, I have loved being home so often. So I really, really wanted to have the party here, where he’s most comfy and because it just felt like the right place to celebrate the last 365 days.

I was also adamant about keeping it to just our immediate family, along with my best friend and her hubby and daughter (Hudson’s BFF!), who I consider family anyway. We’ve gotten so much support and love from a huge group of people since I was pregnant, but I thought our best odds of Hudson enjoying it all and minimizing my crazy tendencies would be keeping it to people he’s super-comfortable with and sees often.

The Invite

I texted our family a save the date a while back but wanted to follow up with real invitations so that I could save a copy for Hudson’s baby book. (Which at the moment, is a baby box… though in my defense this entire blog is about him!) I made the invitations myself, with a little watercolor of a teddy bear on the front and a collage of 12 photos of him from every month on the back.

The Decor

I recall being in Palm Springs this March with my sister-in-law and cousin (in-law? Is that a thing?) talking about first birthday party themes. There are so many cute themes out there for baby parties! And in the end, I ended up choosing… none of them, ha. Nothing really felt like Hudson to me–the only thing that I could think of that he was super into about at the time of choosing was peanut butter… which sadly doesn’t have much going for it as a party theme on Pinterest. So I decided to just keep it simple and use the light blue color of his nursery for most of the decor and call it a day.

I know my weaknesses, and DIY projects are high on that list. So my most ambitious undertaking was creating a custom banner, which was actually pretty light on the actual doing-it-myself: I bought the letters, flags and tassels pre-made and ready to go, I just put it all together. Thankfully, I returned the nineteen packs of streamers I ordered on Amazon to create a Pinterest-inspired streamer wall because… #unnecessary. And if I’m being honest, because they were too dark of a blue. 😃

My sister and brother-in-law came an hour early to have a bellini with me and blow up all of the balloons using one of those awesome at-home helium tanks. I had major Pinterest dreams of giant, gold letter balloons spelling out o-n-e which was well underway until I realized the letters I’d ordered were awkwardly tiny, like less than a foot high. And furthermore, they were NOT HELIUM balloons (why would they even make those?), so I scrapped ‘em the day of. Thankfully, the number 1 balloon for his high chair was properly gigantic and did great with helium so all was not lost!

The Food

The food was the most fun part: I made mini versions of all of Hudson’s favorite foods. And by “I made”, I mean… other people made. Every single one of our sweet family members asked what they could bring and I couldn’t think of a thing, so it really was pretty simple on the food front.

The one person I did take up on the offer was my sister, who’s chicken grilling skills should be world renowned. She brought INCREDIBLE peanut chicken skewers and Jason grilled mini burgers for sliders the night before. My only jobs in the kitchen were setting up the cheese tray and putting together veggie and hummus cups.

We picked up mini cupcakes from Molly’s for the adults and ordered Hudson a small cake from Whole Foods, put out some drinks and were ready to go.

The Day Of

Since his birthday was on a Saturday, we got to do the party on the actual day. That morning, Jason and I gave him his presents from us and he was in such a great mood zooming his new fire engine and car around the room that we knew it was going to be a great day. We’ve been blessed with a pretty easy going baby so he’s most often in a good mood, but he seemed… extra happy? He may look 100% like Jason, but he has apparently inherited my love for birthdays because I swear he knew it was all about him!

The party was mid-day so our families (and my best friend and her family, who we consider family!) all showed up and chatted, ate, and just hung out. Hudson bounced around the room between all of his grandparents and his bestie Katrina, yanking at the balloons and eating bites of food from everyone. I didn’t have much of agenda after a major fail on my part—I had worked all week on a video slide show of Hudson’s first year and totally forgot to get a cord to play it on our TV. (And if you can force anyone to watch a 20-minute slide show set to music on your son’s first birthday.. it’s your family!)

The highlight of the day was Hudson’s birthday cake–his first taste of sugar! After we sang happy birthday to him and I thwarted his attempt to grab the flame of the candle, he initially swiped tentatively at his cake, and then went ALL in. He was so cute about it—pretty content to just play with it until I fed him a small bite and he started doing happy little dinosaur screeches once the sugar registered.

Our lucky little birthday boy opened up all of his gifts, and then that was pretty much that. He miraculously went down for a great afternoon nap after all of that excitement (and sugar) and everyone went on their way. J and I took Hudson to the park later and had a glass of celebratory champagne that night–somehow, we survived a WHOLE YEAR.

We are so proud of Hudson and the little boy he’s turning into! Hudson’s first birthday party may have been small by first birthday standards, but for us it was the perfect way to celebrate the past year and look forward to what’s ahead.