Well, here we are. ONE year old!

As I write this, I remember at this time last year, I was in the hospital waiting for my contractions to start. I was admitted to the hospital on December 5, because my water broke at home, but Gio wasn’t born until 7:45 pm on December 6. You can read more about Gio’s birth story here.

I intentionally planned to celebrate Gio’s birthday early because we chose to have him dedicated at our church the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Both of our parents were planning to be in town, so I thought why not lump the celebrations together and do one, BIG joint celebration!

Donuts have always had a loving place in both my husband and I’s heart. After moving to the west coast, it became a silly obsession of ours to always get Dunkin Donuts when we traveled back east (they don’t have any where we live!). Especially when my sister and brother in law were living in Boston, there was practically a Dunkin Donuts every corner! Kendrick and I are able to buy the French vanilla coffee (our favorite) at our local grocery store, but as for donuts, we had to drive to Half Moon Bay (40+ minutes away) to satisfy our craving.

That is until we discovered an amazing donut shop within walking distance from our house (dangerous!) called Donut Delite. I feel like I’m cheating on DD by saying this, but their glaze donuts are seriously heavenly. (And better than DD in my humble opinion). SO, all that to say, when I came across the donut 1st birthday theme on Pinterest, I knew I had found a winner.

A lot of my inspiration came from a fellow blogger who executed the same birthday party theme for her son earlier this year. Unlike many other donut party pictures I saw, where there was a lot of pink, purple, inflatable donuts, and other brightly colored tableware and decor; the way Julie did it was simple, not overdone, age appropriate, with just the right pop of color. Take a look at her party here.

The donut printables and favor tags were available for FREE on Julie’s site. She had also linked to the donut balloons on Amazon, and other party decor she used.

I ended up making a lot of the decor myself, since I had the time and wanted to save money. I bought a 1 inch round paper punch, and punched out confetti for the tables, and also used it to punch holes in the paper donuts I made. I made Gio’s “ONE” banner for his highchair, and bought the white tassel banner at Target. I’ll link to all the decor throughout this post.

It was a lot of work pulling everything together, and I couldn’t have done it without my amazing family – my mother and sister in law have impeccable taste and stellar decorating skills, so they really helped pull my vision together. My mom and sister did a lot of the work behind the scenes with all the food prep and plating, and clean up after the event. It takes a village, right??

We served fruit skewers with strawberries, pineapple, and donut holes on the ends. OF course I had to serve bagels too since they went with the “donut shaped” food theme. And the beloved glaze donuts.

DONUT GROW UP gold banner: Etsy

White donut balloons: Amazon 

I also made homemade “donuts” that were egg-free since I have a friend with an egg allergy. Also, I knew not everyone likes donuts so I wanted there to be something for everyone.

I bought Pumpkin Bread mix from Trader Joe’s, and subbed flax seed for the egg, and baked them in my donut pan. I rolled them in cinnamon sugar after they cooled and they were the perfect treat! I also made banana bread “donuts” and just followed a banana bread recipe and baked them in the donut pan, and topped with powdered sugar.

Favors for the kids were:

“Donut Dough” (Play Doh) & “Donut seeds” aka fruity Cheerios.

“Donut Forget Me” tags

Guest Book: “If You Give a Dog a Donut”. I had family and friends sign this book to have as a sweet momento.

A friend let me borrow her IKEA highchair and Happy Birthday banner.

White tassel garland: Target 

Baby entertainment area 😉

This donut smash was the best idea ever! SO much easier (and cleaner) than a smash cake but just as fun!

Gio’s Donut Smash

Gio at One Year:

• I have 6 teeth (4 top, 2 bottom)
• I weigh 24 lbs 1.6 oz; and I am 2 feet 8 inches tall.
• My favorite foods are: avocado, eggs, strawberries, oranges, pasta with pesto, bagels and cream cheese; but I’ll pretty much eat anything that’s put in front of me.
• My favorite book is: The Five Little Monkeys
• I love swinging and playing at the playground; especially crawling through the tunnel and holding onto the big wheel
• I love cats and dogs (especially my dog cousin Chico and my friend Michael’s cat Sammie)
• I also love big stuffed animals, like Michael’s stuffed animal whale and penguin- I like to crawl on top of them and tackle them
• I do this ‘happy dance’ with my hands and open my mouth wide when I’m excited about something
• I love to hang out with mommy and play peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek with her
• I also love to crawl on top of her and grab her hair and “wrestle”
• I like pulling all my books off my bookshelf
• I love anything that has buttons…especially my sound machine, the laz-e-boy recliner couch, my humidifier, and the remote control
• I love being outside
• I get really excited looking at fans
• I laugh really hard when Mommy crawls on the ground
• I laugh when I hear the sounds, “zoom”; “boom”; “boo”; “moo”; and the word “fire”
• I like to laugh at mommy when she does push-ups, burpees, or the “cat-cow” yoga pose

 

I love my new ride-on Mercedes and can’t wait to take it for a spin 😉

Thanks Mommy and Daddy, I love you!

 

 

We love you too sweet GIO! HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY!

❤