I LOVE my baby Jo.  That's just how I had to start this blog post.  Jonah turned one last week, and we celebrated his birthday with loved ones this past weekend.  After hosting my first baby shower for a dear friend and an essential oils class in January, I felt ready to host one of my children's birthday parties at our house (also a first).

I think Jonah will probably get mad at me if I try to throw him a "Jonah and the Whale" party when he's older, so I took the opportunity to do it now, before he can put up a fight.  Plus, whales are cute and the theme was a good way to incorporate blue.

I found most of the whale supplies at Party City and on Amazon, and I made a couple of things, too.


So, above is the cake that I ordered for Jonah's smash cake.  I actually ordered it with no icing, so I could make my own with sucanat, which is pure, dried cane sugar juice.  Don't try to make a white icing with it (like I started to do!) or you will end up with an ugly brownish icing.  I surrendered, and added cocoa powder to make it a chocolate icing.  If my little guy is like me, he loved it, and the pictures do prove that to be true.  I will probably be doing a post in the future on how to make powdered sugar with sucanat.  I made the whale with fondant, but he didn't get to eat that part as I imagine he wanted to :)



Back to the birthday boy...here he is as a newborn, and also as a big boy at twelve months!  He likes to pull his month stickers off of his shirt as soon as I put them on to take his picture.  I was really sad as I put the month sticker sheets in storage, because it just means he's out of the "month counting", but I still get to rock him to sleep and hold him tight, because he is a cuddle bug!  I'm so grateful for that!

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law gave Jonah a book called "If I Could Keep You Little."  There isn't a more suitable gift (for me!) on his birthday than this book.  Have you read it?  We read it before bed last night, and I almost cried.  It's about all of the things that the parents would miss if their child stayed small and didn't grow up.  It made me want to live it up right NOW, and enjoy my boys to the fullest, because as I hear...they grow up fast.  So, today we pulled out their tent, since that is about their favorite thing on the planet right now to "live it up".  I also ordered a toddler craft book with a bunch of ideas, because we go a little stir crazy inside in the Winter, and mommy needs to get these boys into some fun activities.

Back to the party...
...here are some pictures of the event!

If you come across this post, and are doing a whale party yourself, please let me know if you have any questions about where I found any of the party supplies.