This Halloween was very special for our family: we celebrated Tommy’s 1st Birthday! His actual birthday was a few days later, but we figured since Halloween was a Saturday, we’d celebrate with a Halloween 1st Birthday party – a lunch followed by trick-or-treating. It was a lot of fun and I can see many Halloween birthday parties in the future.

Here’s a recap our of Halloween 1st Birthday:

Halloween 1st Birthday Invites:

For invites I went to my favorite place to create cards: Minted. There weren’t any Halloween 1st birthday invites and I knew I wanted a photo card. I had gotten a fun photo of Tommy in his pumpkin costume to use. I ended up using one of Minted’s Halloween photo cards and changed up the wording. I love that Minted lets you edit all of card to make it exactly how you want it – in this case totally converted it into an invitation!

Decor:

Minted

While I was ordering Tommy’s invites I noticed that Minted had some really awesome Halloween decor. The colors were fun, festive and a little more blue/green, less orange/black. The characters reminded of a little boy’s birthday party and looked perfect for Tommy’s 1st. I loved the Frankenstein table runner that you could personalize. Then when it came I liked it too much to just put it on the table of food, so I hung it as a banner. We also got festive signs to put on the tables.

Birthday Express

Birthday Express has become our go-to for party supplies. They’ve had every theme we have needed and for our large parties, where we need a lot of things like plates, table clothes, etc, the prices are the best. Birthday Express had tons of Halloween decor and party supplies. We had a blast putting the party together. I also liked that they had cute little ghost plates, again with some bright green mixed in, to make it more 1st birthday and not just orange and black. Along with all the decor and paper products shown, we got fillers for the piñata and favor bags from Birthday Express too. They really had everything we needed to throw a great birthday bash.

Special Birthday Banner

When Alex had a western themed birthday party, I found a really cool handmade banner from Simple and Posh , an Etsy shop. I knew the shop would have some great Halloween banners and loved this one that the shop owner made for our 1st birthday celebration!

The Smash Cake:

We had a blast with Tommy’s smash cake! I found the cutest highchair banner and cake decorating set from Sweet Orange Fox, an Etsy shop. I went with the Halloween Birthday High Chair Banner Cake Smash Set. It was perfect. There was fabric bunting and a “one” sign for the highchair. Then the set included a cute paper banner for the cake. I made the cake myself (super basic vanilla) so the little banner really made the cake!

Our “one” party hat was handmade from Dainty Couture, another Etsy shop. I loved that they had a Halloween themed 1st birthday hat. It was soft, sweet and definitely something we will save forever.

When Alex turned one, we had a preppy pink whale party and I loved the polka dot bib she wore. I ordered it from Lilly Belle Designs, an Etsy shop. We have it saved in her baby box. I contacted the shop owner and she gladly made the same one in orange for Tommy. It was so sweet!

Many people have asked where the actual highchair was from. It’s the Stokke Steps Chair. It’s an awesome highchair and the sleek white design made it perfect for our birthday photos. It’s a neat chair because it will continue to grow with Tommy for years. He can use it at plenty more birthday parties.

Activities:

We had amazing weather for October 31st in the northeast. It was sunny and warm enough to play outside. The kids ran around and enjoyed the weather and Halloween candy. I set up some tables of Halloween crafts that they kids really enjoyed. Then we had a giant pumpkin piñata that was a lot of fun too!

Halloween Favors:

Tommy’s favor bags were one of my favorite parts of the party. We got them from Paper Nook. This was another shop I used for Alex’s whale 1st birthday. We still use one of her whale favor bags to keep her hair ties in. I went to Paper Nook to see if they made Halloween bags, and the designs were so cute I couldn’t choose just one. We got bats and pumpkins that said “Tommy is 1”.

I tried to fill the favor bags with more toys and less candy since kids would be going trick-or-treating for candy right after the party. I thought glow sticks would be good for the older kids since they would be out that night. For the babies, I found some cute little toys and also these Halloween sippy cups from Evenflo. They were festive and something the parents could actually use for their little ones.

This time around (the 3rd time I’m hosting a 1st birthday) I finally figured out the trick to getting some good photos of the birthday boy/girl. Don’t take them the day of the party. That day can be overwhelming for everyone and also a crowd of people. I have some great shots of the real “smash cake” thanks to a wonderful friend who I handed my camera off too, but she had to try and take photos around the swarm of kids helping the birthday boy (which was adorable and sweet). Two days later the weather was great and big sisters were at school, so Tommy had a little photo shoot. It was quiet for him and fun for me to get to take some photos. I’d highly recommend doing this. It takes pressure off of everyone. I’ll cherish all the photos from his party but also the ones where just Tommy and I celebrated his 1st birthday together.