Jacob's ABC First Birthday

July is Jacob’s birthday month, and since I didn’t start blogging until last year there are a lot of things that have gone undocumented on this little ol’ blog of mine – vacations, family photo sessions, birthday celebrations, and the list goes on.  In honor of his birthday month, I thought that I would share his first birthday party with you today.

He was always obsessed with his ABC’s from a very early age.  Very early.  From the time he was about four months old, he was enamored with the alphabet song.  Whenever we couldn’t get him to stop crying, all we had to do was sing his jam and he would be instantly soothed.  Every single time.  I used to try other songs just to experiment and nothing else ever worked, but the instant I started singing the alphabet song he would stop crying and listen intently.  I can remember several car trips where Brian and I sang it repeatedly (we’re talking 30 times in a row here, people!) to keep him calm until we reached our destination. 

He has always loved to read, often choosing to read instead of playing, and his favorite books were always books about… you guessed it.  The alphabet.  We read them over and over when he was small.  As a result, he was able to recognize most letters by the age of 18 months and he was able to sing the entire alphabet song by the time he turned two.  He was able to read short words just after his third birthday, and he started reading full books shortly after he turned four.  Now we’re just waiting on him to write his first novel.  ;o)

Anyway, because of his deep love for the alphabet, I didn’t even think twice when choosing a theme for his first birthday party.  I knew all along that it would be all about the ABC’s!

The party was held on Saturday, July 21, 2012 at noon.  Back then I had no experience with graphic design, so I created his invitations with scrapbook paper, scanned them, and had photos printed for them.  They weren't super professional looking, but the design was exactly how I had imagined.  I only wish I had known about Adobe Spark back then, where you can create birthday invitations for free!

We went with bright blue and lime green for the party colors, and I kept the decorations simple – balloons hung upside down from the ceiling (that way we didn’t have to worry about helium!), letters A – G across the front of the table cloth, a simple wooden ABC sign that I made, and a cake meant to look like those wooden letter blocks.  The letters on the top of the cake spelled out JACOB, of course!  I also set out his 12 months frame so everyone could see how much he had grown throughout his first year.

On the menu:

Chicken Salad on Croissants

Chick-Fil-A Chicken Nuggets

Fresh Fruit

Barbecue Chips

Plain Chips

Cake

Lemonade

All of our immediate family and friends joined us and it was the perfect day celebrating one year of life with our precious boy.  We ate, Jacob (sort of) dug into his smash cake, we opened presents, and we enjoyed each other’s company.  Jacob’s favorite gift was this tricycle from Mommy and Daddy (still using it today!), a rocking horse from Pop and Cokie, and the sweetest little wooden bench from Grandpa.  

Although, I think secretly he would have been happy with just balloons.  :o)

I can’t believe that we will be celebrating his fifth birthday in just two short weeks.  It just really doesn’t seem possible.  

And just for fun, when Jacob was one I didn't do the chalkboard birthday updates... it was the only year I ever missed.  So a couple of years later I drew one up, and my brother photoshopped Jacob in the picture.  Lol.  Not too shabby, right?!  He even put his reflection in the wood!  Crazy!

*Linking up with Jessi's Design and Going the Distance for What's Hap-"Pinning" Wednesday.