Owen's 1st Birthday

To celebrate Owen's first birthday, we had my parents here for the day.

We had a nice visit and were even able to celebrate my dad's birthday (early) too...

Owen definitely liked his cake - even though he was sick with a cold.

He ate ALL of it.

He started out slow, eating with his finger and then eventually he went faster by grabbing it with his whole hand!

I had got a (free!) store-bought cake and gave him a slice of it.

Owen's cake
(I couldn't pass on a free cake!)

The Birthday boy sitting in his highchair ready for action!

First given his slice of cake...see the one finger at his mouth?

 

There's that finger again...only - where's the cake?!

"I'm DONE, all done!"  Haha..this one cracks me up. 

And later in the day (after dinner and when Owen was already in bed for the night) we celebrated with more cake!

A cake that I baked, and it spelled "Dad" on it with strawberries and blueberries.  Riley helped me decorate it!

Granddad and Riley

the kids with their grandparents
(a little blurry...but still so sweet!)

Awesome, good day.

Happy FIRST birthday, Owen!

And Happy (however many) Birthday to you too, Dad!

Love you guys - thanks for the fun today and the excuse to eat cake TWICE.


P.S.  Not a lot of pics of Owen's birthday because I was video taping it some too.

Baby Shower

This past Saturday was my baby shower or "sprinkle" as some call subsequent showers...

I had a great time celebrating this baby boy!

It was the perfect setting for a small crowd and the food we enjoyed that day was delicious.

Here are some pictures taken from the day - thank you to Julie and Mom for taking some pics!

my lovely guests

 

more lovely guests and me too

 

Julianne, Julie, Mom and me

 

my yummy strawberry cake

 

Julianne and I
(love her!)

 

Julianne, Mom and me

 

more lovely guests and the huge cake shown too

 

present time!

 

 

 

 

Mom just had to kiss me!  ;)

 

Julianne, Julie and me

 

 

Julianne took a little nap too

 

After the shower at our house with Riley!

 

Thank you, thank you to all my sweet, beautiful friends who came to my shower!  You all are very special to me...love you!

Julie - Thank you for taking the time to travel up for my shower, it was so great having you here, it meant a lot to me.  Everyone loved Julianne too!  (How can we not?!)  xoxo

Mom - I love you and appreciate you treating me to such a lovely celebration.  I had a great time with some special girlfriends of mine.  Thank you!!

Baby boy is one lucky baby already...

Love,

valentine's party [girls' night]

I love, love, love Valentine's Day.

Have always. 

This year I decided to invite a few of my friends (all mommas too) over for a girls' night out!

We relaxed.

We ate.

We made goodie bags.

We laughed, talked and had some yummy drinks too!

FAVORS

I made truffles:

Cake Batter Truffles (white)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles (brown)

Oreo Truffles (pink)

I put two of each in a fun paper liner and

packaged in a candy box

I made Rice Krispy Heart Pops

(they were huge!)

And assembled each in a cello treat bag

with ribbon and a handmade tag

I put both the truffles and "pop" in a paper bag

(I already had a stack of these bags on hand)

and added handmade name tags to each



DECORATIONS

In addition to the decorations I already had up,

I added a couple more decorating touches...

like my red/white garland I sewed!

SWEETS

I made Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Cupcakes (ahh-mazing!)

A friend made the M&M Blondies (yum!)

I also made chocolate dipped pretzel rods

(I am SO making these again - easy and good!)

CRAFT

I made up a platter/small tins full of crafty things:

scrapbook paper

(cut in smaller pieces,

and some punched out circles)

scissors

stickers

ribbons

glue sticks

even some candy dots!

I had an assembly line of yummies

for everyone to make goodie bags

for their hubbies and kids!

Conversation Hearts

Goldfish

Valentine Chex Mix

Popcorn

Teddy Grahams

Gummy Bears

Chocolate dipped pretzel rods

after they assembled their goodie bags

they each had to make their own tag!!

I was SO impressed by all the creative tags!

(these are just a few of the several made that night)

In addition to the sweets...we had veggies, fruit, cheese/crackers, taco dip, chips/salsa/guacamole and popcorn!

We had a great night!  Thank you ladies for coming out and spending a quiet evening with me at my house!  Thank you too for bringing all that you did.  

I had a blast planning this party! 

I used serving platters, bowls, etc. that I had on hand.  Anything that I bought (other than food) was purchased at Michaels and the Dollar Tree. 

All of my ideas came from pinterest...I tried new recipes this time around. 

The truffles were interesting.  Cute and fun to make...but I couldn't get past the texture.  I'd rather eat a baked cookie than dough.  Blech!  Just my honest opinion.  If you love cookie dough (I know some of you do!) try the truffles.

My favorite of the night?  The raspberry cheesecake cupcakes...I'm starting to really love cheesecake.  Just.  Like.  My.  Hubby.

I think I miss him...

Happy heart Day (almost)!