Owen's Hungry Caterpillar Party

Owen's 1st Birthday Party was a success. We held the party at our house and tried to make it as special as we could for Owen (not that he'll remember, but he'll see pictures someday). We hope he and all of his guests had a good time!

This is the balloon wreath I made for the front door. It took 400 balloons to make the wreath. Since I wasn't blowing up the balloons I didn't really care about quality, so I ordered the cheapest balloons I could find on Amazon. I like that I can reuse the wreath by switching out the number hanging in the middle in future years.

I bought this chalkboard a few years ago at HomeGoods and have used it so much (see all of my bump updates and gender reveal party posts). We set the chalkboard up with Owen's stats in the foyer for people to see as they walked in.

Owen has 3 copies of The Hungry Caterpillar! We decided to turn one of them into a birthday keepsake by having his guests write a special birthday message for him. 

The party favors were bags of sour gummy worms (caterpillars). I found a website on Pinterest with free printables for the Hungry Caterpillar theme which I used to make these thank you tags.

Here's the living room pre-party. I got the green tissue decorations from Ikea 50% off. They fold up and are re-usable… so hopefully I find another use for them someday.

I made the caterpillar photo garland out of card stock with my martha stewart circle cutter. I love that I had another use for all the monthly photos I've been taking of Owen. This is still on our fireplace and probably will be until Christmas! I just love seeing how much Owen has changed from month to month.

I also made this Happy Birthday Owen banner out of card stock and my circle cutter. I plan to re-use it at Owen's future birthdays.

I had pictures from our photo shoot with Laurence everywhere. I rolled the plastic ware inside napkins to make it easier to carry (and cuter).

I found this caterpillar neck rest at Homegoods figuring I can use it as a decoration and Owen can have it as a toy/neck rest. So far he isn't interested in it.

We reused the letters from Owen's photo shoot to decorate the drink station. Now that the party is over, I am going to hang them in Owen's playroom. 

I got the labels for the water bottles from the same site as the goody bag labels. Such an easy way to make the party more festive!

A family friend made Owen's cake and smash cake. She did such a good job and it was delicious!

My parents got Owen the "cozy coupe" and it was by far his favorite gift! All he's wanted to do the past few days is be pushed around in it or push it around and use it as a walker. We took it outside to the cul-de-sac today when we went to play with some other kids in the neighborhood. He loved it! I haven't decided if I am going to allow it to come back in the house yet.

Owen's not really interested in opening gifts yet. I hope he'll be there by Christmas.

Owen also wasn't really interested in the cake. He's very clean. He touched it and tried a little, but couldn't really be enticed to dive in. I made his hat, bib and the high chair garland.

I'm disappointed I didn't get any pictures of the food spread and little signs I made to label the food (also from that printables website). I got too busy entertaining ;). I'm so glad so many of our family and friends were able to come celebrate Owen's special day! Now I need to write thank you notes!

Now that Owen is ONE, I won't be doing monthly photos and updates. I will just blog when I have something to blog about. Hopefully it will be at least monthly.

Until Next Time,
Tressa

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY OWEN!!!!

Little Owen Mayk is ONE! He has changed our lives so much and brought us so much happiness this past year and this is just the first year of many to come. I know I will continue to be proud of all of his accomplishments, both big and small. I love being home with him. My favorite part of the day is when he gets up and I feed him his morning bottle. We watch Curious George and snuggle while he drinks. Then it's playtime!

Rich and I took Owen to the zoo on his birthday. It was a nice family outing. I think Rich and I enjoyed it as much as Owen. I hadn't been to a zoo since I was in elementary school. I was surprised at how much Owen looked at the animals. He even made "ohhhh" and "ahhhh" sounds. He really liked the turtles swimming in a tank and monkeys.

Owen is so close to walking…. he stands and tried to take a step, but falls. I think he will be walking in the next month.

Owen's Party is this weekend. I will do a separate post on his party.

We did a photo shoot with my talented friend Laurence to get some good one year old photos of Owen. Here are some of my favorites...

Owen's 12 Month Milestones
- You love to THROW.... food, balls, toys... if you can pick it up you can throw it. It's cute when you are playing catch with mommy and daddy but not so cute at Tiny Tykes and Tunes Music class when you are chucking tambourines and maracas at other babies!
- You are starting to get picky about your food. You've decided you don't like veggies... the only way I can get you to eat them is if they are hidden in a puree with fruit. Your favorite foods are peaches, grapes, little yums teething wafers, yogurt, mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie, apple sauce and Gerber puffs.
- You want to play with Rex so badly. You steal his toys constantly wanting him to come take them from you. Rex hasn't yet decided if he wants to play with you or not. You make him nervous.
- You no longer fall asleep while drinking your bottle, you are always wide awake after drinking. However, it's not a problem because you go right to sleep when we lay you in your crib. You like to snuggle your little elephant lovie right before you fall asleep.
- You are very vocal... but don't really have anything to say in English yet.
- You love being held upside-down. Sometimes when mommy picks you tilt your head back to let me know you want to go upside down.
- You sleep 7 to 7 and wake up very rarely in the middle of the night... I think the last time you did was in July?
- You can STAND all by yourself. You started a week before your birthday. Next up…. walking!
- You weigh 24.1 lbs (87%) and are 31.5 inches tall (96%)


Here are some more photos from this month:

Until Next Time,
Tressa