Look whooooo's one...

Whooo knew 1 year ago that our hearts would have room to love another person as much as we love this little guy. Wow, what a difference a year makes.

Fast forward one year and we are planning a birthday party. Shannon made the invitations at my kitchen table. She decided to have an owl party.

Every party has to have a theme,of course, and we like to take it and run .

Each person received a personalized owl invitation.

They turned out so cute.

This is how Hudson "helped" with his party planning.

My Daddy uses a wheelchair a lot and he entertained Jackson while we worked on invitations by playing with Lego on the tray table of his walker. They must have built an entire city.



I set up a vignette in the entryway . Once again we used sticks to display an assortment of owls, pine cones and acorn ornaments spray painted green, blue, and orange , and I taped silk leaves to the bare branches for Fall color.

These cute little owls came from Cracker Barrel.

Here are the party favors I made. I cut out foam owl heads and glued on some googly eyes. They are attached to clear treat bags filled with candy corn and gummy worms.


Candy in bright colors and a photo of the birthday boy round out the display...


Our table featured bright colors on napkins, party hats, and balloons.
I made the party hats by tracing around hats I purchased from the Dollar Tree and then cutting them out of paper I made from scanning and printing a piece of owl fabric I found at the fabric store. I hot glued pom poms to the top of them and around the bottom of Hudson's hat.


You can see Hudson's hat on his highchair tray. I expected him to pull it off his head, but he really did wear it, as you will see. I tied the fabric over his highchair for a "slipcover".
Balloons were tied to the chandelier.

I made cupcakes and decorated them as owls using Oreos with Junior Mints glued on with icing for the eyes and Runts used for their beaks. I ran out of chocolate icing, so I had some caramel icing on hand, and used vanilla wafers on the lighter colored owls. Their ears were cut off wedges of cookies with icing piped on top..

I made a cupcake stand by gluing 2 wooden plates separated by a wooden candlestick. I originally had this on the cupcake table at Shawn's wedding, and I painted it turquoise.

Shannon created a Happy 1st Birthday garland for the fireplace with her Cricut machine.
And of course, there is the chalkboard art with an owl that says "You're a real hoot".
Shannon spray painted some photos of Hudson throughout his first year and placed them here and there.
You will notice her delicious "Puppy Chow" served in an acorn bowl I found 2 weeks ago at the Goodwill.

When I was making cupcakes, I made Hudson a "smash" cake of his own.

Mother and Daddy gave him this precious chair from Pottery Barn monogrammed with his name.

It seems like every child in our family gets that same chair for their first birthday.
He liked it. Oh, and he is wearing a shirt Shannon made with an owl applique. So cute!

This is their cute family.
Amazingly all looking at the camera.

Here I am with the birthday boy.
I found an owl craft ornament at Target one day, so we got enough for all the kids to make one. These kids, all cousins, are good at projects.
And then, the much anticipated moment. Hudson got to dig in to his cake. He loved it, as you can tell...

It was a nice afternoon with our family celebrating this event.

After we took down some of the balloons, Jackson and his cousin decided to have a balloon "fight".

I can't believe a year has passed so quickly. Life is but a vapor. Enjoy every moment of it. One day we will look at these boys as grown men and wonder where the years went. Until then, I will just savor the times I get to spend with my family. Thank you for letting me share this special day with you.

It;s been a HOOT!!!