Papaw Roy's 85th Birthday

We celebrated Papaw Roy's 85th birthday with a surprise party thrown by Aunt Cherry, Danny, and Jessica. Granny June got him to come by telling him that it was an anniversary party for some friends of theirs. I'm was impressed that they even sent a fake invitation to themselves and that it was actually their friend's anniversary!

He was definitely surprised!


Lots of their friends and family were there to celebrate, including some out of town family.




There was some yummy food.

And a delicious cake!

And a slideshow of some old and new pictures made by Zach.

And of course the youngest guest, who kinda stole the show...




Happy Birthday Papaw Roy!

The Pirate Party

Theme: After using cute, happy pirates in Cooper's room, it really seemed on natural that we use the same theme for his 1st birthday party. I searched the internet and found some super cute invitations on etsy from Sweet Birdie's Nest and got them to make some party circles for me to use with the decorations.


Decorations: I wanted to have some decorations, and decided the easiest thing to do was make them. I got ideas off the internet and made some little pennant banners and used the party circles in the middle of each pennant and put them throughout our living room/kitchen. I also made a Happy Birthday banner for the front door. I found some red/white and black/white polka dot balloons and used those in the room as well. One of my favorite memories of the day was when my dad was using the helium tank to blow up the balloons and he sucked in some of the helium from one of the balloons. Oh. My. Goodness. It totally cracked me up! In my family we always put up a Happy Birthday banner and Zach thought it would be good for us to start doing that too, so I picked one up and we put it on the fireplace. I had a few extra Cooper pictures sitting around and some photo books/scrapbook/baby book that I've done over the last year and that was it for the decorations.




Food: We had BBQ that Danny made for us, potato salad and slaw from the general store near Mom and Dad's, baked beans that Mom made Saturday morning, mini hot dogs in crescent rolls, and chips for lunch. I thought about trying to be all creative and think of piratey foods to go with the theme, but decided to go easy and go with something that Cooper would actually try since it was his birthday. It was so wonderful!

I wanted to find a pirate cake that was cute pirates - not pirates of the Caribbean pirates. With a little bit of help, we were able to find one at Publix. We don't have one anywhere near us, but there is one in the 'Boro and Jessica offered to order it and pick it up for us. It turned out so cute!!


The cake that Cooper ate came from Ms. Rhea Ann, who sent the cake with Mom and Dad. She has made our cakes for every major event in our families (graduations, weddings, etc.) and she so sweetly made this for my little guy's first birthday. It was delicious of course and Cooper loved it! He wasn't to sure about it at first and just kinda picked at it, but after Zach pushed his whole hand in the cake Cooper figured out it wasn't so bad. He still didn't just grab handfuls of cake, but he did enjoy every bit that he could!






The day went so smoothly and it was wonderful to celebrate with our families that have supported us so much through Cooper's first year of life. Because we had lots of people coming from out of town, we had people coming in starting in the morning and stayed around until that evening. We ate lunch, opened presents, ate some cake, and watched the Cooper slideshow. It was wonderful! Cooper did great again... he got a good nap in the morning, but then didn't rest again until it was time for bed. He started getting a little fussy, but for the most part he just was soaking up all the attention he was getting!




We also worked it out (thanks to Andrea) so that we could video chat with Zach's grandmother that lives in AR and wasn't able to be there. It was a surprise to her and it was so cool that she got to see Cooper a little bit at his party.


It was such a wonderful day loving on and celebrating the little guy that has won the hearts of each and every one of his family members.

Cooper's First Birthday

So I was looking through all the pictures I took on his birthday and flagged the ones I thought I'd share. Turns out there, were 39! I'm not posting 39 pictures. I'm sure I'll make a photo book and include lots of pictures in our scrapbooks, but for now, I just want to document the day (with a sample of some of the pics).

7:30 I got up and got ready because I wanted to be nice and awake for the birthday boy! I heard him on the monitor about 7:45, but he wasn't crazy fussy, so I finished getting ready.

8:00 I greeted the birthday boy with a song and huge smiles and hugs.


8:30 We played upstairs for a while and got birthday boy ready for the day.

9:00 Bottle and birthday breakfast of yogurt, a little bit of pancakes, and of course some cheerios!

10:00 More play time, a little bit of cleaning and picking up in preparation for all of our visitors.

10:45 I can tell when he's ready for his nap... he gets clingy and fussy and those little eyes get puffy. I put him in his little rocker and rocked him for a few minutes and he was out.

11:30 Wake-Up! Most of the time he just wakes up and looks around, like he's trying to figure out what he missed. Sometimes, he wakes up crying. I hate when he does that! Today was wake-up crying. :(

12:00 Daddy's up and ready and we headed for the zoo before the storms rolled in. Cooper ate a bottle on the way!

12:30 I seriously thought we'd be the only people at the zoo today, so imagine our surprise when the parking lots were full! I couldn't believe it. I guess I just thought we were the only ones who had the idea of going to the zoo on a Friday afternoon. Once we got inside, it really wasn't too bad crowded and the weather was perfect. It was overcast and warm with a nice breeze. We never broke a sweat! We walked around the whole zoo and saw all kinds of fun animals. It was so much fun showing Cooper all the animals and even more fun when we knew he could really see them. The meercats and otters were the best for him to see because we could get right up next to the glass and they were really moving around. He was smiling and waving at them! I was sad that the turtles weren't out yet, they said the ground was still to cold for them. But we all did get to sit on the statue of the turtle! Zach took Cooper into see the reptiles, while I waited patiently outside. I have no intention of ever going in that house.


2:30 We left and headed to get us something to eat! We decided on Hard Knox Pizza in honor of Zach's having pizza last year at around this same time. We shared a salami pizza and it was delicious! Cooper snacked on cheerios... can't wait for him to get enjoy one of our favorites too!


2:57 COOPER IS 1

3:15 We went to the Cupcakery and got us each a cupcake to celebrate Cooper's Birthday. Cooper got vanilla, I got rasberry, Zach got red velvet.

4:00 Cooper got to enjoy his very first cupcake!! I had to test out his to make sure it was ok to give to him ;) and it was delicious. Oh my goodness! We even put a candle in it and sang to him. I didn't want to use his candle for the party and we didn't have another "1" so Zach broke of part of a "7" we had to make it look like a "1" and it worked fine. He seemed to like the icing more and he really didn't take a bite and then eat it, he'd smear it on his hands and then lick/eat his hands.




4:50 Play time with Daddy while Mommy started decorating some for the party.

5:30 Grandmommy and Papa Chas arrived! We got to see Baxter's new hair do. He was so cute!


6:00 Headed for to meet the Snows for dinner.

6:05 Went back home to get Cooper's food that I left at home.

6:10 Really left to go meet the Snows for dinner at Five Guys. Cooper did great eating his veggie and fruit and then enjoyed some more cheerios! I gave him a little bite of french fry, which he liked and tried to give him a little piece of burger, but he turned his head. Crazy boy!

7:30 Went next door and got some frozen yogurt. Mmmm.

8:30 Got home and it was time to get birthday boy ready for bed! He had done amazing this afternoon, considering he never really got another nap. He napped in the car but otherwise he was going on fumes. He was also past his bedtime. But, he loved his bath time and took his last dose of medicine (for his ear infections) like a champ!



9:00 Jammies and bottle time.

9:30 Birthday boy was asleep.

Happy Birthday To Me

I had a wonderful birthday weekend! Melanie and Charley came in town for the weekend to celebrate lots of birthdays (Madelyn, Buffy, and me)! We went out to dinner at Calhoun's on the river Friday night and it was delicious! I hadn't ever been to the one on the river and Jessica got us a table that overlooked the river... so fun.





On Sunday we went to dinner to celebrate Buffy's birthday and then went to her house for a little while to hang out. We managed to a pic of the grandkids...

And Madelyn got to hold baby Cooper...


On my birthday, I didn't have to work, so I got to spend the morning with my Cooper. It was one year ago on this very morning that I took the test that said I was pregnant, and it was such a joy to spend this birthday with my baby. We snuggled and played and hung out together. I had a very special birthday card from Cooper (thanks to Daddy) that was waiting for me in his crib. And I had a very special ringtone for the day... Zach singing Happy Birthday to me! I loved it so much and it was a total shock the first time my phone rang! When Zach got up we went to the eye doctor for our yearly visits and then to Zaxby's for lunch. We had dinner at Danny's with the family and it was great! I even had a very special Snicker's birthday cake from Zach's aunt... it was so delicious!







Such a perfect first birthday as a Mommy!!

October

Dad's birthday is in October but I honestly can't remember what we did to celebrate. I think Zach and I were in Clarksville but I really don't remember. And I have no pics to help jog my memory. Shocker... I know! Oh well, Happy Birthday Dad! I love you!


We went to the Corn Maze/Pumpkin Patch with some family and friends at the end of the month. We had a blast!

September

We celebrated Danny's 60th birthday with a little surprise party for him. Sorry no pics from me... but Jess took some good ones!

For Zach's birthday we headed to Baltimore for the Orioles vs. Red Sox game thanks to Melanie and Charley. It was especially fun when the Red Sox came out with the win!




(if you look closely at my eyes, you'll see the best pics I have of my crazy eyes)