Party Pictures

The party was fun, the kids were excited, the food was yummy, the presents were awesome, the bouncy house was rocking and it was all around one totally terrific birthday party for my little two year old!!  My house is still a mess and the decorations are still mostly up, but I'm pooped from all the partying (and the hectic days up until spent cleaning, organizing and decorating), so I'm taking the week off.  That right there is the reason you have several posts to sort through, because I've spent my free time blogging, watching tv, eating leftover cookie cake and relaxing instead of washing the dishes in the sink, vacuuming the floors and doing laundry.  It was all worth it though to see Austin so happy and to have lots of precious pictures from his big day as a constant reminder.  He loves his friends and family so much and to have them all come out to celebrate his second birthday was truly wonderful!!

Fresh up from his nap and ready to party!

Woo Hoo, Austin's 2!

Certainly has the hang of the whole present opening thing...

Playing with his favorite Aunt

Austin adores Kylie, and she drew him a really great picture just for his birthday!

Owen likes Cookie Monster too!

He took a break from opening gifts to read his tiger book from his aunt and uncle.

Birthday parties make you wanna, jump, jump!

If I had this in my yard permanently I'd never again have to worry about my weight!  Lots of fun and awesome exercise!! :-)

Uncle Nick getting the party started...

I love this one!  Sofia crashing and Austin mid-jump!

Me and my little cookie monster

Edible eyeballs?  Awesome!!

Aunt Catherine wanted him to ditch the fork and make a mess...

He tried it her way...

...but then went back to the utensil and managed to get messy anyways!

Finger-lickin' good!

Sweet sisters, Kylie & Blair

Sofia is exactly 1 week younger than Austin.  Happy (almost) Birthday Sofia!!

The three babies, Bailey, Owen & Blair, all born within weeks of each other!

Most of the kiddos with their respective parents.

Birthday Morning

Ok, I'm going to back track a little bit.  I got a little carried away with the birthday party and forgot to post about the actual morning of Austin's birthday!  Ryan had come home but had to be on the road again before Austin even woke up.  I had laid his presents out the night before but wasn't going to direct him to them since Ryan wasn't there and see if perhaps he would wait until that evening to dig in.  As I pretty much figured, he spotted them almost immediately and knew just what to do!

He got to his laptop first and the present opening ceased for about 30 minutes while he tried it out.  By far his favorite gift as a 2 year old so far.  Owen watched on from his jumper, looking forward to getting his little mouth on all of the new stuff and covering it with drool. :-)

Who should I call....

...dialing Daddy...

Austin finally moved on and managed to open his second favorite item of the day, a cell phone!  This was perfect considering he is constantly grabbing our real cell phones and the house phone and having pretend conversations all day long.  His conversation is always the same, however, "Hi, ha-ha, ha-ha, bye, BYE!"

He finally got to his book and gave it a quick read, but then...

...Dora came on.
Believe it or not, this show trumped present opening!!  I swear it has magical powers.

Austin was so ready for the camera to be out of his face.

I asked for one last smile, and this is the face he gave me.

Followed by this one.

A few hours later (as evidenced by the clothing change), present opening resumed and Austin even let Owen help this time,

...until he realized there were "CARS!!!"  He scooped them up quickly and ran away so as to avoid the toxic "Owie dwool" car wash they were about to receive.

Ladies Man

And loving every minute of it!!

Cookie Monster Party

You might have been able to tell from the invitation that Austin's birthday party was a cookie monster theme.  Here's a look at some of the details and decorations.  Full account of the birthday bash coming soon!

I bought this invitation design from etsy.com, printed them out on photo paper and adorned the envelopes with cookie monster stickers I found at Target.  There were several cookie monster invitation designs on etsy, but this was my favorite and the seller was really amazing to work with.

I was thrilled to find this cookie monster pumpkin decorating kit at Wal-Mart completely by accident.  It not only matched the party theme perfectly, but completed our outside fall decor as well! 

Of course you HAVE to have a cookie cake at a cookie monster birthday party, but I also had these ADORABLE (and very yummy) cupcakes made by Cupcake Couture & Catering.

And what cookie monster party is complete without a cookie jar?

I found the ribbon at Wal-Mart and hot glued it to a glass jar I had saved from my wedding.  I added a couple cookie monster stickers to make the finishing touches and filled it with iced oatmeal cookies.

We also had big delicious cookies from Strossners Bakery, chocolate chip brownies, cheese biscuits and fresh fruit (because we needed something healthy in the mix)!

The center piece was none other than cookie himself!  I found this cookie monster pinata at Party City and it worked perfectly.

I got this little candy jar at AC Moore and hot glued googly eyes and a felt mouth to make a cookie monster face.  I filled it with cookies and cream Hershey kisses!  Cookie monster would have been proud.

I used the same technique for the party hats, adding a white puff ball on top to complete the look.  Aren't my models the cutest??  :-)

I made these treat boxes for the kids and filled them various goodies like socks, crayons, stickers and candy. Each kid also got a cookie monster book!

And finally, here's the birthday boy himself, in his personalized cookie monster t-shirt from etsy.

And one more time, my little cookie monster in his cookie monster hat, with his cookie monster bib, eating his cookie monster cupcake!!!