#72 - Party Time!

To celebrate little Owen's birthday, we had a few friends and family members over Saturday afternoon. Despite some heavy rain outside, we had a fabulous time!

Dad and Catherine drove down from Atlanta for the party, and Dad became the official grill master. We felt so bad for him because he was stuck out in the rain for almost two hours grilling up chicken (he was under a tent at least), but he was a trooper about it, and the chicken turned out awesome!

Mom and Leighton came in too, and Mom and I made monkey cupcakes for the party (see picture below). They were adorable!

Jen and Claudio and Kaylin were here too, as were Holly, Andrew and Peter, so Owen got to play with his cousins.

Papa and Rusty also made the trip to Savannah.

And, SOME BIG NEWS..... we have an official WALKER now! Saturday morning, he was taking 6, 7, 8, 9 steps by himself. By Saturday night, he was walking the same distance on his own (no prompting from us). And today (Sunday) he's walking from one end of the house to the other, with no prompting, and no assistance from us. It's adorable!

Okay, here are the monkey cupcakes. I'm pretty proud of them I'll say! For some crazy reason, I really wanted to have homemade cupcakes for Owen's first birthday before transitioning to the store bought ones down the road. They were pretty easy. I baked the cupcakes on Friday, and made some homemade chocolate buttercream frosting on Saturday morning. Then, when Mom got here, we decorated them. We used 2/3 of a nilla wafer for the muzzle, 1/2 of a mini nilla wafer for each ear, mini m&m's for the eyes, and then used black and red gel icing for the eyes, nose and mouth.

Here's the little monkey getting ready for the party on Saturday morning.

The Flemings stopped back through Savannah on their way home from Hilton Head. Owen got in more play time with Andrew and Luke, which he loves! And, we got more Lauren kisses....

Check out cutie pie Kaylin. She's full of smiles, and has an incredibly sweet personality.

Holly is nothing but belly. Seriously! Have you seen a more "non-pregnant looking" pregnant woman? Love ya Holly!

The grill master himself - Larry, a/k/a Daddio a/k/a Papa. He stood out there in that tent all afternoon with nothing but smiles and samples. Got to love him!

Owen displaying his masculine ways with Kaylin. "You may be older than me, but I'm bigger than you, so get out of my way." We need to teach him better manners.

Great Aunt Pat sent Owen a Happy Birthday balloon that has arms and feet, and it was the hit of the party! All the children were quite captivated by it.

Grandpapa with his three great-grandchildren and their moms. Love this picture! Can you believe he's 90 years old?

Papa showing Peter the intricacies of operating a bulldozer.

Owen loves his Nana!

The BIRTHDAY BOY with his Mom and Dad. (Susan, you'll be proud to know that we held his hands back while the candle was lit. We learned our lesson!)

Nana and Leighton with their grandson. He looks a little perturbed that he was interrupted from eating the cupcake.

The Bonomos with the Birthday Boy. Kaylin was eyeing the other cupcakes.

Yep...it only took about 4 minutes before he devoured the entire cupcake. He even managed to get the majority of it in his mouth. Our boy doesn't mess around with food!

In the midst of opening presents - check out the cute monkey outfit Heather made him!

All these awesome presents, and Owen is only interested in the tissue paper. Figures.

Owen checking out all of his new Fisher Price Little People sets. They were definitely popular gifts (which was just want he wanted). It's been so fun playing with them since the party. He loves them!

Owen getting love from Catherine. Dad, Catherine and Papa spent the night on Saturday too, and it was SO nice getting to spend some quality time with them!

Owen with Papa and Grandpapa.

Nana got Owen a Cozy Coupe. It took us about an hour and a dozen 4-letter words to put together, but it was totally worth it. Owen rode around in it all afternoon. The funny thing is that he has only figured out how to push it backwards, so he's running into everything from behind. Ha ha!