What A Hoot!

It's ridiculously hard to believe, but yesterday my baby Cade turned 1 year old! On Saturday, we had the family over to celebrate. And not just local family (Mike's) but my parents flew up for the occasion after just having seen us in Florida earlier in the week. I'll dedicate my next post to Cade and the awesomeness that is him, but this one is just about the party. 

Every party has to have a theme and I decided on a winter owl theme for Cade. Why? Well, he has a snowy owl on the winter tree in his room and he has a winter birthday. But, also so that we pay homage to to our recent (last week) family trip to Universal Studios in Florida where they have a huge Harry Potter set up, hence Hedwig the owl.

My Mom, as part of her present to all the grandkids, outdoes herself at every birthday and makes a grand cake for the occasion. As usual, she outdid herself and made a fantastic cake for Cade.

Isn't he cute? And you can't tell at all that he took a major spill overnight. That's right, after she finished her masterpiece late Friday night after many hours of work, the birthday owl tried to take flight during the night and landed on our counter. Mimaw to the rescue....she did even more work and put him back together.

Of course I couldn't let her have all the fun. Though we went with an easy make your own sandwiches spread for food, it was all owl'd up as well:

Deli Meat Owl

Cheese Owl

Cookie Owl

Deviled Owls

The Owl Spread

Mimaw also helped Dylan make his gift to Cade...decorations for the party. Cade loved them!

Hoot Hoot!

Poor Cade had quite a rough weekend and just wasn't himself. Luckily, with all the cousins over for the party, he had lots of distractions and managed to stay pretty happy.

Cade and Emily

After play and sandwich eating, it was time to dig into the bird. But first, a picture of our family:

Before the Destruction

My Mom (Mimaw) made Cade his own little cake to dig into. He had a slow start. After getting frosting on his fingers, he offered it to Dylan (Dylan said no thank you). I gave him an owl eye (oreo cookie) and he liked it and started to get a bit more adventurous. He loves eating with his fork so I thought that would help but soft cake and baby fork clumsiness don't work well together. Somehow he managed to eat a good bit of that cake and, of course, totally destroy it. Proof in pictures:

I can't even stand how cute these two are!

Nana and Bumpa with the Birthday Boy

Cousins\Brother with the Birthday Boy

Pipaw and Mimaw with the Birthday Boy

Cake Destruction

Then it was on to gifts. He stayed interested in ripping off paper all the way through. Cards were very interesting to him as well but not quite as much as the envelopes they came in.

$1 For One Year

His New Kitchen Set (To Share with His Brother)

I was so relieved he was able to enjoy his party after having such a hard\cranky weekend. After the gang left, it was bedtime for the birthday boy. I had hoped that a good night's sleep would put him in better spirits but he's had some rough patches today too. Most notable is that he hasn't been interested in food....very unlike him! Mike and I suspect the 3 incoming teeth he's working on are the culprits. If that's not it, well, we've got his 1 year wellness check up happening on Wednesday and the doctor will be able to search for other possibilities.