My Baby is 3!

Tomorrow is Allison's official birthday. Today we officially celebrated!


The theme of her party was owls. It was so much fun for me to plan. It seemed that everywhere I went, I saw owls!


Here was her party invite. I purchased a pdf from etsy.com I think I paid $11.95 for the designer to personalize the card and then email me the pdf. I then saved it, took it to Target, and printed the invites out as a regular picture size for 32 cents I think.



My mom and I were shopping at Walmart the other day, and I saw this silly bat pinata on clearance for $5.00. As soon as I saw it I knew I could transform this little bat into a beautiful owl! My mom has the before picture on her phone...all I have is the after picture. The kids and I named her Ollie the owl!
She was WAY too cute to let the kids whack with a bat. So instead, she was our centerpiece in the kitchen. I used a woven basket as her "nest", turned my stock pot upside down inside the basket, covered that with a brown fleece blanket, and then added a few sticks we had collected earlier in the week. Cara was happy to lend Ollie one of her bright pink hair pretties to wear! I think she may have to find a permanent home in the girls' room!



Here are a few more owl touches that were around the house!

These were just some foam owls that I bought in a pack from JoAnn Fabric for under $4.



I also used the foam owls to make a garland. I had several great pictures of Allie wearing her owl hat on a recent trip to a pumpkin patch with her preschool.









Unfortunately, most of my pictures don't have our friends and family in them! I'm always so busy during the party, that I take many of my pictures before it even starts! My awesomely talented photographer-sister-in-law will share some great pictures with me soon! I'll have to update with more "people shots" later.

I found these cute foam owl hats at Michael's.
One of my favorite details was the adorable owl pitcher that I found at Christmas Tree Shop (love that place) for only $1.00! I filled it with gummy worms. They were a HUGE hit with the kids. I am definitely going to keep this cute little piece out somewhere in the house.

If you haven't tried pinterest yet, what are you waiting for?!? I love gathering ideas. Gathering recipes. Gathering quotes. Pinterest is a place to store all of the wonderful tidbits of creativity that you find online. I saw someone use branches as a centerpiece on pinterest, and that is where I got the idea for these. The tiny owl ornaments that I found at JoAnns were the perfect touch!


Allie gave owl notepads to the girls and green owl bags to the boys.
Here is the birthday girl!
Certainly the CUTEST detail at the party was the awesome cake made by Jen Kirkum of Kirkum Cakes.

Brace yourself for some serious adorable-ness!

I just set it right on the cake stand my mom gave Allie to use on all of her special occasions in life, and added some branches around the bottom!
This is what it looked like with a few up lights and when we lit the candles.
After we lit the candles, big-brother-Eli helped Allie blow them out. Allie yelled, "Eli, you are not supposed to blow the candles out!" So, we lit them again, and she got to do it all by herself!
For those of you who have known our family a while, you know that Allie's arrival into our family was a pretty big surprise! The triplets were only just over 9 months old when I found out I was pregnant with her. 9 months later I found myself with 4 kids under 2! Then just two and a half months after that, Brady was diagnosed with cancer. That first year of her life was really consumed by Brady's surgeries and treatment. In so many ways that makes me sad. Many of the wonderful memories I should have of her first months are clouded by all that occurred as we fought for Brady's life. However, I believe that God knew just what we needed during that dark time. We all needed a beautiful new baby to remind us that life goes on, happiness can always be found, and that we could still have some joy in the midst of darkness.

We love you Allison Elizabeth! It's okay that you are turning 3...but how about you hold off on getting any older for a long, long time:)