Oliver's Birthday Party

As promised, here is a post all about Oliver's 1st birthday party from this past Sunday!  The picture quality isn't great, the indoor lighting and my old as the dinosaurs iPhone didn't play together super well, but you'll get the general idea.  We sort of had a Dr. Seuss theme to match his nursery, but beyond that it was just a nice afternoon spent with family and friends.

I got him a "One" shirt from Old Navy and I figure, hey, he'll be one all year long so he can wear it until he outgrows it!  I was a little worried about how he was going to do as he was fighting naps all day on Sunday, but he managed to get a good afternoon nap in before everyone showed up, so he was in pretty good spirits.

He wasn't too sure about being the center of attention with all these people surrounding him, this is the most people we've had in our house since Oktoberfest and for Oktoberfest we could be downstairs and outside, for his birthday party we all kind of crammed into the living room and dining room, but it worked out ok.

I made two different kinds of cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and an Oreo which I called my "Cat in the Hat" cupcakes.  We also made spice cake with cream cheese frosting because Ollie hasn't had many sweets and we thought the spice cake would be gentler on his tummy.

We made a roast beef baguette type appetizer to represent "Roast Beast" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Nate seasoned some cream cheese and spread it on the baguette with a piece of roast beef on top - SO yummy.

And here we have "Hop on Popcorn" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Goldfish" crackers.  Yep, I'm a giant nerd.  We also had a roasted red pepper artichoke dip and barbecue meatballs, but I couldn't figure out how to tie those into the theme, but I will say they were yummy as well.

Of course we had to have balloons.  Oliver's sweet auntie Ali bought a ton of red, white and blue balloons and a giant silver "1".  Ollie LOVES balloons, we'll be enjoying them for awhile!

He loved his cake.  He wasn't too sure at first but then we smashed it up for him a bit and he was all over it.  He ate the whole cupcake!  After a while though he started whining for other food, we realized he needed some protein to balance all that sugar!

He got tons of fun presents, many new toys that we've been enjoying already, puzzles, clothes and lots and lots of new books.  I think mom might be more excited about the new books than Ollie - we have been needing some new material in our rotation, I have the Going to Bed Book memorized, so yeah, new books are good!

It was so sweet to see him play with his little friends who are just a little bit older than him.  I've mentioned our friend Benny on the blog before.  Benny is 15 months old so not too much older than Ollie.  They shared Ollie's Tupperware together, it was pretty cute.

And of course Ollie's little girlfriend Eloise came too, she even dressed up with a necklace for the occasion.  For a time Ollie was more interested in Eloise's big sister Gertie, but you know, she's blond and Ollie has a thing for blondes!  He still played nice with Miss Eloise too though!  
Overall it was a great day and everything I hoped for in his first birthday party.  I know he will never remember it, but it was still special for Nate and I and someday we'll tell him all about the family and friends who love him so much and wanted to celebrate his special day with him!
I'm relieved the party is over now, I need to step up Christmas prep in high gear!  Lots of online shopping to come and possibly some shopping in stores this weekend.  It will all get done, it is much easier this year than last year anyway!

Inspiration Monday - Oktoberfest Afterglow

Happy Monday!  Whew what a weekend we just had!  Another successful Oktoberfest celebration in the books.  It was a wonderful day on Saturday with family and friends in our home enjoying homebrew.  The weather was fantastic.  I couldn't have asked for more!

I was excited when I saw the two birds Inspiration Monday picture for today early last week as I was planning on wearing a similar sweater to my party, so now I have an excuse to share my Oktoberfest outfit here today!  Here is Alessandra Ambrosio in a fabulous aztec sweater.

And here is my take on it!  I found this awesome sweater at the thrift store a few weeks ago now and had been looking for a good excuse to wear it - I finally found one I guess!  I was so cozy, especially while saddling up to the bonfire we had after the sun went down!

Sweater - Old Navy (thrifted), Cami - Gap

Jeans - Old Navy, Boots - Target

Necklace - Stella and Dot 

Oliver did pretty well for his first Oktoberfest celebration too.  He hung in for the first couple of hours but then got pretty tired out so we sent him home with Nate's parents so he could sleep in a quieter house for awhile!  We went back and got him after everything wrapped up as it wasn't too terribly late of a night.  

It was a good time, nice to see people we haven't seen much in a while and we love sharing our love of homebrew with others.  The clear winner was our apfelvien - which is almost more of a hard cider/wine than it is beer, but that seems to be the favorite every year!  My personal favorite I think is our current raspberry porter, it's a nice roasty beer with raspberry flavor and it's so tasty!  I'm glad we were able to pull off having our annual event after taking last year off.  I missed it last year and I'm pretty impressed we could make this happen even with an active 10 month old at home!  The best part - our house is now the cleanest it's been since before Oliver was born!  I am hoping we'll keep that trend up, but who am I kidding?  
For more Inspiration Monday looks, head on over to two birds over here!

Pinned it and Did it - Baby shower style

Hey everyone!  So I had some requests for pictures from my baby shower - we didn't get a lot, but I have some of my outfit because I was purposely saving it for today's "Pinned it and Did It" with Heather from Style Journey.  I pinned this outfit a little while back because I recently purchased a very similar sweater dress from a consignment shop.

My outfit is a little different toned, instead of brown, I paired mine with purple leggings and a gray scarf.  It was kind of chilly on Sunday, so it was kind of needed!  The next time I wear this I want to try it with some brown.

I was warm and cozy and had a lot of compliments!  And best of all - this was a very comfy outfit too!  I was also color coordinated with the decorations - totally not on purpose!

Sweater - Motherhood, consignment

Leggings - Simply Vera, Kohls

Scarf - World Market

Boots - Target

My outfit photos were courtesy of the Pants Monkey and in the last one above here he was doing something to make me laugh or talk or something. Gotta love him.

Here are a few photos from the actual shower courtesy of my aunt.  My mom has 12 brothers and sisters, so her family is quite large!  This is only a small representation.

This picture makes me laugh because I'm sitting between two aunts who both happened to be named Pat.  I joked that I was a "Patty sandwich."

I still have two more showers coming later on, so hopefully I'll have other pictures to share at some point! Our little man sure will be spoiled!

Head on over to Heather's blog and see other Pinspired outfits!

Oktoberfest

We had a house stuffed full of people yesterday for our annual Oktoberfest celebration.  Even though it was cold and rainy, we didn't let it get us down!  I was bound and determined to wear the cute outfit I had planned, so I did.  And I was surprisingly comfortable!

Layers were the way to go, I never ventured outside, but if had, I would have added a jacket.  I had a lot of compliments on my outfit, so I guess it was a success!

Got my beer mug all ready to go.

But wait, there's no beer in it?  What's wrong here?

After this I promptly went to go fill it up! 

It was a blast as always and wonderful to see so many of our friends and family.  Our tradition the day after is to pretty much be lazy as we can and go out to brunch.  I'm waiting for Mr. Monkey to get up so we can go.  It was a pretty late night though!

Shirt - thrifted Target stock

Tank - Old Navy

Skirt - thrifted

Leggings - Target

Boots - Target

Necklace - S&D