One more before I stop for the night, Thanksgiving!
For Evie's first Thanksgiving we were scheduled to be in Niceville. Since our family has grown this year, the Fowlers generously put us up in a beautiful beach house in Destin. We had a lovely time doing Thanksgiving crafts, making homemade applesauce, and spending a little time getting our toes sandy. So wonderful!
As long as I have momentum from posting about Evie's first birthday party, I thought I'd post some pictures from her first Halloween. Seriously overdue, I know. So sorry!
As seems to have been the trend in recent years, Willa had a few costumes! She had a few different events, and she tends to change her mind about what she wants to be between each one. At school she wanted to be Sofia the First. She definitely fit in with the girls in her class, where almost every single one was a princess too!
We also had a family costume, as the Belchers, when we went to our friends' Halloween party. This is what Jeremy and I were last year, but this year we incorporated the girls. It was so fun!
When I found my childhood dream costume at a resale shop, I couldn't help myself and had to get it for Willa. We took it to a trunk or treat in our neighborhood, and she had lots of fun galloping in it!
For the church All Souls Festival, Willa was Sofia the First again, and Evie was a perfect little owl. They were both too precious for words!
Two days before Halloween, Willa told me that she wanted to be a puppy. Thanks to Amazon Prime, we were able to make that happen for her.
She really was the cutest puppy on the block!
By total coincidence her friend Petra, who joined us for trick or treating again, decided to be a puppy too. They are the sweetest friends!
It was fun, but a little hectic! Wouldn't have it any other way!!
And just like that, our girl is one. Holy smokes. We did a little family party with Hops takeout, a vanilla cupcake, and a gift from Willa. Evie was thrilled with all of the above!
I have been looking forward to planning a summer kid's birthday party since I found out I was due in July. All my favorite party activities take place outside, and I had so many ideas!
I decided to try to keep things on the simpler side, and I truly feel like I did. Most everything I used was borrowed from friends or something I already had. I only served three food items, one of which I bought, and one of which was already made. Decorations were minimal, but we spent most of our time outside.
Watermelon candies!
I borrowed a bounce castle from another mom, such a score!
Super cute cake from Delicious, complete with homemade cake topper
A little bulldog cameo since our nickname for Evie is "Evie-bulldog"
Watermelon lemonade
We borrowed a pool from a friend, and added some watermelon themed inflatables
To incorporate at least one game we decided to do a watermelon eating contest. We divided the competition into an adult and a kids heat. Blake, as the oldest kid, won his easily. As a surprise, he decided to join the adults and narrowly lost that one! Jeremy was the victor in that one :-).
I must say, we had an awesome group of friends come out to celebrate. Evie is one lucky kid to have so many awesome people to grow up with!
The big splurge was hiring our favorite ice cream truck, the Ice Queen, to come by the house. It was surprisingly affordable, especially since we didn't really spend that much elsewhere. The minimum amount of ice cream we would be charged for was 20 sandwiches, and since there were only nine of us, we all got to have at least two things. It was awesome.
When it was cake time, I fully expected Evie to love every bite. She is a voracious eater and got to try a cupcake on her actual birthday, which she loved. To my surprise, she was not really a fan. The icing had melted somewhat and was rather thick, so perhaps the texture threw her off? Either way she had more fun finger painting with the icing than eating the cake itself, which made for interesting pictures!
These last pictures are from the watermelon photo shoot I did for invites and thank you notes. I used the watermelon beach balls that I gave out as favors and one real one that we enjoyed at dinner later that night. They turned out so cute!
