Jackson's Mickey Mouse Themed First Birthday Party (Decorations)

As usual, I took a ton of pictures of Jackson's 1st Birthday party... so I thought I would split his party up into 2 posts. The first being the decorations. :-)

I got started on the decorations a couple months ago by making his "Happy Birthday" Banner, his "I Am 1" Banner and his "Monthly Pictures" Banner. I just bought scrapbook paper and solid color card stock to make them and I used my Cricut machine to cut out the letters and shapes.

 This was his monthly banner and I also set my pregnancy scrapbook and his 1st year scrapbook out for everyone to look at. I also put all of his weekly pictures on my digital frame and set that on the table as well! The giant Mickey Mouse belonged to a friend of ours and she said we could borrow it for the party! We had a couple extra centerpieces, so I added those to this little table as well. :-)

Then last weekend, I made all of the centerpieces. I just used a black paper lantern, made the ears out of black card stock and cut them out using my cricut. I then hot-glued the head onto a red bucket. The buttons were made just using white card stock and my cricut and the feet were made using yellow card stock and my cricut. It was all hot-glued together and they each sat nicely on the tables. :-) I also (with the help of my sister), made the little Oreo cookie, Mickey Mouse suckers. They were quite a bit of work, but once we figured out exactly how to do it, they were fairly easy. I got the idea here.

Here's a close-up of the Mickey Mouse sucker we made.

I also made several Pom Poms to go over the food table! I just used Black, Red and Yellow tissue paper.

My sister made the cake and cupcakes and I cut out the little banner using my cricut. It all turned out so cute!! I got the idea for the cupcakes here and the idea for the banner here.

I also made some cute little goody bags for the kids. I just used a snack size baggy and filled it with red Swedish Fish. I then cut out the ears using black card stock and my cricut machine. I used Picmonkey to make the poem and just cut it out round and glued it onto the ears. I found the poem online and just changed things around to tie in the Mickey Mouse theme. They were pretty easy to make and put together. :-)

With a lot of help, from my mom, sister our Pastor's wife and my Mother in Law, we got the dining hall all decorated the Friday night before his party! It took us a few hours but we got it all done and it looked great. I used 4 packs of 15 balloons (one in each of the party theme colors) to make the ceiling decorations. We just strung the balloons up using fishing line and a needle. Thankfully I had spent the extra $2.50 on a hand held thing to blow up the balloons. My arm hurt the next couple of days, but it was worth it. :-) The long table in these pictures below, was the kids table. They each had little mickey mouse ear headbands to wear.

I think that about covers all the party decorations. I will post about the actual party tomorrow.

P.S. if you have any questions about how I made something or where I bought something for the party, just let me know! :-)

1st Birthday Party Sneak Peak!

I'm off work today and plan to spend the day with my 1 year old! :-) My sister found a fun Tot Skate at her local YMCA for toddlers, that we are taking the boys to this morning.

I haven't gotten around to going through or editing any of the pictures from Jackson's party, but  I hope to get to that tomorrow or sometime this week for sure. But I did take a couple phone pictures that I posted on Instagram, so I'll post them here for those of you that didn't see them. I hope you all enjoyed your weekend! We sure did!

My sister and I made these for the party. They were red chocolate dipped oreos, with mini oreos for the ears and just white icing for the buttons. They seemed to be a pretty big hit at the party.

Jackson with a giant Mickey Mouse at his party!

Papa pulling Jackson around in his new wagon with his Mickey Mouse ears on! :-)

Our Sweet Boy is Turning 1!

Jackson turns 1 on Saturday! I can hardly believe it! I will be off work tomorrow and probably won't have time to blog all weekend because I'll be preparing for and throwing Jackson's 1st birthday party! I'm so excited about the party and can't wait to see months of planning come together! 

So in honor of the birthday boy, I'll leave you with a few pictures I took this past weekend and I'll have plenty of party pictures for you next week! If you follow me on Instagram, I'll post a few pictures there from the party.

Happy Birthday sweet boy! Mommy and Daddy have had the best year of our lives and we feel beyond blessed and grateful to be celebrating such a sweet, funny and loveable little boy. You bring such joy and happiness to our lives and you make every day an adventure. We love you so much!

I'm linking up here:

Our Little Golfer!

I spotted this Halloween Costume on Party City's website a few weeks ago. I immediately sent a picture to my husband (who is a golfer... a pretty darn good golfer) and he said, "Buy it Now!" So I did! ☺

I had been planning on taking a few pictures of him in his costume, just here at home, but then I had a great idea to take him up to a local golf course and shoot some pictures of him on their putting green. So since I was off work on Monday, and it was a beautiful morning, I got him all dressed up and took him out to the golf course. I got several comments on how cute he was from some of the golfers there! ☺ If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you have seen some or all of these already.

Then on the way home from the golf course, I stopped off at the little pumpkin patch down the road. Its actually the same place we get our Christmas Tree every year. :-)  I figured since Jackson was all dressed up in his costume, I should get some pictures of him with some pumpkins too. :-)

We had such a fun day!! I just LOVE this costume and can't wait for him to Trick or Treat in it!

Lets Talk Tattoos Link Up

I'm linking up with Melanie today for her Lets Talk Tattoos Link up.

I have 3 tattoos!

I got my first tattoo in 2004. A few ladies here at work were planning to go get a tattoo, so since I had been thinking about getting one, but would never do it on my own, I decided to join them. We went on a Sunday afternoon. I love dolphins and had the tattoo I wanted already planned out. It turned out perfect and I love it. The colors are still so vibrant today, 8 years later.

They are on my lower/middle back. ☺

The very next summer, one of the same co-workers of mine decided she wanted to get another tattoo. So I said would go too and get a paw print on the inside of my left ankle. :-) I love animals and had just gotten my dog Libby a month before, so I got the paw print for my love of animals (dogs especially).

Then after my Grammy passed away last year, my cousin thought we should all go get tattoos of a hummingbird in honor of her. She loved hummingbirds. My sister and I were pregnant at the time, so we waited and went with my mom to get our hummingbird tattoos. We went on the 1 year anniversary of her death. (April 21st) My mom got hers on the inside of her ankle and my sister and I got ours on the top of our foot. We also incorporated her "grammy" signature. I had a birthday card that she had signed "grammy" and I took it to the tattoo artist to incorporate in the tattoo. It turned out really cool. I love it. I do have to say, that this tattoo hurt more than the other two I have. The top of your foot is so thin skinned and tender. Ouch! But it was worth it. ☺

A Year Ago today...

A year ago today I looked like this:

You can read about how I was feeling in my 39 Week post.

A year ago today I was so excited and nervous about having a new baby. I didn't know exactly what to expect and I knew my life was about change drastically. 

It drastically changed alright. It drastically changed for the better! 

Jackson will be one a week from today! Its so hard to believe its almost been a year... the best year of my life!

More Blog Friends! ☺

After this post, last weekend, I had several people say that they'd like to swap blog buttons with me. I spotlighted a few of them earlier this week and thought I'd spotlight a couple more. :-) 

Erin is a new blog friend. She has 2 adorable children and a super cute new blog design! She is so sweet, please stop by her blog and say hello! :-)

Melanie is another new blog friend. I enjoy reading about her sweet family and her motivation to run and work out. I need some of that motivation, I really really do. Please stop by her blog as well! :-)

  Thanks so much to all of you who offered to swap blog buttons! You ladies are the best. If anyone else is interested in swapping blog buttons with me, please feel free to e-mail me at AmyRS81@aol.com I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! I'll be spending the next couple of days making decorations for Jackson's 1st birthday party. I can't believe he'll be 1 a week from tomorrow! Crazy!