the bowers in pursuit: gavin is two...

I can't believe Gavin is now two! He even says that he is two and he tries to show you on his little hand, but ends up making some freakish claw!!! I told Mark yesterday that on his first birthday I felt more of an accomplishment that we had made it through the first year. This year I feel much more sentimental. Yesterday, his actually birthday, I watched the clock and thought back about how I was in labor, until the moment he came into this world. I thought about our first day and night together and how Mark and I watched him nervously to make sure he was ok. I think we were more in awe and wonder. I can't believe how much he has evolved over these past two years, and I can't believe how much I love that sweet little soul.

On Sunday we threw Gavin a birthday party. It was a lot to get together, but he deserves it and seeing him enjoy everyone and everything SO much made it all worth it. Here is a little peek at how we celebrated our growing little boy.

Gavin LOVES Elmo so we chose that much loved little monster for his party. I knew most of the guests were adults so I wanted the decorations to be tasteful. I started with what is the focal point of our house right now, our Christmas trees. I feel bad for the boy that he has his special day so close to Christmas so I transformed our trees into Elmo trees with the help of my printer and scalloped edged scissors.

I knew the majority of our guests were adults so I divided our great room into two areas, adult seating and Elmo's World with toddler friendly activities, but chairs for adults to sit in and partake in the action.

I used a box from a mirror we have and filled it with balls and covered the edges with paper for the ball pit. I also filled this block/activity table with rice and added Sesame Street characters and cups for a rice table. Both were a HUGE hit!!

I added some blue polka-dot pillows to our couch to compliment the color theme of the party...

Covered the gift table and the food table in cheap fabric...

And made these Elmo toothpick decorations to adorn the food. All I did for these were print, cut and then hot glue the circles to toothpicks. Mark even helped glue!! :)

I found the Elmo buckets in the $1 bins at Target and bought the red and white polka-dot napkins months ago on sale!

I made favors for both the adults and kids to thank them in celebrating the day with us. The adults got fish spritz cookies that I made with my cookie press... because Elmo does love his goldfish Dorothy. I added a special message to each.