Chris and Kristen + 2: 1st Birthday Party!

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see one year old twins looking at me!

Brown Bear Brown Bear was and still is one of Hannah and Owen's favorite books so I decided to make this the theme of their 1st birthday party on Saturday, Novemeber 12th. It was so fun! Their invitations were primary colors with pictures of Hannah and Owen on the front and I stamped a brown bear on each envelope. We had the animals from the book hanging from the ceiling above the half wall that seperates our living room and kitchen. We had colorful balloons decorating the outside. As snacks on the tables we had goldfish and teddy grahams. For fun we turned Hannah and Owen's blow up pool into a ball pit. The grand finale of the party was their brown bear themed cake and cupcakes.

M & M party favors to match the colors of the animals from the book.

The gift corner!

Hannah and Owen's birthday cake-I love it!

Hannah and Owen's personal birthday cupcakes

Hannah and Owen loved their party! I was surprised at how well they did with so many people at our house. We invited friends and family that they see most often, but I still thought they would find it overwhelming. They did great though! They loved opening presents-in fact we had to officially open presents before eating cake and ice cream because the whole time the adults ate they were busy working on pulling all the tissue paper out of bags and putting holes in the wrapping paper on presents. Opening presents with 1 year old twins was chaos! Chris helped Owen and I helped Hannah and neither one of us got to pay much attention to the other. At one point in the middle I stopped to say thank you for all the gifts previously opened because in the chaos I remembered I hadn't been doing that. Hannah and Owen got lots of new toys to play with. It made packing up their baby toys and rattles a little easier since they had new fun things to play with. They love interacting and playing with all their new toys.

Hannah and Owen try to get into their presents early

Gift opening chaos!

Hannah loves her new hat and winter coat from Nana and Granddad.

Tissue paper and cards are the best to one year olds!

Owen enjoyed the cards-we have 3 pictures of him "eating" the cards.

Yes, Owen is in the bag!

Both Hannah and Owen enjoyed their first cupcake. I knew Owen would dig right in and I was right. At one point he had the whole cupcake in his hand trying to cram it in his mouth. Hannah played with the first smears of icing that got on her fingers and finally decided it was okay to eat when I put a little icing on her lips. I ended up having to break her cupcake up into smaller pieces for her to eat.

A big thank you to all of our family and friends who came to celebrate Hannah and Owen's birthday with us. We enjoyed sharing this day with you. Also, thank you to those who sent cards and texts wishing us a fun day. It was really hard to figure out who to invite. We would have invited everyone we know if we could have. We hope you enjoy this collection of pictures from the party. I owe a big thanks to Rachel Saunders, Renee's sister, who came and took pictures for us so that we could focus on Hannah and Owen and celebrating the special day!

After their guests left Owen and Hannah had a ball in the ball pit we created for their party!

After the festivities ended a tired and cranky Hannah and Owen were put down for a nap about an hour after their usual naptime. Mommy and Daddy opened all their new toys and put them together so we could play when they woke up.