Two Years Old

On Saturday, October 9, we celebrated Owen's second birthday. Poppie hosted the party at his house in Chapel Hill, and all of Owen's family and friends gathered together for some birthday festivities. The day started off with LOTS of balloons:
People traveled from all over the place to be there. Lynn (Pooh) and Henry (PapaRuss) flew in from Lawrence, KS.
Owen reunited with several friends that he had not seen in awhile. Here he is sharing a hug with Monty:
He blew a birthday horn:
And he blew lots of bubbles:
Charles and Patsy Harrison cooked up a spectacular feast of fried catfish, green beans, hushpuppies, french fries, and corn pudding. Southern traditionalists and Whole Foods regulars all agreed: the food was to die for.
Owen ate three pieces of fried catfish to kick things off, and then roamed around charming his guests into feeding him whatever was to his liking on their plates, including approximately fifty hushpuppies.
It was kind of like a wedding reprise of sorts with so many of our favorite people in attendance. I could have happily spent hours on end catching up with each person there, but the whole party went by in what felt like 15 minutes:
Then it was time for some cake:
TIME OUT, PLEASE. Before Owen blows out his candles, can we get a closer look at that cake??

Oh, sure you can.

Homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting (two of them, actually): yum. Having never baked a cake before, I was ridiculously excited and proud to have made Owen's cake myself. And by "made it myself," I mean that I read each instruction and then asked Helen worriedly what it meant and what to do and then she showed me and helped me do it and stayed up with me until after midnight the night before the party. One thousand thank yous, Dee Dee!
After 40+ people serenaded him, Owen successfully blew all of his candles out on his own:
Proud parents (I'm 14-weeks pregnant in this photo, and, with hormones surging through my body, I was putting forth significant effort to hold back the tears):
Get in there, baby. Lick those candles:
During the after party, Owen played some pool and opened a few presents:
He got to stay up way past his bedtime. When I finally carried him upstairs to his crib, he protested before almost instantaneously passing out.

It was an amazing day.