We celebrated a week after his actual birthday with a Cowboy Party at the lodge.
We always do a big first birthday and invite the extended family for our kids’ first party. We had a really good turnout, but hated that some of our family couldn’t be there because of other vacations and obligations… summer birthdays are always like that though. :)
Tucker loved everything about his party. It was precious.
Grandma was pushing him around in the little car before the party started and when everyone started getting there, he was so excited.
He kept pointing to himself and pointing at all the decorations. It was precious and just like he was saying, “This is MY party!”Tables were set with denim tablecloths (borrowed from DW’s aunt), burlap runners and rag-garland centerpieces with black and white pictures of Tucker’s first year.
The backdrop for the food table was a pallet wall with rag-garland and Tucker’s name.
I painted/covered the letters and plan to hang them in his bathroom, which is cowboy themed. 
I copied Carrie’s wanted posters from Whitt’s first birthday to do monthly pictures of Tucker’s first year and we strung those up on one end of the pavilion.
My FAVORITE decoration from the party was the balloon topiaries.
I’d seen them on Pinterest for a girl’s rainbow party, but thought they’d be cute in our party colors, too. 
Plus, Tucker LOVES balloons, so I knew I wanted to have some at his party. We made five and had them scattered around the yard… 
They were so easy to make and turned out to be such a cute addition to the party. The hardest part was getting the conduit pipes in the ground, but DW and his Daddy took care of that. These will be at future parties, no doubt. As always, we couldn’t have pulled off the party without our family.
My mom was burned badly in a brush fire a couple weeks before Tucker’s party and she wasn’t able to help like she normally does with birthdays. But everyone else jumped in and helped double time to make up for it. We weren’t even sure she’d be able to make it, but thankfully she was! 
Anyway, we got it all done and pulled off a fun evening for our baby boy. The food was BBQ and fixings.
The table cloths on the food table belonged to DW’s grandparents. They’re vinyl and a handkerchief print. I love when sentimental things can be used for sweet things, like the baby’s FIRST birthday! :)
The kids’ table was in the center and different than all the picnic tables. The kids had cowboy hats, sheriff star badges, handkerchiefs and cowboy boot mugs.
The cake was a three tier cow print cake with a fondant “rope” circling the bottom of each layer.
We also had four churns going with homemade ice cream.
Baby brother loved his smash cake, too….
He was pretty serious about it the whole time…
I always like to have a few activities for the kids going on…
We had the corn bin, which is hands down always the kids’ favorite.
Which explains why it shows up at so many of our parties. ;) This time, we called it “Gem Mining” – I got gold nuggets and big gems from Amazon and buried them in the corn. 
The kids had the best time “panning” for them. 
“Tettie” (my cousin, Steph), made his adorable embroidered jon-jon. It was PERFECT for the party and even had pearl snaps. I wanted something “cowboy” but it’s August in Florida, so I knew it would be so hot to put him in his jeans and boots. He started out wearing his cowboy boots with the jon-jon, which was ADORABLE, but quickly shed those for bare feet.
The photo booth is always cute... this time we opted for a Wanted poster..
And the highlight for Tucker, which thrilled me beyond measure- the pony rides.
We borrowed “Cisco” from some friends for AB’s 5th birthday and I was so happy they let us use him again for Tucker’s party. 
Tucker hadn’t been on a horse yet, so I wasn’t sure what he would think. We died when he sat up there, grabbed the saddle horn and bounced like he was telling Cisco to “giddy up.”
He LOVED it and cried when we made him get off and let the other kids have a turn. He got to ride again and again, but in between rides Pop had to keep him in the swing so he wouldn’t cry to get on the pony. It was precious that he loved it so much. 
It was SO HOT and I knew our guests were ready to call it a night, so we tried to open his gifts quickly. 
He would get so excited when he (or his sisters) would open one but then we’d take it away to open another one and he’d cry. 
Bless his heart, he just wanted to open them and play! 
We sent our guests home with chocolate covered peanut clusters, that we named “Cow Chow.”
It was a sweet evening celebrating our littlest love and when it was all over, I couldn’t have loved our LAST FIRST birthday more.
~amw~
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