Birthday Party Number Two

This party was the BIG one, the one that I had been planning for months. I don't know why but I get excited about this kind of stuff. Months ago I had decided on the theme of cupcakes. Whenever something "cupcake" caught my eye (that was affordable) I stockpiled it in a birthday box. I found tons of cute stickers, ideas, papers, etc. We had about 30 close family and friends over for lunch at my parents after church Sunday, the 18th. It was such a fun group of people, and I wanted to be able to honor their participation in Belle's first year of life. Each and every one of them played an important role in getting to this day. They were all there for us while we were trying to get pregnant, through Belle's early arrival, offering comfort during Belle's colic, and sharing with us in the joy if watching our beautiful, sweet girl blossom into the one-year old she is today.

We had a lunch that consisted of turkey and cornbread sandwiches with jalapeno jelly, ham and homemade yeast rolls with honey mustard, pimento cheese on wheat sandwich squares, potato salad, fruit salad, tea, pink lemonade punch, and lots of yummy desserts. I wish I had gotten a picture of the spread of food, but it was a true "southern" luncheon.

Picture of the dessert table. We had little bowls full of different pink candies. I saw many little and big hands sneaking some throughout the day!

Milk chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing.

I had planned on making cookie bouquets for each person to take home a cookie on a stick. This idea failed miserably, so some Lofthouse cookies made great party favors at last minute. Wrapped in cellophane with pink grosgrain ribbon and a sweet thank you note sticker on the back made them a fun treat for all to take home.


The CAKE! It was sour cream pound cake with buttercream icing. The top of the cupcake and the dots are out of pink fondant accented with pearl dust.

The next two pictures are of the flower decorations I made to spruce up some of the tables in the basement.

Every month we have taken a picture of Belle with her Rageddy Ann doll. I printed them out (via Wolf Camera) and made a cute hanging banner for the mantel to show how much Belle has grown the last year. This was my easiest and favorite project. I am thinking of taking the ribbon off and having it framed for her room.

Just a little more cake smashing.... unless you haven't seen enough. We have really created quite the icing junkie. She LOVES it.

Look at that sweet girls face while opening presents. This is her new surprise/excited face. She makes it especially for bubbles!
This party was so much fun to plan. We had such a fun day and wouldn't have changed one thing about the day. I don't even want to start thinking about birthday number two.

Birthday Party Number One

We decided to have two birthday parties for Miss Belle. We had the grandparents and great grandparents over on her actual birthday for spaghetti and cake smashing. It was really nice to have something low key before the BIG party. We have a Bailey Boys outlet store near the beach house in St. Simon's, and I had been really wanting their birthday outfit. Mark's mom bought it for Belle for Christmas. It was too cute on her and I think big enough to maybe fit her next year as well.

Baby girl dressed up in her birthday outfit.

SO happy it is her birthday!

Very first spaghetti dinner.

Needless to say she loved it. She actually ate it double-fisted.

Nothing like an orange face and hands - too cute.

The aftermath

First smash cake.

It definitely took her a little while to decide if she wanted to eat this. Once she got a taste of the icing she went wild.

The funny thing was that while she loved and I mean loved the icing, she would spit out the cake.

I guess I have created an icing junkie.

She decided she was over it at this point, and proceeded to run laps around our living room stopping only to dance at her laugh and learn table.

Up next... The BIG birthday party!

One Year Old

I cannot believe that a whole year has gone by since our little peanut entered the world with her surprise arrival. Belle has really flourished into such a sweet, little toddler. Her personality is so much fun, and she is learning more and more each day.

At one year she is wearing primarily 6-12 month size clothes. She loves to sit and "read" books. She loves all the pictures and especially books with texture. She love, loves baby dolls and pushing her stroller all over our house. There are very few toys that Belle does not like, but she would most prefer to play with remote controls, phones, light switches, and anything else she shouldn't be getting into. She is a very good eater and loves to try new things. You can tell instantly with her if she is going to like it or not by her sour face she makes. If you serve her something for dinner she doesn't want, she looks you straight in the eye and throws it on the floor. She then shakes her head "no" because she knows that is a no no and would like to point out that she did a no-no. She can say "dada", "mama" (only when she is upset or mad), "was-at" (whats that?), "was-iss" (whats this), "hi", and "yum-yum". She knows the animal noises for lion, monkey, owl, and occasionally duck - we are going exotic here folks no puppy or cow noises for my kid. We are in the process of ditching the bottles -- any tips would be SUPER helpful. Other than that she is all around very fun and interactive.

One Year Stats

18 lbs. 8.5 oz

29 inches

Stay tuned birthday party post coming up soon (hopefully tonight)!

Christmas Part One

This year for Christmas we decided to start some traditions of our own. Usually we spend the night with whichever family we are spending Christmas with. This year we spent Christmas Eve at our house after eating soup and reading The Night Before Christmas with my family. It was really fun to have that special time just the three of us Christmas morning. I am sure it will be more and more fun as Belle gets older.

We had a sweet paci-smile awaiting us when Belle woke up. I am sure she was wondering why in the world we were taking pictures of her waking up.
Look at all the treasures Santa brought! A new coat, hat and mittens for our londong trip, a picture Bible, a new book, a swing, and a push toy!

Santa brought stockings too, but they were too heavy to stay on our mantel.

Belle playing with her new push toy/ride on in her Christmas PJ's.

She loves her new coat even though it swallows her whole! The matching cupcake hat and mittens are so cute - maybe one day she will keep them on!

After seeing all that Santa brought, we loaded up and headed to my parents. Post to follow soon!

Projects

The decorations are packed up and the celebration has died down... at least for now. I am trying to play blogger catch up. I will be posting several new posts throughout the evening so check back!

Now that I have my sewing machine I was able to complete some really cute projects for Christmas gifts. I made lovey blankets for each of the nieces and nephews and gave them a goodnight book to go with them. I still have learning to do, but I was overall very pleased with how they turned out. They are 15" x 15" which is such a great size.

I made this adorable blue and brown blanket for Jake. The print is a soft cotton fabric and the other side is a blue minky fabric. In the future I think I would order a brown minky since the blues are a tad different but I love how cute the big dots look!

I made this for Ella Grace. I saved some of this fabric because I think it will be precious for a summer dress for Belle.

This combination was for Mallory. The pink doesn't show up well in the picture but it was a soft cherry pink which contrasted so nicely with the white minky. I made a blanket for Hudson (my brother-in-laws soon to be born baby) and it was the same print except in taupe and white.

I would love to start selling these so let me know if you have any interest! I can also use the fabrics to make coordinating burp cloths.

My mom has always loved the frames I made for the twins and Ella Grace's nursery. She has begged me for years to paint this above a doorway in her house. That was a bit to permanent for me, so I painted her this frame as a BIG surprise. We made the picture hole bigger so that it could accommodate all the new family!