Party Time!

The Hostetlers let us take over their backyard, or whole house  for that matter in order to celebrate E's first year! I won't explain much, mainly because I posted so many pictures and this post would become a book. For the record there were about 440 pictures taken that day so consider yourself lucky...this is the condensed version.  We had a great night celebrating our girl with so many good friends. Whoever said "it takes a village" was not lying.  It was a sweet time to reflect on the year with all of those that helped get us here .  

We did a "You are My Sunshine" theme.  The girls at Sweet Birdies Nest did a great job with the invites and then we took it from there.

a childhood favorite

Monthly pics

Birthday girl arriving on the scene

My love.

my talented husband

Some corn hole action for the boys

Even riggs got some attention from these sweet girls

entirely too much icing

so very cautious

Her tunnel.  We didn't think she was eating any.  Sneaky.

E and her boys

Worlds greatest sister, babysitter, friend right here

I can drive?

Loving my talking card from Aunt C

Getting the hang of the gift thing

Her new wheels

One year ago....

We were a little busy welcoming a certain little lady to the world...

And today we are celebrating one year of her sweet life! We are so blessed to have the joy and responsibility of raising her.  In one short year she has stretched us, strengthened us, challenged us, and blessed us more than I ever thought possible.  There were times I feared we wouldn't make it to the one year mark with our sanity intact :) And maybe that is so.  Maybe I forget to put my car in park before getting out, maybe I can no longer say "i don't do mornings".  So what if my car is no longer spotless and there are days I can't see the carpet beneath the mountain of books. This parenthood thing isn't easy, but I wouldn't change it for the world.  Happy Birthday to our sweet girl! We love you littles!

We celebrated on Saturday and as soon as I clean up from the festivities I will inundate   you post a few pics from the party!

Midweek...

Here's my midweek  Thursday confession..... I am an awful blogger.  So in my attempt to catch up I will probably post an obnoxious amount of pictures to chronicle our May days. For whatever reason, ever since I can remember May has been a crazy busy month.  Always fun but always busy. We kicked it off with a trip to Tallahassee to celebrate our nephew's 1st birthday! Hurray to surviving the first year! Tara and Greg threw a great party with some amazing food!

Birthday Boy!

No fear

Tara's creativity at work!

Emerson loving the big yard

first attempt at standing with no hands :)

showing dad how its done

I'll save the next photo bomb for another day :) Back to the party planning.  We have another first birthday coming up around here!

11 months!

I'm going to chalk it up as a success that I managed to get these posted before her first birthday :) Small victories people.  Since this is serving as part of her baby book, here's a couple things about e's 11th month.  She eats EVERYTHING (except for the gerber chicken and vegetables) Our dog is a pickier eater than she is.  Apparently she has her dad's metabolism bc she downed an entire grilled cheese this afternoon, and then proceeded to finish off her bottle.  She loves her baby praise dvd, eating, Riggs, the outdoors, her purple ball, the water, her daddy, other babies.  She is not a fan of being strapped into anything, unfortunately this includes high chair and carseat, having to wait for food, and being told no.  Can't blame her on most of those.  She has had to be very flexible this past month and has done so well.  She is my little traveling buddy and I love it (except for those few minutes when I wish I had earplugs in the car) :)  She has had her first taste of ice cream, first trip to the water park, first move, first stair climbing adventure, and first step (which she promptly fell down as soon as she realized what she was doing)  She's weighing in at a whopping 18lbs and 2oz.  Oh and good thing we are about done with the monthly stickers, apparently they taste much better than they look....