Par-tay!

I seriously can't believe that I have a one year old!!! We had so much fun celebrating our little princess's first birthday last weekend. Since I have two July babies they are destined to have pool parties for the rest of their lives. So, we had the party at Matt's parent's house since they have an amazing backyard that we could enjoy. I was a little nervous for the party simply because I was thinking of what Allie's first birthday party was like. The theme turned out to be 'it's my party and I'll cry if I want to'. The poor thing literally cried the whole time! And she didn't eat a bite of her cake. Well, much to my surprise Sienna did GREAT! She had so much fun and not a tear was shed the entire time. She didn't exactly eat her cake but she had so much fun playing with it. We were so blessed to have family and friends help us celebrate this amazing little girl's first year!

I just have to post a picture of Allie from her 1st party, I have a ton of pics and almost all of them look like this...

One Year Old!

 

I think the person that came up with the phrase, 'time flies', MUST have had children. Seriously, I feel like Sienna was born just last week and here we are celebrating her first birthday. But on that same note, I can barely remember life without her sweet face. This little girl has brought me so much joy. I really can't wait for the years to come to see the kind of girl she is going to develop into. I really think that she's going to be our strong-willed child...take something away from her and watch out! But she is so sweet and cuddly at the same time. I think she's a perfect balance of independence and knowing when she needs someone. She is always so smiley (except in front of a camera:) and loves to laugh (especially at her big sister). I look at her every day and my heart melts.
Happy first birthday to my sweet Sienna Faith. I love you more than I can explain and I am so blessed to be your mom!

A New Bow Holder

I've totally been bitten by the crafting bug lately, I can't seem to stop scouring the blogs (of which are endless) and finding fun things to make (again of which are endless!) I have seen these bow holders a million times and felt like it was finally time to make one. During my first trip to Goodwill I found the perfect frame. Then I took out the glass and spray painted it. I added some chicken wire (that we actually had lying around in our garage) and attached it to the back. You are supposed to staple the wire to the back of the frame, but since my frame wasn't real wood, I just duct taped it, shhhh, don't tell :) And of course I couldn't leave the frame empty so I just HAD to make some flower clips. (I made each of them except for the 5 large ones) It's a perfect addition to a bare wall in Allie's room...

Allie's Party

We had such a great time celebrating our oldest girl's third birthday. We had a really small party at our house with just family and a couple close friends. Allie got totally spoiled with attention, love and gifts. As I cannot (ever) pick just a few good pictures to post, below is a slideshow of our celebration :)

Three Years Old!!!

Three years ago right now I was sitting in a hospital bed staring at the most amazing gift a person could be given. I had just become a parent for the first time and although I'm sure I had some nerves about bringing this gift home, I sat in awe and felt...complete, at peace, full of joy and IN LOVE. The feelings that I had on that day and every day since then are unexplainable. I never knew I could love this much, I never knew I could feel this much happiness. My first born little girl just turned three and I can't help but get on my knees and thank God for the gift that HE has given me. I can't believe that God chose me to be this little girl's mommy, I am sooo blessed! Happy birthday to my little princess who made my dream of becoming a mom come true!

0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

About a year ago I made these quilted alphabet letters for Allie. They are seriously one of those things that she has played with over and over. She's been able to say her abc's, count and spell her name for a while, but now we are working on the sight/recognition part more. I've always meant to make numbers to go with her alphabet set, but as usual life got in the way and it's taken me a year to do it. (Hmmm, if I had a quarter for every time I said that I'd be rich!) While I made the numbers I went ahead and made a few extra letters so we could spell Sienna's name too. Allie was so excited when she saw the numbers and we've already made up a few games for her to play with them. It was a very easy (yet time consuming) project, but great for those who have toddlers around!

He...

...is the first baby of my brother and sister-in-law

...was born just two days after my birthday, June is a great month!

...was 8 pounds 9 ounces of pure scrumptiousness (yes, that is a word:)

...has two cousins who already can't wait to play with him (and dress him up!)

...has two aunts and two uncles who already love him to pieces

...is Turner James, my first nephew!!!

...is absolutely adorable, see for yourself...

11 Months Old!

Sienna Faith,
My baby girl you almost aren't my baby anymore! I cannot believe that you are going to be ONE in just a month. This year has gone by way too fast. Although I am so excited to celebrate that milestone with you, part of me wants to go back in time and spend so many moments with you again. But I am LOVING the little girl that you are becoming.

You have had SO many firsts this past month! The first one that happened was that you finally got your first tooth! Well, actually teeth. Your bottom two teeth literally popped through on the same day. You definitely have had many fussy, teething days so I knew they were coming. You look so cute with your two little 'teef' (as your sister calls them:)

You also started crawling! You are totally sporting the army crawl, just like your sister did at first, but man you are fast! You can get anywhere you want to go and have literally made it to every corner of our house. You haven't quite pulled yourself up to standing yet but you make it to your knees on many occasions.

A couple of your firsts involved water, one you loved and one you hated. We took you to a splash pad for the first time at Scottsdale Quarter and this is what happened...

Not sure why you hated it so much, I'm thinking maybe the water was too cold since both of my girls (including me) like warm water. I have to say though that you did have a wonderful time, as long as I didn't sit you down in the water. :)
You also had your first swim lesson and this one you loved. You did great and had so much fun.

You are still sleeping great (actually even longer than the past few months). You are no where near giving up your morning nap and for that I am so thankful! haha I love going in to get you and you are sitting up smiling in your crib. Most of the time you have a paci in your mouth and one in each hand, it's really cute.

As for your eating habits, eh. You still love your baby food and have no problems there but as for table food you are still not a fan. We did have a breakthrough a couple nights ago where you actually ate many small pieces of pizza and mushrooms, but the next day you were back to throwing everything on the ground. It's hard to get you to even try things but I know you will sometime (hopefully when you go to preschool I won't be packing your lunch with baby food jars!) So we will continue to try, try, try!

You learned your second word...no. And now you say it all the time. It's so hard because it's definitely not a word that I want you to say all the time but you are so darn cute when you say it, it's hard not to smile and laugh.

I have already started planning your birthday party and am having so much fun. I can't wait for our friends and family to get together and celebrate what a wonderful gift you are! I love you baby girl!

Swim Lessons!

Sienna had her first swim lesson a couple weeks ago and it was so much fun. For those of you who saw her famous splash pad picture, you will be VERY surprised to know that she LOVED the pool. She did great and even went under several times. Matt was able to come and take pictures, sorry there are tons but I even had a hard time narrowing it down to these, she's just so darn cute!









I purposely dressed Sienna in the same swimsuit that Allie wore for her first lesson. They are almost exactly the same age. Allie's pictures are on the left, Sienna's on the right. Sometimes I think they look SO much alike, and sometimes I think they look so different :)

 

(If you click on the collage you can make it bigger to see the pictures better)

Bathroom Re-do

I am so excited that this project is finally complete! I've been wanting to re-do our bathroom for a while now, it was just so blah and boring and there were several things I didn't like. We bought our house 4 years ago, yes, do the math, almost at the top of the housing bubble so we absolutely did not want to put a lot of money into it. It is all builder-grade which is fine, but again, boring. The mirror especially. We actually tried to take it down so I could just put up two large store bought mirrors but that sucker was glued up there so well I was afraid it would really tear apart our drywall. I didn't want a project like that to do. So we just framed it. I can't believe what a difference it made. (And I have to say my mom and I are now pros with a miter saw!) Several months ago Matt was out of town on a very long business trip and I knew that I needed a project to do so that I wouldn't go crazy so I painted the cabinets. And over the past four months or so I have been picking up accessories either on sale or by using a coupon. Today I put the last thing up so it is finally done! Check it out...
Before...

After...
Painted dark chocolate brown cabinets and molding/frame around the mirror, new hardware, baskets and flowers.

New rug and towels. I made the his and hers signs a while ago.

New shelves and accessories

More shelves, candles and flowers

I am also re-doing our family room and kitchen - it is almost done! I am in the mood to change things up and I can't stop!!!