Adalyn's First Birthday {The Invitation}

In brainstorming ideas for Adalyn's first birthday I tried to think of things that she loves. Most things that came to mind were, digging in the trash, unrolling the toilet paper and loud squealing sounds. None of which inspired a party theme...until....I saw her reaching for Granny's glasses and the idea hit me, a "Baby Loves Eye Glasses" party. What would be better on "your special day" than being allowed to play with everyone's glasses and not get into trouble! Perfect. I found plastic party favor glasses from Party City in the 25cent party favor bin and the invitation design began to evolve.

The words around her face are lyrics from the song "Glad that You Were Born" from the play "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." The lyrics made the theme come to life by putting emphasis on her eyes and the celebration of her birth.

The top inside panel reads: "Silly or serious, shiny or flat wear glasses to the party and we'll provide a hat!" The invitations made it through the mail and yes I did have to pay a bit extra for the postage, but it was worth the effort to have something so unique, fun and colorful.

Summer Fun

Yesterday evening the girls and I spent time outside. I cleaned up in the yard and watered while the girls enjoyed a little water fun for the first time this season. Marin is much more interested in the sprinkler this year and actually jumped over it without my coaxing. And even though the pictures don't seem to show it, Adalyn doesn't mind water in her face at all. Have I mentioned that my girls are totally opposite of each other? A few pics from our evening.

 
 

Washgravel Paver Patio

Our friends had 80 wash gravel pavers that they were getting rid of and offered them to us. We've always envisioned a small patio just outside the backdoor. We've never been successful in getting grass to grow well there and also thought our summer al fresco dinners might be more enjoyable if we didn't have to trek to the front of the house and were able to go from the kitchen to the back patio in just a few steps. So my handy, talented husband borrowed his dad's tractor and spent a couple days working dirt around to fill this old hole and leveling out the patio site!

Over the next few days he loaded and unloaded the pavers, leveled and smoothed, tweaked, stood back and stared, adjusted and tweaked (did I already say tweaked? well, it's appropriate to list that twice because boy did he TWEAK).

He finished the last of the sand Wednesday just before a nice rain. All that tweaking paid off, because today, it's perfect.

Now for the fun part. Shopping for an Iron bench, planting something new in the flower bed and smoothing out the dirt around the patio so that the grass grows up to it. Looking forward to enjoying this space during the summer evenings that are upon us. Thank you, Steven. and Thank you, Ricky and Dana for the pavers!

Flower Show and Tasting Tea {Family Tradition}

The Annual Polk County Garden Club's Flower Show and Tasting Tea were in April. Attending the event together has been a tradition Mom and I have held for years. I'm now sharing the outting with my girls. This was Adalyn's first time and Steven joined us too. Below are photos from our outting. And here is a link to Marin's first Garden Club Tasting Tea in 2009. My how much she's grown. And this year she was just as excited about the butterfly stamp as she was the first time.

 
Granny's arrangement. She got second place for the room her arrangement was in.

Angelina College Nursing School Graduate {My Brother Daniel}

I took photos of my brother Daniel for his graduation announcements. My family and I are super proud of his accomplishment and are excited to see what the future brings for Daniel. Pictures of Daniel at this stage in life wouldn't be complete without his faithful companion, Flea. You wouldn't believe the noises I had to make to get that Dog's attention for photos. If you thought taking pictures of a kid was hard, try a dog!

Love you Daniel!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Easter Sunday

Scenes from our Easter Sunday. Family photos in Granny's backyard. (Thank you Katherine!)

 
 
 Bunny's third birthday. For a flashback moment visit this post of Marin and Bunny, Easter 2009.

 Bunny cupcakes complete with cotton candy tails. Inspired by One Charming Party's Bunny Party.

 
 
Such a beautiful, blessed day full of music, worship, sunshine and family. Thank you Jesus.

Fabric Easter Basket {Moda Bake Shop Recipe}

Saw this adorable fabric basket pattern two years ago and thought "hey! That's cute. How hard could it be?" Let me just start by saying I love to sew and I rarely get angry when sewing, but chica, hand sewing six yards of fabric covered piping together, by hand, is FOR THE BIRDS. Yours truly began this project the Sunday before Easter. With pipping and fabric in hand I sewed together the strips of fabric from a Moda Scrap Bag that my friend Angie gave me and began wrapping the piping. Two hours later I had seven yards of fabric wrapped piping and DOUBT that I'd ever finish the project loomed in the back of my mind. Tuesday evening I pulled it out to begin hand sewing it together. About 30 minutes later I was FINSIHED. DONE. Not complete, mind you, but FINISHED. No way in the world was I going to finish the basket before Easter, so I placed everything neatly in a ziplock bag and put it in the box marked "things to give away."

Friday afternoon my mom came over and asked how the fabric basket was coming along. I sheepishly pulled the ziplock bag out of the box and told her I was DONE. After showing her the tedious process of HAND stitching the sucker she suggested hot glue. UREKA!!!!!! And there you have it, 45 minutes later we had a finished, ready for Easter, Fabric Easter basket. Ta Da. Enjoy looking at these people, because THIS blog will never feature a project like this ever again.