Saturday, September 29, 2012

Lucy's Birthday Party


Today we celebrated Lucy's first birthday with lots of friends and family....and cookies. For the past few months I have been planning a milk and cookies themed birthday party for Lucy. I was so happy with the final outcome today. We went big for this party. I was telling my Mom and Alex's Mom last night that i felt giving birth to her last year was easier then preparing for the birthday party BUT it was a labor of love and we all had a wonderful time, definitely worth the effort for my little Lula Bell.


Birthday banner with chocolate chip cookie letters! 











Happy Birthday to you......







Party People!





Food Time! When we moved into our house the old owners had left a milk crate with four bottles from a local dairy. It worked perfectly as a utensil holder for this milk and cookies themed party! 


Our menu was a gourmet hot dog bar, broccoli salad, chicken salad on croissants, mac and cheese (Lucy's Favorite), pumpkin dip. apple cider and sweet tea. For dessert we have cookies and cream cupcakes and a cookie buffet for favors. 







We used "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" as a guest book for everyone to leave Lucy a little note on her first birthday! I am so excited for her to have such a special book :-) 


Present time, lucky lucky lady! 



Monthly Picture Banner


Some of the kiddos


Some of the kiddos! 





Some of these cake pictures just looked adorable in black and white so i thought i'd share them with you all too. 













Thank you to everyone who came today to make Lucy's party so special. Thank you for all of your generous gifts and out pour of love to our little girl. Thank you to my Mom for all of your help with watching the kiddos so i could get stuff done and making a few runs to the grocery store for last minute items. Thank you to my mother in law and grandmother in law for baking some cookies for me and also helping with last minute items. I couldn't have done it without you all.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Happy 1st Birthday Lucy


Dear Lucy,


    Happy Frist Birthday Baby Girl!!! Over the last few weeks I’ve had a chance to go through and read all of the monthly letters I have written to you and in almost every one I said something along the lines of “I can’t believe you are already … months old” but when I sat down tonight to write you this last monthly letter I couldn’t bring myself to say “I can’t believe you are 1 year old” because I feel like you’ve been with us forever. At times it is hard to remember our family before there was four of us. You have completed us as a family and filled spaces in our heart we didn’t even know were empty before we brought you home. It has been so much fun watching you grow and change, and my goodness girl how you have grown! Today we made a trip to babies r us to look for a long sleeve shirt for you and I when I saw the preemie size onesies I was just blown away. Just 365 days ago you fit perfectly into that itty bitty preemie size outfit and today I was shopping for size 24 month. Amazing!


    You have such a big personality already kiddo and it is both adorable and hysterical. You are the antagonist to many arguments with your brother. You LOVE to put on a huge show for people when we our out shopping. You are always flashing the biggest smiles and having these adorable little conversations with anyone who looks your way. This week we got a taste of your dramatic actress side. Towards the end of dinner you got bored and started making a game of throwing your food on the floor. Your Dad looked at you, and in a calm tone said, “Lucy, don’t throw your food on the floor, that isn’t nice” …. WELL….. you gave the biggest, longest, most dramatic pout of the lip followed by huge crocodile tears…. After a few minutes he gave in, feeling as through he had broken his poor baby girls heart and picked you up. You immediately stopped crying, smiled, and then said “woooow”.

 
   This month you started cruising around and between furniture with ease and speed. You took two steps by yourself but only once, you hold our your hand and until someone will walk with you. You can stand by yourself but get too excited and usually start trying to jump up and down. We brought the walker up for you this past week and you used it really well and walk very easily with it. I can’t believe how tall you have gotten. Today you came down from your nap and wanted something off the kitchen table and grabbed it fairly easily. How are you tall enough to reach the table already!?
 
    You love bathtime and crawling up the steps. Your favorite toys this month have been: your activity tables and cube, the Sesame Street pop up toy, blocks, balls and bats (our little tomboy), rattles, tea party set, and Liam’s toy hammer. You love to be read to, your favorite book is Share With Me which we have read more times then I can count.

    You are officially down to napping only once a day. You nap from about 12:30-2:30 and then sleep through the night from 7:15-7:30. You are wearing size 18 month clothes and some 24 month, size 3 shoe (but you never keep them on so I am not 100% sure what size you’d be), and a size 4 diaper.  You are still eating great but have not been as open to foods as you have been in the past few months. You have started to reject a few foods and want to play with food more then eat it at times.    Your favorite foods this month were pancakes, blueberries, peaches, pears, spaghetti and garlic bread, and ice cream! In the last two weeks we have weaned you off formula and onto whole milk, you had your last scoop this morning, talk about good timing! You are still taking one bottle per day, right before bed but drink your milk from a sippy cup in the morning and drink extremely diluted juice throughout the day.
 



















Lucy, I hope you have a wonderful first birthday and I hope you have a great time at your party surrounded by friends and family that love you very much. 

Sunday, September 23, 2012

A day at the fair....

For the first time in five years Alex and I were able to make it to the Bloomsburg fair! Between living in Indy and the flood last year we had missed out of all the fun and food for quite some time. We could not have picked a nicer fall day to be outside all day.

All ready to go!



whoa that's a big tractor! 

 


Yummmm french fries 


dude give me those fries! 


i won...thanks Liam

Liam and Lucy with the BIG pumpkin!









Liam petting a sheep






Trying to win a fish


He won!!


Welcome to our family "Gold-fishie"



sacked out on the ride home...


time two!