Welcome to {sick} Grandmother's cottage

You know the story. A sweet, sweet girl goes traipsing through the woods with a basket-full of goodies to help her ailing grandmother. Along the way, she is stopped by a tricky wolf. The wolf figures out where she is going, runs ahead, gobbles up her grandmother and tricks the sweet girl into thinking HE is her grandmother. Then he gobbles her up. The woodsman hears the screaming and comes running. He finds the wolf asleep and super fat and figures out what happened. He cuts open the wolf and out pops Little Red & her grandmother.

A grim story? Yes. But freaking adorable for a first birthday party, in my not-so-expert opinion.

Emilia's bedroom is done in Little Red Riding-Hood. In the fabric choice for her bedding it's a fox not a wolf. Details, I say.Right after I knew she was a girl, probably 2 months into her little life I knew I would do a Little Red Riding-Hood party for her first birthday. Yes for a moment I highly considered Princess & the Pea but then remained true to me and did what I wanted.

I started party planning in like January. (Ridiculous, I know.) Knowing what I wanted the end product to look like made it easy to buy things when I saw that they would fit. I *knew* I wanted the food in baskets rather than serving platters. For the food? I *knew* I wanted home baked goods. Foods that you would take to your sick grandmother. I knew the candies would be red and white. Main colors? Red and white. There were a ton if things I just *knew* would be for this party. So here it is. I present Emilia's First Birthday! (sniff sniff)

First-the invite. My dear friend Sandy hand knit this amazing cloak to go with the theme of her room. It's so beautiful and something that we will keep for her, forever. My other friend Krista sewed the gorgeous quilt/blanket for Emilia. It's one of a kind and so full of love.

Here is the main table. I just realized I didn't get a photo of the pretty red and white candies. But just imagine cherry gummi bears, cherry rings, Swedish Fish or Fish if you're in Sweden, pinapple (white) gummi bears, white cheddar cheez-its.





I made a two layer carrot cake, mini carrot cake smash cake & carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing. ZOMG delish.

I made pumpkin cranberry scones, mini pumpkin muffins & cranberry bread mini loaves. We had {white} frosted cheerios, and gingersnaps & coconut jelly beans in the little tin that said her birthday. I sewed party bags from Onasburg plain cotton with red and white polka dotted ribbons. We had red and white polka dot plates, red gingham napkins and chevron and polka dot straws!

I am so thankful for everybody that took time out of their busy weekends to spend time with us and to celebrate Emilia's first birthday! I'm especially thankful that my sister Angee and her new husband Ray were able to come out for it! (They live in Washington state with the rest of our families and happened to be in St. Louis for the weekend for hockey & football games! Perfect timing universe! Thank you!!) And a special thank you to my party muse and BFF, Jackie! Thanks for talking me off my ledge several times during the planning of this party! <3 One year til Princess & The Pea! Or Alice in Wonderland!

Hi...

Remember me?
I'm a busy girl right now. We've added to our family! I have a 4th son Monday through Friday from about 7-4. He's adorable and fits in perfectly with my rough and tumble little boys. That also means that I have less time for the extras. Which is also why I've put off planning my big boys' 4th and 6th birthday party! They're having a combo party because they both want Phineas and Ferb, and also because Julian's asked for a big ticket birthday present, so his party is smaller.

I also have to fly to Washington ON his birthday, and also Match Day, so I won't be here to celebrate with him.

I designed their invitation, and it turned out pretty cute! It's for sale in my design Etsy shop here. What? You didn't know I HAD an Etsy design shop? Well I do. And it's awesome :) Look forward to pictures of some products in the shop at J&Gs party!

Photography is going well. I've been pretty busy this last month. I offered up two free newborn sessions on my facebook wall, and filled the slots quickly and had the most amazing sessions with the most precious babies of all time! I was also commissioned for a birth announcement design from one of the moms, and it was so fun and challenging and I'm so thrilled with the final product!

My boys are big and growing and so wonderful, most of the time. Owen is so one. He's fesity and attitudey and adorable. He's starting to get his own voice, or sense of style and it cracks me up. On more than one occasion he's brought one of my flowers for my hair and tried putting it in his hair himself. He leaves it in for hours. Yes, yes he has the same curls as Gabe. He's so blond, it's strange!

Gabe is still generous and kind. He's getting more emotional and very sure of his wants. LOL! He loves Perry The Platypus, and all things Phineas and Ferb. Here he is with his Valentine's Box!

Julian, my sweet Julian is nearly 6. He's finally wearing size 6 pants, his 5Ts are short. Woohoo for a growing boy! He's reading SO well. I'm so amazed every day at how clever and smart my little man is.

Here he is with the snowman we made when it snowed earlier this month

Life is good. Busy but good. We'll have a BIG huge announcement coming up in less than a month! Match Day! Hooray! I"m so nervous and excited to find out where we'll be for residency. While part of me hopes we stay in Des Moines for ease's sake, the other part hopes we move back to Washington, Spokane to be exact. We shall see!

Happy Birthday Julian!

My first born son is now FIVE. The big oh-five. CRAZY. It seems like yesterday that I was walking around the SuperMall in hopes of walking him out. It worked, and he was born at 6:26 on his due date.

Like I said, it seems like only yesterday I was 40 weeks pregnant, and waiting, waiting, waiting. And in others, it seems like he's been a part of my family forever, always here, always laughing, always smiling.

Recently, I went back and read Julian's birth story. It was strange to remember the gamut of emotions I was feeling after he was born. And to remember how seamlessly he fit into our lives.

Julian's forever been in love with puzzles, building things, creating. If you ask him now, he says he wants to be a builder, just like Grandpa Bob. I can see that. He's an expert Lego constructor. He can follow those directions better than I can! He's a master of all things puzzles, and is so cute when he tries to help Gabe do them. J always asks us to help him do puzzles, and then he ends up helping us! Smarty pants.

We had Julian's birthday party on Saturday. We invited his whole class, but not many could come because of spring break. We leave for Washington on Friday (the 18th) so we needed to have it before! It was SO fun! It was at a place called Backyard Adventures! After having the mess and clean up from Gabe's party less than 2 weeks before, I wanted something easy, especially before our trip! This was the definition of easy!

Like I said before, Julian looooves to build. My friend Jackie showed me a Lego cake a long time ago, and I asked if she would make it. She did and it totally exceeded all of our expectations! Julian was in LOVE! And it was DELICIOUS!

Here are some pictures from the party:
The 'backyard' lunch


Chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing and a candy lego on top! (Julian's favorite colors are red and black, which is why he picked out black candles)


The birthday boy


Swinging


Gabe about to slide!


The AWESOME Lego cake!


Singing Happy Birthday


Table full o' kids!


So much fun! Happy birthday Julian! You are very, very loved.

Why hello there!

I'm in post birthday party coma. Gabe turned 3. I have eaten more cupcakes than should be legal, but dang. They're GOOD!

We had a little party at my house on Saturday for 10 of Gabe's closest friends. It was so fun, and not TOO crazy, just the right amount of crazy. I did get mobbed at the candy table though, it did resemble a circus!

I'm ashamed to admit I haven't had a date with my friend Mr. Treadmill in a WEEK! Too much party preparations! But I vow that I will reunite with my friend, and continue working out. I have noticed a definite difference in my energy level since stopping my workouts. So tonight, I will work out!

The party was so fun though. The decorations were perfectly circus-y. I'm so thankful to have Stacy Jacobsen as my BFF! She designed all the graphics!



{left to right-Owen & Daddy. Delicious Carrot Cake Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing for Gabe's preschool class. Gabe's Birthday shirt. Sweet Heart Cupcakes, in circus colors. Finished Cupcakes, with toppers. Bean Bag Game with Tent graphics. (BEST GAME IDEA EVER! The kids LOVED it!) Lollipops with 3 graphic. Gabe's special cupcake. All of the cupcakes! Yum!}


{More cupcakes. Waterbottles. Waterbottles. Treatbag. My favorite of the graphics!}

Candy table!









The photo booth! SO much fun! All of the kids got into it (except for Owen, ha!)





Thank you so much to those that made this party possible! Thanks for spending my baby boy's 3rd birthday with us! It was sure fun! ;&hearts