R & C's first birthday party - part 2 - their dresses!

The other project I did for their party was to make their dresses.  I have always thought that if I should ever have a daughter I would love to make her first birthday dress.  Well, we all know how that turned out!  I got not one but two girls and that meant I had to make two dresses!  Crazy.  I shopped around for dresses for a while and my heart kept tugging at me and telling me I would be sorry if I didn't make their dresses.  Always listen to your heart!

I am so happy I made them.  I didn't use a pattern and I just made them up as I went along.  They weren't perfect and I'd definitely do some parts differently if I had to do them again, but that's the beauty of it.  I love creating things for my kids and I'm so happy to have this little memory of their first birthday.  Now...I'm not saying I'll be able to pull this off every year or even want to but I definitely knew I wanted to at least make their first birthday dresses! 

The dresses didn't make me too crazy since I made them mostly out of tulle which is pretty forgiving and used pink satin ribbon for straps to cut down on having to be precise there as well.  I also made their little headbands.  I found the perfect grey flower in the scrapbooking section at Michael's (how awesome to not have to make one from scratch) and just glued them on to pink baby elastic.  I didn't bother to make matching bloomers because they already had the cutest little white ruffle bloomers in their stash just waiting to be worn!

Here are some pictures of the girls that were taken during the party.  You can see Charlotte on the left starts getting bored with all of the fan fare.

 

 

 

 Hank also got in on the action one day when he decided he didn't want to nap.  He was so happy to help make his "sissies look so pretty."

For a few days he kept telling us that he made his sissies' birthday party dresses.  Adorable.

-a

R & C's first birthday party - part 1 - the decor!

There are so many pictures I want to post from Ruby & Charlotte's first birthday party!  There are too many for one post so I'm going to break it all down into a few posts.

First up...the decor!  It was a little sparse due to the fact that I am a procrastinator and started making decorations just a few days before - despite the fact that I had most of the supplies for weeks.  I didn't get to a few projects but oh well!

Special thanks to Brett, Kathy, and my friends who showed up and helped me put the finishing touches on the party even after the party started.  :)

There wasn't really a theme for the party.  The invitation just said we wanted to celebrate our little ladies!  I love pink and grey and thought it was perfect to use for their little lady birthday party.  What better day to go all out with pink than on their first birthday?

 I made their invitations myself.  Nothing fancy!

 

I made cute little flag buntings for the girls' special cupcakes several days ahead of time, but at the last minute (literally 10 mins before the party started) tossed them aside on a whim in favor of pretty little bows hot glued to cake pop sticks.  I was so excited about how these turned out.  They looked so much prettier and matched perfectly with the pink satin bows on the girls' dresses.

The pink cupcakes were strawberry cake.  I used to ask for strawberry cake almost every birthday when I was a kid.

Food table - even though the table wasn't quite set up yet.

 

 

One of my favorite parts of the party decor were the tutu skirts I made for the high chairs.  I knew I needed a way to put their initials on their chairs so everyone could easily tell the girls apart during their cupcake eating time!  It came out really cute!

 

My other favorite was the wall of photos.  I printed the weekly photos I took of the girls and hung them up for everyone to see.  In the middle I put the picture from day 5 and one year side by side.  My how those sweeties have grown!

 

I made garland out of felt and it was used in a few places.  This felt garland was a time sink and a time waster and it was the other reason why I didn't get to all of my other planned projects.  But now I have pink white and grey felt coming out of my ears so I fully expect to use it many more times!

 

Brett did a great job of setting up the outdoors!  He moved all of our toys around to create a consolidated area in the yard.  It was a great idea and made it fun for the kiddos .  We also moved the train table outside to the deck near our master bedroom and it was a big hit with Hank and Max!

-a

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from our little love bugs and the bigger love bug.  I cut out a ton of felt hearts to make us some love day decor and before I sewed them up I let the kiddos (Hank) play with them so I could get a group Valentine's photo.  The photo session was doomed from the beginning due to the rascally toddler in combination with the hearts so I got the best pics I could!  The girls were highly distracted by the heart tornado taking place all over the room the entire time. 

Our little life is full of love today and every day!  Love to all of you!
-a

The muffin man

One morning a few weeks ago I decided that I didn't want to wait for nap time to do some sewing.  (Hank is fascinated by the sewing machine and all of it's knobs and levers.  It makes it virtually impossible to sew with him awake.)  In order to work on my project while Hank was awake I had to let him have free reign and rifle through all of my sewing supplies.  He was really interested in some of my thread spools so I let him have them for a while.  I also gave him a muffin tin and told him to make muffins while he was at it.  The little muffin man started putting all the spools into the muffin tin and carrying it around so proudly.  It was great and it kept him occupied for quite some time.

After a while he called me over and said "hot mommy hot" then he started sliding it under the couch like it was his oven.  So creative! 

He pulled the muffins out of the oven and put them on the couch and yelled "all done!"

And then the spools of thread got thrown all over the house.  I'll gladly take supplies all over the house if it means he is having a blast and I get to sew while he is awake!  win-win.


-a

Granmama's blankets

My mom made each of the girls the nicest little faux chenille blankets.  They are quilted on one side and faux chenille on the other.  They are super thick and perfect for play time on the floor and stroller rides in the chilly weather.  I am so glad she took the time to make these gifts for the girls!  Such sweet keepsakes.  My mom taught me how to sew as a little girl and I can't wait to teach my kiddos (including Henry...oh yes...including Henry!) how to sew one day.

-a

Happy Birthday to Ann, Brett, and the USA

Happy Fourth of July!  Today we had a cook out with good friends to celebrate the birth of Ann, Brett, and the USA! Ann and the USA's real birthday is today but we thought we'd do Brett's too since his is next week.  For us, the 4th always conjures up memories of childhood family cook outs with country music, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit and desserts...so that's just what we did!  We love a low key celebration around here.  What more do you need besides good food, good friends and three wonderful reasons to get together?!?!?!  Cute little baby boys always help I guess.

Max showed up like this.  LOVE IT.

It has been a hot hot hot last few days here in Nor Cal.  So hot in fact our little house has been getting pretty toasty and even toastier today with so many people crammd in it.  Max had to shed a layer of clothes and Hank's hair started curling up they were both so hot.  Once everyone had their fill of good food we all opted to take a cruise around the neighborhood so we could:
1.  Cool off.
2.  Get the boys into the wagon.
3.  Cause some trouble with our little sidewalk snappers and confetti fireworks.  You gotta love a parade of adults walking down the sidewalks with roadies and popping each other with snappers.
4.  Check out the neighborhood block party (which we abandoned for the park so everyone - kids and adults alike - could get their ya-yas out for a few minutes.)

We were cruising too slow for Max as we strolled through the neighborhood block party so he abandoned ship for a little while.  This allowed Hank to have the wagon to himself so he decided to lay out and soak in the scenery. 

At the park, Max was nuts for the slide.

We have been letting Hank go down the big spiral slide by himself...and he loves it!

Time to head home.

Best attempt at a another group shot.  Hank wasn't feeling it.  Or Brett.

I had so much fun pulling together a little bit of patriotic flair for the party.  My favorites were the three buntings I made from fabric.  I love that I can reuse them (so everyone be forewarned that if a future party of ours has a hint of any kind of red white and blue theme these will make an appearance.)  I also LOVE LOVE the "Happy 4th of July" banner (hard to see in this pic) that I printed from Cake Likes a Party (the blog of my friend Annika - the most amazingly creative person I know)!

But I have to say my most favorite were the tres leches cupcakes I made for myself Brett's birthday.  (Ann's birthday "cake" was fudgecicles...because they are her favorite and she's not a big fan of sweets.)  It was my first time to make tres leches cake and I am so happy they actually turned out!

We hope you were able to celebrate this wonderful holiday with friends and family as well!  We have so much to be thankful for just by being born here in the USA!

-a