Hali's Birthday Bash!

It is so funny when you get a one year old in a front facing carseat..they look so little!! Hali loves to face forward now!

Some of theses pictures are so blury I don't know what happened! This was hali's party. We had a "MILK and COOKIES" theme to celebrate the introduction of the previously prohibited milk category in her limited diet. That was a mouthful! I had different kinds of milk and cookies and then I made a big cookie cake. She loved it!

I made these for each of the kids, they were little chocolate milk's with tags that said "I heart Milk"

It was a fun party. First birthdays are my favorite! I will say I was cookied out afterwards. I think we all were!

Hali is 1!!

I can't believe my baby is one today!! With each child it seems to go faster and faster and I enjoy it more and more. This is Hali today when we were getting ready to go swimming. She loves the water, so I thought it might be something she would have fun doing today. We are celebrating on Sunday with family so I will post pictures then of the party. Hali has been such a wonderful addition to our family. She is so happy and fun-loving you can't help but smile when she is around. She loves to swim, drink, eat and play with madi and tyce. She is standing up and has taken a step or two on her own but prefers to crawl to what she wants. She can say mama and dada, and moo like a cow! But mostly she grunts or screams to get our attention! She is just such a blessing, we are so glad to have her! We love you Hali!!

Madi had this swimsuit and we compared pictures of the two of them and they look so much alike! In fact, I was telling Mark what a horrible job I have done of taking pictures of Hali and he suggested we duplicate some of madi's pictures for Hali's baby book! Nice. I can see that one backfiring.

This is a picture from the 4th of July, I made madi and hali skirts to wear but madi didn't want to cooperate for the camera so here is Hali in her "ruffle freedom skirt "as I call it! Frankly I am just glad it turned out because I didn't have a pattern and I was finishing them up late the night before because that's what crazy, sleep deprived mothers do......in case you were wondering.

Summer Fun!

Madi loves her little sister! Her new favorite thing to play with Hali is dress-up ( suprise, suprise!). This is Hali, I mean tinkerbell, in her first photo shoot.

Even tyce got in on the fun. I sent this text to Mark while he was at work in an attempt to get him home early and save his only son. It worked!!

Such a pretty little fairy!

Now you all have a mental picture of Hali in her swimsuit. This is why summer is my favorite season, baby girls in swimsuits are a tourist attraction for sure! (Never mind her huge diaper, I forgot to get a swim diaper before we went swimming and poor Hali had to deal with the consequences!). We love summer!

Pre-School Graduation

Madi had pre-school graduation the end of June and I am finally posting pictures! She really isn't graduating, she still has one more year, but she was excited about it anyway. She loved pre-school! It was fun to watch her learn and grow so much in one year. She can write most of the alphabet and her name. In fact, she has even tagged some of our furniture...how fun for me!

This is her class. She loved all the new friends she made.

Wedding Flowers

I recently did the flowers for a wedding of some friends here in royal. She used mostly calla Lilly's and it turned out really simple and elegant. Above is the bridal bouquet.

I love the look of this swirling arrangement. We decided to add this arrangement in at the last minute and I am so glad we did, it went well with the look they were going for.

I love arranging with white and green hydrangeas, could be my favorite flower right now.

Don't be fooled by how simple this arrangement looks. I all but had to weld these babies to the bottom of the vase to keep them from floating up, and even that didn't work! It was high stress there for a while but finally I came up with a solution and it was so much easier than what I initially had experimented with. I dropped clear marbles in the center of the flower and weighted them down that way. Simple is always best...I hope I remember that next time! I do love how this turned out. Also, a little tip: if you do an arrangement like this, use distilled water so you don't get air bubbles on your flowers.

Pictures

These pictures demonstrate why there are not more pictures on my blog. I am a horrible photographer. Luckily my subjects are patient with me, for the most part

I love this picture of Hali. This is the face she makes when she sees me! How lucky for me!

Updates!

I can't believe how quickly time is going! This is Hali eating her first bowl of rice cereal. She has since decided that she really likes to eat. In fact, she is rarely happy if she isn't eating!

In these pictures you can see how far she has come in the world of eating. She considers herself a "foodie" in every sense of the word.

She is now also sitting up and scooting and rolling all over the floor. This week she will be nine months old! I can't believe that! I keep telling people that I just had a baby but I guess I can't do that anymore. Now what excuse do I have?