Charlotte's Birthday Luau

The Saturday after Charlotte's birthday was her big party for our friends and family! We planned a luau themed event and had gone a little over the top, as usual.

Charlotte and I dressed in our finest Hawaiian (sort of) attire.

The decor in the entry way. Notice the favors on the right - sand pails and beach balls!

The photo timeline of Charlotte's 1st year. Got this idea from another Mommy in our play group, so of course I had to do it too!

Part of the food spread. We also had meatballs and Chick fil a nuggets!!

Charlotte's pile of loot

Charlotte's little buddies - Landon, Grayson and Brayden

Friends of mine from grad school

Matt enjoying his tropical punch and fancy straw

Shawna and her daughter Payton (also Matt's daughter...see above)

The dessert table! I made Charlotte a giant cupcake as her smash cake. Hoping to get some decent pictures of this event from a friend and will post later. We were a little crazy getting things ready and mingling at the party and didn't get too many pics.

We had spent many a night getting the basement suitable for human viewing before the party, and we had Rock Band set up. It got plenty of use!

Charlotte's buddy Nolan


Hopefully more pictures to come....

Portrait Innovations (again)

Of course we had to make another trip to Portrait Innovations, our friendly neighborhood portrait studio, to commemorate Charlotte's birthday! We actually made it there on her real birthday too. It was fun to have Steve along with us on this special day, and we were also able to have lunch together at Pei Wei.

Here are some of our favorite shots -



Can't get this one to rotate for some reason, but it is cute!

I'm a 1 Year Old Now!

Well, it happened...our baby is now 1! This post is a little behind, as she how now been 1 for a week and 3 days, but better late than never I say. Her birthday was a busy day. Steve was working from home so he could spend time with us. We went to Portrait Innovations (see next post) and had a nice lunch at Pei Wei. Then we just played at home as usual until it was time to return to the scene of the crime for dinner. We were meeting Grandma, Nana and Grandaddy at the Buffalo Wing Factory where just 1 year earlier my labor had begun...the rest is history!

Grandma came to our house and rode with us to the restaurant. Here she is with Charlotte before we headed to dinner.


When we got back to the house we planned to have cake and have Charlotte open some of her presents. I forgot to take a picture of the cake before I cut it, but it was a pretty cute flower.

Here are some pictures of Charlotte's first experience with cake!

Hmmm, what is this?

I guess i'll try it!

I don't know....

Yum, that's pretty good!

REALLY good!

So I can really use my hands?


Charlotte showed the cake who's boss!


Charlotte opening a few of her presents (there were a few more, but no need to be redundant with the paper tearing)
A sweet new baby doll (and accompanying stroller) from Nana and Granddaddy

I like money, money, money, money. I like money, money's what I like!

Here's that paper tearing I was talking about...

Coming Soon

I am a bit behind on the blog updates, but here is what is to come hopefully by the end of the week...

*Charlotte's Birthday
*Portrait Innovations
*Charlotte's Birthday Luau

Our little cutie

I was just watching Charlotte play today and she was doing some pretty cute stuff, so I had to snap a few pictures!

She normally doesn't last long on her stomach, but I guess she decided it was a comfy position in which to read...




Charlotte also loves her mirror, and typically this is what she does with it...

First Mother's Day

This past weekend I was able to celebrate my first Mother's Day! I narrowly missed it last year, as Charlotte was born 2 days after. We had a nice morning at church and Charlotte enjoyed her time in the nursery. We got the report that she was "very content" which is always nice to hear when you leave your little one with others. We were going to venture out for lunch, but opted to feed Charlotte at home and then put her down for a good afternoon nap since going to church means she missed her morning nap. While Steve fed Charlotte, I prepped for an afternoon of shopping on my own! The perfect Mother's Day present, since it is near impossible to leisurely shop and try on clothes with a baby in tow.

After I returned home, it was time to go and visit my Mom! We headed over to my parents house and ended up getting to see pretty much the whole family while we were there. Chris, Sarah, Madeline and Gabriel were there, and later in the evening Bill, Dawn, Ryan and Brittany (who also turned 16 on Mother's Day) showed up for a little visit. My Mom was excited that she got to see all of her children and grandchildren in one place at one time!

Dad took Charlotte down to the creek behind their house. This is always a favorite pass time of Charlotte's Cousin Madeline, and will hopefully be fun for Charlotte as she gets older too! (that is if Nana and Grandaddy stay at this house...they have a tendency of moving every few years so we'll see... :) )



Madeline and Charlotte

Gabriel checking out what's under the rug

Madeline, Sarah and Gabriel

Me and Charlotte

Charlotte and her Nana

Gabriel and Nana

A family picture

Beware...

..the almost-one-year-old has a fork!!

I decided to introduce Charlotte to this new utensil just for fun yesterday. I "stabbed" pieces of food then handed her the fork. At first she would tap the fork on her tray a few times and then put it in her mouth, then she decided to skip the tapping part and just go straight for the mouth! She gets a little crazy with it and poked her forehead once but didn't seem to be bothered by it.