Lucy turns 2!

Last month, on July 25th, our little Lucy turned two! I can hardly believe that its been two years, it really seems like only yesterday that we were headed to the hospital to meet this little cutie:

July 25, 2010

July 30, 2011

The last two years have definitely been an adventure. I had no idea that a 2nd child would really change our lives so much. I also had no idea that Lucy's personality would be so different from Maggie's. Maggie is so laid back and obedient, while Lucy is so sweet but oh so stubborn (of course she gets it honestly :).

Lucy is overall a happy toddler, just stubborn (did I mention that?). She is a very good eater, is pretty much potty trained (except at night), is starting to sing songs and put together sentences. She now weighs a whopping 22.4lbs! She gets very excited about the smallest things and is absolutely so funny!

Lucy loves Minnie Mouse so of course we threw her a Minnie Mouse party. I had a really hard time finding anything other than hot pink/zebra themes, but after searching and searching, I finally found what I wanted on Etsy. Since we were expecting around 50 people, we went simple on the food. Hot dogs, chips, dip, fruit. I like to make the girls birthday cake myself. It's a small tradition that I want the girls to remember, so after searching and searching, I found this cake on pinterest. I wanted to do something different for goodie bags, so I decided to make all the little girls these cute little Minnie Mouse clips made out of rosettes-they were a big hit!!

Here are some pictures:

Maggie Turns 4!

I've been very busy (as always), so it's taken me a little longer to post about Maggie's wonderful 4th birthday. I still can't believe that my little girl is 4. She's now registered for Pre-K and is VERY excited about going to school. She loves to sing, dance, read, garden, ride her bike...I could really go on and on. I am very proud of the little girl she has become and can't wait to see what God has in store for her.

Now to the party...we had such a fun time! We decided on a Hello Kitty theme this year. I have to admit that I may have been more excited than her...I loved Hello Kitty when I was little so this may have been the party I never had.

I decided on the hot pink/blue color scheme instead of the traditional colors, and went pretty simple with the food. The location was at my parents house, which turned out to be great! The kids had a swing set and all kinds of outside toys to play with while the adults were able to relax under a huge shade tree.

Maggie had an awesome time and from what I could tell everyone else did! Let me know what you think...

I found Hello Kitty Coloring Pages from Hobby Lobby for $1/roll.
 They turned out to be a great hit!

The whole setup

Photo holder that displayed pictures of Maggie from Birthday to her current age.

Deliciously wonderful "Brown Derby Cobb Salad" (Recipe to come later)

The "Treat Tree!"

My sweet niece Lydia

Happy with her cake

Little sister Lucy loved the cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Yesterday was Todd's birthday(the big 3-5!) and since he doesn't like for us to make a fuss over him, we just had a small party with the girls. Maggie and Lucy where both so excited to help decorate and couldn't wait for him to get home. Since Todd is now working and going to school at night, he doesn't get home until about 9:30pm, so it was a pretty long night for the girls! Here are a couple of pictures...

Our Setup

Silly Girls Waiting on Daddy

Yay for Pajama Pants!

Maggie showing Todd the card she made (I think it won the "best present" award)

Andrew turns 2!

 Last weekend we had my nephew, Andrew's 2nd birthday party! Since my sister says that I have no posts about her family on here, I thought I would dedicate this post to Andrew :)

I should mention that my sweet sister is a preacher's wife, a full-time nurse, and the mother of 4 children so she stays pretty busy (her smallest child is only 3mo old!). We are very, very different when planning parties. I get a little obsessed over my girls party and start planning at least 6 months in advance. She's very laid back about the whole thing. She usually has a small family party and keeps it really low-key. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from her :)

Back to the party...

Andrew absolutely LOVES Toy Story, so he had a Buzz Lightyear party. I asked her if I could do the cake since I received a Wilton cake decorating set from my mom for Christmas and was very eager to try it out. It turned out pretty good, and I think Andrew was pleased with it!

All the cousins (minus Titus, Seth, & Baby Lydia)

I had to sneak a picture of sweet baby Lydia in here :)

Happy Birthday Andrew!!

My Little Star!

Anyone who is around Maggie long enough knows that she definitely likes to sing and dance. Whenever our family is over, it doesn't take long before she has everyone sit down so that she can perform a ballet dance, gymnastics, or a song. It's adorable and I have TONS of video! I won't bore you with all of it, but I thought I would share this video with you. It's of Maggie and her Sunday School class singing for the church during our last 5th Sunday Singing. We were so proud-she was the loudest one :) I hope you enjoy it!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas! I don't know about everyone else, but I'm still tired! Anyhow, we are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to celebrate the birth of our Savior with.

We had a VERY busy day! We woke up bright and early so that the girls could open up presents and play a little bit before church. As always, we were late to church, but enjoyed a nice service with our church family. Then, we headed to Gannie & Papa (Todd's Mom and Dad)'s house and had a wonderful lunch and the girls enjoyed opening more presents. Around 4:30pm, we headed to my sister's house to spend time with my side of the family and the girls opened up even more presents! Whew, I'm getting tired just remembering the day...

The whole set-up

Maggie with her Scooter-she was so excited!

I was so glad that we captured this moment!
She has been waiting a Little Mermaid "Buddy" for a long time.

Maggie and her Tag Books

I think Lucy was just happy to be involved in all the excitement

Lucy with her Dollhouse-she loves it!

Chewy finally just laid down among all the toys-we saved her presents for last.

As I mentioned, we had a wonderful day! I hope your family did too! We also had a great, relaxing New Year's Day. I'm very excited about this coming year and happy to see what it brings for our family.

'This the Season!

Happy Holidays! Wow! I've just skipped over Thanksgiving and now it's almost Christmastime! It seems like we always have so much going on. Maybe my New Year's Resolution should be to take it easy :). We are so excited about Christmas this year! We put our Christmas tree up towards the beginning of the month and recently started adding presents to it. Maggie and Lucy are so excited about everything!

We were especially excited that we were able to take Maggie to see The Nutcracker at our local performing arts center. She is really into ballet and dancing altogether, so she was beside herself with so many ballerinas to watch. We stayed after the show was over, so she was able to talk with the performers and take pictures.

We just had our Church Christmas party last Sunday night. As always, it was a fun and happy event-Santa even showed up! Maggie was a little hesitant, but eventually talked to Santa and took a couple of pictures.