happy 1st birthday, eve faith!

Posted on July 18, 2019 by tara

Eve Faith,

I don’t know how, but meeting you feels both like yesterday and forever ago all at once. Wasn’t it just moments ago that you were poking me in the ribs with those tiny toes of yours from the inside? How has a year gone by so fast?

We were so ready to see you for the first time, and holding you was simultaneously one of the biggest reliefs and greatest triumphs of my entire life. You have taught me so much about strength this year, baby girl.

I remember that peaceful morning you were born, when everything seemed perfect as the first sunlight poured through the windows. You are a little peace of Heaven.

You were loud and loved nursing from the moment you were born, and I’d say that still sums you up well. I cherish our snuggle time and adore that you love to be close to me. I know you won’t always fall asleep in my arms, so when you do, I breathe you in and take in all the tiny details.

You have a big personality crammed into that tiny body of yours, with feistiness, spunk, and big opinions all mixed together. You also give some of the best hugs and sweetest affection to your family. You ask for “Dadada” all the time and reach out to me with both arms. Your big grin hidden behind your pacifier each morning is one of my very favorite things.

Watching you grow is the greatest gift. We are so thankful you joined our family.

I love you Evie. HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY!!!

Love, Mommy

nella’s first birthday sunset photos

Posted on December 9, 2017 by tara

After Nella’s birthday party, the lighting was perfect outside, so we just had to get out there and take a few pictures with her balloons. I wanted to make a separate blog post for these, because there were too many cute ones to narrow it down. So, ta-da! A thousand adorable baby pictures.She was so obsessed with trying to grab the balloons that getting photos without them in her face was a little bit of a challenge.She definitely loves balloons, though! She also tried to eat them… And when she wasn’t eating balloons, she was trying to eat leaves.But she spent the rest of the time looking like a baby doll. Be still my heart. Clapping! We love you so much, Nella Joy!

a sunshine birthday party (nella’s first birthday!)

Posted on December 6, 2017 by tara

I’m still doing some serious catching up on here, but I’m so happy to finally post about Nella’s birthday party! It was definitely the simplest first-birthday party we’ve thrown so far, but it was perfect for our easygoing baby girl.Only Grandma Debbie was able to travel up for the party. We enjoyed having her here for Nella’s special day, and I’m sure she enjoyed not having to share all the baby cuddles. My mom is always a big help. She even brought Nella’s super cute birthday onesie!Before Nella was even born, we called her “Baby Sunshine” (mostly due to Kaya deciding that that absolutely had to be her new baby sister’s name). Once she was born, the moniker fit her so perfectly that we continued to use it. She is so full of happiness, and she shares her joy with everyone around her. Clearly, she just had to have a sunshine-themed first birthday party.
Confession: the cake… was actually a giant brownie. I’ve probably said it too often already, but we really just aren’t “cake people”, and after having spent so much time on Kaya’s birthday cake just two weeks previous, I really wanted to do something easy that everyone would actually eat. (I loosely based the design on these cupcakes.)It was delicious, but people….there’s a reason it’s traditional to decorate cakes, and not brownies. Cakes are so much more porous and better able to hold frosting on. It was difficult to get it anywhere close to smooth-looking, and no frosting would stick to the sides. Still, I don’t regret switching to a brownie this time- it tasted heavenly, and everyone was happy! She may still be little, but there was no mistaking it, this princess knew that all this was a celebration for her. She just couldn’t stop smiling and squealing! Too little to blow out the candle, she needed a little help from Daddy! We all love you so much Nellbells!Finally! She’s the first of all three kids to dig into her birthday treat and actually enjoy it!She may have had her doubts at first, though… …but then it was true love. Nella + cake!My mom brought her a whole new wardrobe, which has been so nice to have, since so many of the older girls’ things from this age are pretty worn out.
Nella definitely had a lot of helpers for opening her gifts!She was actually better at ripping the paper off than I had expected! I think I’ll always swoon a little over baby girl clothes.Nella loved the boxes and paper more than the actual clothes, I think.Happy Birthday sweet girl!

kaelyn’s 1st birthday: a giraffe party!

Posted on July 14, 2015 by tara

I don’t know why I took so long to put up this post, seeing that her party was two weeks ago already. Whoops! Finally, here it is, my sweet baby’s first birthday party! It wasn’t anything fancy, but we really had the best time with family and friends. My heart is so full knowing how many people love our little princess.

We had a giraffe-themed party, since Kaelyn really seemed to get especially excited over any and all giraffe toys for a while. I made the cake, and was inspired by this to try to make it 3-dimensional. This was my first-ever attempt at something like this, and while it is far from perfect, I am definitely proud of the result! The body was cake and the rest was make of Rice Krispies Treats.

This girl only wanted to pull crazy-faced smiles that day! I think her grandmas brought this on… Love my girl. So many presents for such a tiny baby! Don’t look too hard at the cake… his ears were already falling off at this point, and by the time we cut the cake, his whole head was crumbling. It was a hot day, his head was too heavy, and I probably should have used more marshmallows to glue his head together. Now I know for next time! The decor was pretty simple. I loved having all twelve months of my princess on display!When we sang “Happy Birthday”, Michael and I automatically filled in “Baba Grace” instead of saying “Kaelyn”. Whoops. We might call her by her Kaya-given nickname more than her real moniker. She wasn’t sure what to think of the candle! She had no idea what to do with her cake. She did get some on her finger… and when she just barely tasted it, she was disgusted. I promise the cake was good! I’m sure things will be different next year. 🙂 Big sister got to help open all the gifts. This was the highlight of her week after everything she endured just a few days before. I think this piano was the biggest hit. Naturally, everyone wanted to play with it at the same time.
Our good friend Caroline loved being in on the action! For some reason, this picture just cracks me up. Kaelyn’s big gift from Mommy and Daddy was a Little People farm. She loves it! Daddy left this as a surprise on my camera… It’s the only picture he’s in besides the group one (whoops), so I figured I’d throw it in. Also… #kittyphotobombI’m grateful that so many people could come to the party! Bianca and her girls left before we snapped this picture. And then of course I had to do something crazy, like put my baby in a bucket, tie balloons to it, and take her picture.Also, let me just mention- same bucket, same baby, one year ago. I cannot believe she was so small! Back to the present…

Love this little scrunchy, double-toothed grin.Happy 1st Birthday Princess! We love you more than you know!

happy 1st birthday kaelyn!

Posted on June 26, 2015 by tara

I’m sitting here writing this on her birthday eve, barely able to believe that Kaelyn came to join our family one whole year ago.

Having our second precious daughter has made time race by faster than I could have ever imagined. My tiny, 5 pound 10 ounce baby has grown to be a strong toddler. It’s hard to imagine that she ever wore preemie-sized clothing!

I said I wasn’t going to get emotional about my second baby’s first birthday. I’ve already done this once before, and I know that as she gets older, the good times keep getting better.

But I think becoming a mom pretty much means you agree to be emotional about all things concerning your kids, so here I am.

Kaelyn, you have taught me so much in this past year. Life doesn’t need to be quite so rushed. You’ve helped me to slow down and drink in all the small, precious moments. I already knew you’d grow up too fast, so I’ve tried to savor all the baby stages, even when there were obstacles to overcome.You are the calm to the storm of every day life. You give me peace and reassurance that I’m doing okay at this whole motherhood gig every time you smile or hold onto me with your tiny fist.

I love the way you (almost) always greet me with a giant grin and try to follow me everywhere I go. You are my little buddy.

It’s been a year of little sleep, lots of cuddles, and too many scrunchy-faced grins to count.

I’m so excited to see who you’ll become over this next year. You are my sunshine, baby girl.

Happy 1st Birthday, Kaelyn Grace!

Love, Mommy

five on friday: yogurt, prayer face and duck hunting

Posted on May 2, 2014 by tara

ONE. Someone loves her yogurt again! She lost interest in it for a while, but now she shovels it down like it’s going out of style. I’m pretty happy, especially since she still isn’t drinking whole milk. TWO. For Brittany’s baby shower this week, I was in charge of the punch. I was probably a little too excited to have these rubber ducks swimming in it (but it is adorable, no?)! The original recipe called for blue berry Koolaid, so I bought the blue-colored packet. The powder color should match the package, right? Wrong. It was RED fruit punch, which would have made this scene look a little more like duck hunting than ducks peacefully swimming in the bath.

THREE. Every time we ask Kaya to fold her arms to pray, she makes this face. It is so hard not to burst out laughing while we’re praying!FOUR. All these months that I’ve wanted to organize Kaya’s closet, I thought I’d have to order some space-saver bags online. I was super excited to see them at the Dollar Tree this week! We tried one out, and it’s actually pretty decent quality. Definitely worth a dollar!FIVE. I would cuddle with her all day, every day, if that’s what she wanted. The baby belly is making it a little bit harder these days… but I know that it’ll be even more difficult when I have to juggle two kids. I hope Kaya never gives up snuggling with her mama.

Happy weekend!

Linking up with Natasha, April, Christina, and Darci today!

a little birdy birthday | kaya’s first birthday party

Posted on October 7, 2013 by tara

I’m finally sharing Kaya’s birthday party from two weeks ago! We kept it pretty simple, but it was still adorable and I love the way it turned out. I really wanted to have a theme that meant something to us, and since Kaya’s nickname is “Baby Bird” (we probably call her “Birdy” 85% of the time, actually), I thought it’d be perfect to incorporate that into the party. I chose a pink and aqua color to go with the little birds and decorated/crafted accordingly. Look at all those presents! She is one very-loved little girl. This was my first fondant cake ever. Not perfect, but I’m actually quite impressed with how well I did. ~~I just won’t tell you that the bottom layer of cake split into three pieces and I had to have help from both my mom and mom-in-law help get the fondant on top…~~ but isn’t that baby bird precious? _MG_9777 Chocolate with a chocolate-pudding filling. Mmmmmmm. Too bad Kaya doesn’t really care about cake. I made her onesie myself with applique and fabric paint, inspired by this one. (She didn’t get the horse for her birthday, but it’s one of her favorites and this is too cute to not include!) Uncle Jeff and Auntie Lelia got her a drum, and she was quick to learn how to use it! She carries the drumsticks all around the house now. Happy Birthday, Baby Bird. We love you!

happy 1st birthday, kaya!

Posted on September 19, 2013 by tara

Throughout the past few days, I couldn’t help but remember all the events of one year ago- our last prenatal appointment, staying up all night with contractions, arriving at the hospital, the doctor breaking my water, breathing deeper than I ever have in my life to get through the pain, and finally, realizing that my labor and birth wasn’t going to go the way I had hoped when I ended up on Pitocin and with an epidural.

That physical and emotional pain was surpassed with greater amounts of love and joy than I ever thought imaginable from the very second I laid eyes on Kaya. In that moment, I knew I had never loved anyone so much, and I couldn’t fathom love being any more intense than it was right then.

A year later, I can testify that there are no boundaries on true love. Our hearts keep growing and filling up with every smile, every cuddle, every kiss, and every new thing that she learns.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl. I’m so thankful for each and every day with you. You’ve helped me to see and love in a way I never could have done without you. You are the light of our lives.

You might be a toddler now, but you will always be our “Baby Bird” (even when you leave the nest one day…)

Thank you for coming to join our little family. We love you more than words can say!

Happy First Birthday, Kaya!

Michael and Tara

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