Emery's 1st Birthday Presents

Most of our gifts to Emery we had a little hand in making, so I thought I would share!

First up is the favorite around the house, Emery and I probably read it around 8 times per day!  I love board books, and knew that I wanted to make one for Emery that had all of our family inside.  Since we live farther away from most of our family members, Kyle and I thought it would be the perfect way for her to get familiar with their names and faces!  

I went online and found Pint Size Productions, a company that prints board books for you.  You can use their templates OR if you have the correct software you can ask to have the templates emailed to you.  I chose the latter (surprised?), which allowed me to design it just the way we wanted (a layout where pictures were on every page, accurate text placement and a patterned background).  We were able to fit all of our family pictures and names in perfectly this way, yeah!

Here is the cover and spine:

On the back cover I put a picture of the 3 of us, then put this text underneath: We want you to know how loved you are, by all of our family members near and far.  We love you so much! Mommy & Daddy

Here's an example of the inside of the book.  Behind the names I reversed the colors that were on the cover and put light pink diagonal lines on a white background to add a little something.

Like I said before ... Emery LOVES it and points to everyone's picture before she flips the pages.  It was totally worth the time to make this board book!

Our next gift was inspired by an image I found while browsing on Pinterest a couple months ago... an over-sized ruler!  It's not your typical growth chart but serves the same purpose, and the plus is that we can move it with us from house to house.  We bought a 1x8, Kyle stained it, then I used a sharpie to draw on the lines and numbers!  We've made a couple of these for friends and family, and I'm so glad we took the time to make Emery one too!  Now I just have to get her 1 year measurement drawn on there!  (This is where we are putting it... still not hung up on the wall quite yet!)

 

Lastly, we ordered Em a pair of pink TOMs! Kyle and I had said as soon Emery started walking that we would invest in a pair and I'm so glad that we did.  They fit her perfectly (size 3's -- they are so tiny!) and they stay on perfectly.  It's so neat to know that someone on the other side of the world was given a pair of shoes just by us making a purchase through TOMs... makes it completely worth it!

Our happy girl wearing her new shoes :)

And since we are on the subject of shoes I just have to show one of the gifts that Emery was given by our friends, Serina & Chris, at her birthday party.  HAND PAINTED Converse shoes!!  I seriously cannot wait till Emery can fit into these!

I just love the "established 2011" on the backs, so cute!  Thank you so much Serina... you are so creative!!

A wonderful 1st Birthday for sure!

Picnics & Parks

A couple weekends ago on our way back from Boone, we stopped for a picnic lunch in Charlotte.  Man what a difference it makes to eat lunch outside then just driving while eating fast food.  We left refreshed and ready for the 4 hour drive back home.

More recently, Emery, Kyle and I met Mike & Gunney for a picnic lunch at a nearby park.  There's a pond to feed the geese so we used some of our sandwich bread to do that as well.  It was a fun day enjoying the beautiful weather!

And we couldn't leave without getting some "jump" shots of the kiddos!  You can tell by their faces this is a regular occurrence in both our households... They LOVE it!

And going down the slide holding hands of course!  Too cute!

 

Trying to enjoy the weather before the hot hot Georgia summer comes!

Emery having fun at the dinner table!

Emery tries to mimic everything we do, it's hilarious.  This video was taken almost a month ago from my phone, but it's still one of my favorites... I love her hand motions!  What a happy girl we are blessed with!

Emery's 1st Birthday Ice Cream Party!

We had such a great time at Emery's 1st Birthday Party!  We decided to make it ice cream themed, and had so much fun putting it all together.  Here is the invitation I made that we handed out to our close friends. (Had to hand deliver these invites because of the actual candle.  They would have gotten ripped to pieces if I had mailed!).

For the friends and family that live out of town, I mailed this invitation below.  The only difference is an ice cream graphic instead of the candle!

Now it's time to show the decorations in action that I told y'all about yesterday!  Here is our tv nook and mantle decorated with the Happy Birthday banner, tissue poms, yarn number, pictures of Emery and one of the yarn pom strands!

On the other side of our family room, I decorated the mirror with another yarn pom strand, and below was where we kept the favors and goody bags for the kids!

If you kept walking into our dining room, you would see the below decorations on each of the shorter walls.  Some of our favorite pictures of Emery strung up with colored ribbon, and then I replaced the three 8x10's that were currently there, with a newborn, 6 month, and 12 month shot of Emery.

And here is a view of the entire dining room, and our table of goodies!
I love the color that the tissue poms added, and the #1 sign in the background! So fun!

Here's a closer view of the food:

Our "Here's the Scoop" sign with cake pop cones and chocolate dipped rice krispie treats:

 More shots of all the food:

The cake pop cones were SO EASY to make and went perfectly with our theme!  Love that the messier they looked the more realistic they seemed!

 I was so excited when I found that the waffle cones fit perfectly inside my spice rack!  Added height to the table and made for a prettier presentation!

The ice cream cone vases and candy vases decor:

Close up of all the ice cream toppings:

Before we knew it, it was time for Emery to dive into her smash cake!  Kyle and I whipped it up the day before and lovingly referred to it as the leaning tower of pisa :)  We just did 3 layers of fun fetti cake held together with strawberry frosting!  The sugar high came at the perfect time as skipping her nap was starting to show (look at that stare in the left picture!)  She loved the strawberry flavor!

Such proud parents of this little one!

Emery kept waving at everyone while eating her cake... too cute!

 Next was time for some presents!  Emery got such wonderful gifts, and loved playing with each one as we opened them.  Thank y'all so much again!

 I was having way too much fun myself to remember to take pictures during the party, so sadly I did not get pictures of everyone who came!  These were all the kiddos though: Myer, Gracyn, Merrin and Gunney!  (Em's party was on St. Patty's day, hence all the green!)

Lauren and her daughter, Merrin, even made the 4 hour drive to come to Em's party!  So great seeing them!

Jen made the hour drive to come too!  She left sweet little Max at home with daddy though so no pictures of him!

And even though they are not pictured thank you to the Arnolds, Cliftons, Cosbys, Craigs, and Hardimans for coming!  It meant so much that y'all came and helped us celebrate our little girl!

And there goes another L&L production -- I say we go into business together ;)  Thanks again Lacey so much for all of your help!!

Below is a picture of how Emery felt about her party!  She can't wait till next year to come already!

Happy 1st Birthday Emery Katherine, We Love You!

Getting ready for the PARTY!!

If you don't know my personality by now, I tend to be a little high strung... sometimes ;)  I was determined to not be one of those moms that stressed out about her child's 1st birthday party, but on the other hand I did not want to sacrifice my attention to detail and love for hand made crafts!  SO I started all my projects about a month before hand, and my stress-free plan worked perfectly!  The following post is some of what I did for the party!

Besides designing the invitation, the first project was a Birthday Banner to hang over our tv nook!  I hope we can use this for many years to come, and I love how it turned out.

 

Next, I had two white frames that I bought for a previous shower that I knew I wanted to put something in.  I had fun designing them to go with the feel of the invitation, and coming up with the rhymes.

The one sign that we had as the centerpiece on the food table said:

 Here's the Scoop (play on words since it was an icecream party!)...

We have all the ingredients that you will need,

to make a special treat, indeed!

Ice Cream, Toppings, and Syrups galore,

Please don't feel guilty coming back for more!

And the other that we had on the favor/goody bag table said:

Sweet and treats and lots of fun,

thank you for helping us celebrate Emery turning one!

But don't forget before you go,

to grab a favor from the bowl below!

The next picture is of all the TISSUE POMS that I made!  Man, talk about easy and cheap decor!  I followed this pinterest tutorial, and love how much color they added to the party.  Our guest bedroom bed was covered with these for almost a month before hand so I was really excited to see them get hung!

Alright then we're moving on to a little more time consuming project!  YARN POMS! (I followed this pinterest tutorial).  They are easy to do just take FOREVER.  Good thing I brought all my supplies and knocked my strands out when I was at a hair appointment.  Everyone in the salon was looking at me pretty funny :)

And while we are on the time-consuming projects, I should definitely list the YARN NUMBER!  I had seen this tutorial on pinterest and thought I'd give it a go one night.  It was ridiculously hard, but partly because I didn't have any kind of adhesive with me (hot glue gun would have been so nice).  Either way I don't think I'll ever do this one again, but it was perfect decor for our mantle. (A huge thank you to Tara for helping me stick with it in my hour of frustration- haha!)

I found the below waffle vases at hobby lobby and knew I had to do something with them!  I bought Styrofoam balls, sprayed them with adhesive, rolled them in different colored glitter and added a cherry on top.  Kyle shaved some out of the bottom of the top "scoops" so they would sit correctly on the ones below.  I love how they turned out!

I cut out some scrap booking paper and strung together with ribbon as decoration for the sides of each table and Emery's high chair.  Easy to do and adds color!

Next was time to start baking!  I was so thankful that we did a dessert theme because nothing had to be hot for the party!  I was able to make everything the week before hand, which was perfect!  This cake batter bark was just one of the pinterest recipes we made for the party!  Along with the ice cream and toppings, we also made lemon cookies, cake pop cones, chocolate dipped rice krispie treats, and marshmallow pops.  YUM!

Here's Kyle working on crushing up all the toppings while watching the basketball game!

And lastly, here's a pic of Lacey and I decorating away!  Lacey came over Friday night before the party and we baked for a couple of hours while Kyle was hanging everything for us.  We had so much fun and I'm so thankful that she came AND stayed the night to help me set up everything in the morning.  Talk about an amazing friend!!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for pictures of the party!