Happy Birthday, Little Lady!

That's exactly what it was, a happy day. We had a wonderful time with family and friends celebrating our baby girl's first year of life!

I would say that the birthday party was a huge success! We did an open house style so people would feel free to come and go as they could. We loved seeing everyone that was able to make it and we missed all of those who weren't able to.

{The girl LOVES lemons! And I know they aren't good for her teeth, we limit them. But it was her birthday!!}

My mom and I spent the day before baking and getting prepared for the party. I think the decorations, cake and party favors turned out darling! Stud Muffin did a wonderful job helping with the decorations and taking pictures to capture our day.

{The party favors were sugar cookies on a stick! They turned out so cute :D}

Little Lady soaked up the attention like a champ. She truly is a people person and loves to be where the people are, see what they are doing and even just chat and give hugs. It was so cute to watch her make the rounds and tell all of her guests "HI!" with her big cheesy grin, often to be followed by a big hug and snuggle!

{The sign on our front door}

She did great opening and even sharing her gifts with her friend, Baby E! I was really impressed and love to see her generous heart at such a young age. I hope I can help encourage and teach her to be generous with her things, all the blessing that she's been give from God.

{She had just finished playing peek-a-boo with the bag}

Stud Muffin worked on and perfected a video mixed with slideshows to music and home videos of Little Lady's first year. It happens to be an hour long! I think I'll post it and anyone who wants to watch can, if you don't want to that's fine too! But it is adorable and really doesn't feel like an hour as it keeps you entertained.

After gift opening we moved right along to the cake festivities as Little Lady was fading fast at that point.

Nana made her a strawberry cake with pink frosting! I think she really enjoyed it but kept looking at her observers like "Why is everyone looking at me?" She was pretty cute, as always! Then it was time for a quick bath...

Not too long after that Little Lady made a crash landing and went to bed for two hours!! When she woke up we had a BBQ dinner with family before we were back to a near empty house again.

She ended up staying up until 9p before she slept the whole night through til 7a!!! {Yay, sleep for mama too!!}

We had a wonderful day and plan to spend today just resting and enjoying Nana's visit. :D

Here are some more wonderful pictures from the party:

Squeaky Shoes

A video taken yesterday of Little Lady walking and talking! She is wearing her shoes that squeak that she got from Nana a while ago {they finally fit!}.

Squeaky Shoes 2 from Katie B on Vimeo.

And another one... I'll warn you this one is longer and probably boring unless you are grandparents! Ha!

Little Lady's Squeaky Shoes from Katie B on Vimeo.

Getting back to the every days

Last week we were getting back to the usual everyday life of being home. Our vacation was wonderful and we throughly enjoyed it!

It's always nice to get home after a long vacation too. Especially this time. We had our house painted while we were away! {Actually we had our house started last fall but after a few technical difficulties and a winter season, we had to push it off.} We decided to go with a different painter and Stud Muffin worked something out with a guy he works with. He gave us a great deal and is donating the profits to a charity ice hockey tournament that Stud Muffin is playing in this weekend.

{The same tournament that I was at watching him play last year when I started early labor. He didn't get to play the second day of games because we were at the hospital waiting for E to be born! She was born just half way through a game he would have been playing in!}

Any way, the house was supposed  to be painted the weekend before we went on vacation, but due to weather we were postponed again! Stud Muffin and I were both worried we come home from vacation to find it still unpainted...

BEFORE:

You can see in this picture that it had been started to be primed, and it sat that way all through winter and spring...

AFTER:

The color is a little brighter than I was picturing but he did an excellent job and we are very happy with it! Now we can get to work on trimming back the landscaping... thats for another day!

So, back to last week...

It actually wasn't too eventful. Just settling back into being home. We had our Fruitful Heritage group from church, which is open to all new and expecting mamas! Another day I took Little Lady to the Children's Museum, she loved that! She's so social and loves going up to the other little kiddos and says "Hi" in an over enthusiastic voice. They usually just stare at her. It's really the cutest thing ever!

The weekend was quite uneventful as Stud Muffin and I both had to work.

But this week, I have a list to tackle as we get ready for party guests at the house to celebrate Little Lady's FIRST birthday on Sunday! Nana will be here on Friday and we will be busy on Saturday baking and preparing. Saturday night is Little Lady's baby dedication and then Sunday we will be partying!!

On that note, I better get to work!

Vacation: The Weekend

Friday:
We went to Sea World! I think we were there 5-6 hrs. Little Lady did outstanding. She even sat through a couple shows! Ok, so she actually got her nap through one of them. :)

It was a great experience though and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Watching the dolphins while they swam underwater. 

Playing with Opa {my dad} while we waited for the show to start.

Probably my favorite show of the whole park, Shamu!

Truly amazing creatures!

Playing with Oma.

Saturday:

The guys had another fun day of SCUBA diving off of Catalina Island. They have a dive park there that is set up and blocked off specifically for divers to enjoy! I heard stories of huge crab and lobster, they really enjoyed the day.

So that left the girls to fend for ourselves! 

We first went to the children's museum, Pennypickle's Workshop. It was such a neat little place!

It was set up as a professor/scientist's house with quite a few different rooms. It was as if he had conducted all these experiments and left notes written on the walls for the kids to try them out as well. 

She loved this piano! It was wired to other instruments that would play when certain keys on the piano where hit.

If she were a little bit older she probably would have gotten more out of it, but there where buttons and switches and gadgets all over the place. Plus there wasn't anything in there she couldn't safely touch! 

Here she is dancing to some music.

She fell in LOVE with this jukebox! With the colors and the bubbles going up the side, and of course the music!

A hot air balloon basket that you could get in a play around.

And after all that hard work play, we were ready for lunch!!

Sunday:

Our 4th of July was relaxing and I wouldn't have it any other way! It was a great way to have to end our lovely vacation.

We woke up late, even Little Lady, and then headed out to Ihop from some breakfast! Yum. Little Lady is so social and loves to yell "HI" at every person that walks by and if anyone will stop and give her some attention, well they are her new BFF!! She isn't shy. At all.

After a delicious late breakfast and an afternoon nap we headed to the club house for some fun in the sun! I was surprised that it was pretty bare from being a holiday, and a warm sunny one at that. But we weren't complaining to have the spray park all to ourselves again. :D

Daddy enjoyed making his own splash going down the slides at the pool!

After drying off we started the grill and enjoyed a delicious summer dinner of beer brats, potato salad, beans, grilled corn-on-the-cob and ice cream for dessert! Yummy in my tummy :D

Thank you Opa and Oma for the wonderful vacation and visit! We enjoyed our time as a family and getting to spend time with you! We look forward to the next visit with great anticipation. Much love.

Baby Dedication

"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 22:6

Stud Muffin and I have chosen, what we feel is to act in obedience and dedicate our children to the Lord before our church, family and friends.

We would have done this sooner with Little Lady but we procrastinated doing it. At least the official part of it. Before we even talked about having kids we knew we would raise them up in the ways of the Lord. 

What is a baby dedication?

To us, dedicating our child means raising our children in His ways from the very beginning, building a solid foundation of Jesus Christ into their lives. We believe that we have been given a great responsibility by God as parents because our children our not ours, but actually His. Although we are given a privilege of loving and experiencing the joy of parenting and being a family. But both Stud Muffin and I believe our soul purpose as parents is to return our kids to the King as saints!

To us this is a great honor! We don't take it lightly. We will require lots of prayer and guidance, as well as godly wisdom and encouragement. This is the main reason for dedicating our babies to the Lord before our church, family and friends. We know that we will need them through our journey as parents and welcome them to be a part of our experience.

“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” 

Job 1:21 

Another very important part {and probably the most difficult one for me} of dedication is that we are acknowledging before others that this baby is indeed the Lords. That what He chooses to do with their life is up to Him. Even if this means that He would take them from us to be with Him in Heaven. We trust Him because He is trustworthy. He will cause all things to work for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose {Romans 8:28} so we know that He would never bring harm to our children without bringing good to overcome it.

How do we plan on going about raising our kids up in the ways of the Lord?

First and foremost, we believe that our own personal relationship with the Lord must be strong and growing. We know that most of what our children will learn from us will not be from what we say, but from what we do. The decisions we make. How we treat people. How we handle difficulties and challenges. 

“The righteous  man leads a blameless life, blessed are his children after him.”

Proverbs 20:7

Second, we will pray for them.

God has created each of us with a purpose on this earth. We each have our own personalities, strengths, talents, interests, etc. And He intended them to be used to bring Glory to Him and to show people His love. To point them to Jesus Christ. This means that no matter what Stud Muffin and I would like to plan for our kids, God's plan is what we are called as parents to lead and encourage them to follow. It's our responsibility to pray for and seek the Lord's will in their lives so we can encourage and guide them to what ever the Lord would have them do in this world. Ultimately we know it will be to shine the light of Jesus Christ and love people to the Lord!

And third, we will discipline them God's way, according to the bible.

"He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly." 

Proverbs 13:24

"Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death."

Proverbs 19:18

"The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother."

Proverbs 29:15

"Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul."

Proverbs 29:17

We believe that any discipline we give to our children should be for his profit and not ours. We know we have much to learn in the discipline department and we will be seeking much godly council and wisdom as to how to discipline our kids in a constructive way and not a destructive way. Little Lady is a very strong willed child and this has already proven it's challenges, but we know that God has made her, strong willed and all, and we wish to use discipline in a way that teaches obedience with out breaking her spirit. 

By no means to we claim to have parenting figured out and that our children will be perfectly well behaved 100% of the time. We KNOW we face many challenges and obstacles that will undoubtedly throw us for a loop and frustrate us to what seems to be no end. 

But what we DO claim to know is that God has given us the tools we need to figure it out as we go! We have the Holy Spirit, the Bible, prayer, and godly council. I believe the Lord has more than equipped us to be successful parents - that is, to return our babies to Him as saints!

So we will be dedicating our first child to the Lord on the very last day we can call her a baby - July 17th, 2010! {I said we procrastinated didn't I?!} Stay tuned, pictures to follow!

“Lord, please equip our Little Lady with everything good so that she may do your will, and work in her what is pleasing to you, through Jesus Christ” (Hebrews 13:21).

The County Fair and a Beach Day

Part I: The County Fair

We took Little Lady to her first county fair... and it was in Southern California! I never would thought that would be the case. Stud Muffin and I both grew up mostly in the mid-west so I imagined taking her to the fair sometime out there. 

The first thing we did when we got there was find daddy a turkey leg! He was dying for one and he left a trail of drool all the way from the parking lot :D Little Lady enjoyed a little bit of it too, the little bit she could persuade daddy to share!

We also saw some animals and other booths. They also had a really neat pavilion that was all plants a flowers! Little Lady is our nature girl, she LOVES flowers, plants, trees - all of it!! So we ventured through there with her. It was not only gorgeous with vibrant colors, but it was a break from the smell of grease and from the crowds, we practically were the only ones in there!

Daddy found a photo-op and took come really cute pictures of our flower child ; p

{This was just moments before she reached out and ripped a petal off of these purple flowers...}

After we walked through the rides and had our fill of fatty deep-fried foods {Stud Muffin even ventured to enjoy a deep fried Snickers!} we headed home for the day!

Part II: A Beach Day

Yesterday we took little lady to the beach! It wasn't her first time to the beach. We took her the last time we came out to the west coast at Thanksgiving.

{Please excuse the quality of these photos as they were taken with my iPhone. We decided against taking our DSLR out in the sand but I couldn't bear to let the day go unrecorded!!}

It was overcast on the shore because of the marine layer that looms in most of June. It was cooler also. But we didn't let that stop us from enjoying the sand and waves!

Stud Muffin hit the waves and boogie boarded like a champ!

{He's such a stud!}

And Little Lady spent most of her time diggin' in the sand although she did venture down to the water and even enjoyed getting her feet wet! She is rarely timid or afraid of anything really, at least for very long!

She started out staying on the towel and checking the sand out from there...

And before long she was full fledged IN the sand, digging and playing! I had to keep telling her not to eat the sand and she had a tendency to want to put a pinch or two on her tongue. I must say I am looking forward to the day, with great anticipation, when she will not want to eat or taste EVERYTHING she can get her hands on!!!

She loves putting her head down and looking between her legs. I think I'm going to start teaching her how to do a somersault! ; D

She even helped daddy dig a hole in the sand. They are so cute together!

My two cuties!

Even though we took quite a bit of sand home with us and we didn't see much of the sun while on the beach, our beach day as a family was, in my opinion a success! 

A day of silence

What: Moment of Silence for Cohen

When: Thursday July 1st from midnight to 11:59 pm.

How: Bloggers participating will post the Cohen banner (below) or simply post Cohen’s name in large letters on their blog.

Why: July 1st Megan and Brent will be holding Cohen’s memorial service. The moment of silence is an opportunity for Megan’s blog community to stand behind her and support her on this difficult day. Linking up will give Megan a chance to see the support at a glance.