Emily's First Birthday Party

It's been a while since I have posted, but it's because life has been extremely busy! My sweet little baby girl turned one two weeks ago... Still can't believe it!

Her party was a vintage garden party. I wanted it to be a sweet backyard party that was filled with vintage furniture of my own and sentimental furniture from Matt's grandmother. It was a lot of manual labor, not a lot of money, and lots of love.

I have been asked why I go all out on my children's parties, why so "over the top". And the answer is because I want to! I know that I only have a few short years to do their parties the way I want to. Soon, like this year for Conner, they will decide the type of party they want. They will want a bowling party, pool party or a sleep over, and I won't get to spend late nights sewing banners or have all day baking marathons. And I fine with that, but I want them to look back and see how cool their birthdays were and how much I wanted them to have an amazing party.

My great aunt said it best at Emily's party... She said it was a labor of love. I love that that she saw that and I love that answer. I am not in a competition with anyone to have the best party and I don't look down on people who don't go all out like I do. This is what I enjoy doing and it is so much fun to do it for my children.

So here is my labor of love for my sweet, precious baby girl! Hope you enjoy!

Date Nights

We are so truly blessed to have such a loving, caring and supportive family that lives close by. We have such a great support system that we are never short of a good babysitter. And I do not take it for granted, because I know families that are not as fortunate to have reliable free sitters.

So when my mom this week said that they wanted to watch the kids on Friday night and us not pick them up til noon the next day... I said sure! She said that she wanted to be supportive of mine and Matt's marriage and knows that date nights are so important. I appreciate and love that she said this and WANTED to watch my kids for that long.

As many of you know, raising children can become a job. You and your spouse work together and get babies fed, bathed and put to bed at night. And by the time everyone goes to bed it is a little after 8, which doesn't leave much parent time. Matt and I alternate who goes to the gym and don't get home til after 9. So it doesn't leave us much time to do anything but talk about the important day to day things.

Of course on our date nights, we mostly talk about the kids. How fast they are growing up, funny stories about what they did and how proud we are of how they are turning out. But we also talk about our hopes and dreams for our family. Things that we want to accomplish and achieve. All of which is done over a glass of wine and a nice beer ;)

I truly love and adore my children, but am I allowed to say that I enjoy time away from them?! I think it is good for our marriage, which in turn is good for our family. So I want to say a special thank you to my Mom, Dad, Cindy, Mike, Memaw, Papa and Marty. This is my crew and without them, I have no clue how we would survive.

Growing Up

This week has been a giant whirlwind for me. Emily started walking and Conner started serious potty training. That is a lot of change for any family, let alone both happening in the same week.

On Sunday, Emily took her first steps and is a walking machine now. I have been working with her everyday and have only gotten two steps out of her. She has been strong enough to walk for about a month now. You would see her just standing and not touching anything and when she held your fingers, she would walk but would sit as soon as your fingers left hers. So Matt tries on Sunday while I am in the shower and she takes eight steps... And I wasn't even there to see it! I was very disappointed that I missed it, but Conner did the same thing to me. Oh well!

It is amazing and sad how fast this happened, she just turned 11 months! Conner didn't walk until he was 13.5 months old and it took him a couple weeks to walk to other things besides us. Not Emily! She will pull herself up on something and take off walking for a toy or food. She is going through all the major milestones way too fast for this momma. I need her to slow down!!!

On Monday, Conner went under the dining room table to do his business and I asked him if he wanted to go use the potty... He said yes! For some reason, he has been terrified of the potty and his underwear. I don't know why, but something changed on Monday. He pooped in the potty and let me put underwear on him and we haven't looked back since. I am so proud of him. We are going every 25 mins and he has only had one accident a day. I have nothing to compare it to, but I think that's great!

This week is so full of changes and big milestones. It makes me realize that my children are growing up so fast and that it all is happening in the blink of an eye. It makes me sad, because I love the stages they are in now. But it also makes me excited for the future and for all the fun things we are going to experience with them both.

Lemon Rosemary Cupcakes

I know the combination sounds weird... Believe me, I tried talking myself out of attempting this. But one night I was cooking dinner, using lemons and rosemary in two different dishes and I thought the smell was heavenly. I told Matt right away, that I was making that into a cupcake.

So I made a basic buttercream frosting and added some very finely minced roaemary, shaved lemon peel, and lemon juice and voila... It's a masterpiece!

Conner Loves Emily

When I found out I was pregnant with Emily, I had a crazy sea of emotions. And one of my biggest fears was how Conner would handle it. Up until that time, all of my time was devoted to him. He was the center of my universe and I didn't know how either one of us one handle sharing me.

When Conner came to the hospital to meet his baby sister, I was very apprehensive of his reaction... They are only 21 months apart and you never know at that age how they will react period, let alone meeting someone who is going to take time away from momma. But it couldn't have been more perfect. He was truly excited to meet her. Had the biggest grin and wanted to hold her right away.

We definitely had our issues with sharing momma in the beginning. I spent a lot of time breast feeding Emily and he didn't understand why I had to hold her all the time. It was sad and broke my heart. I tried to make him feel special and when she was sleeping, we cuddled and spent one on one time with each other. He eventually got better about it, not sure if it was getting used to it or him getting older and being able to reason.

With all that said, Conner adores Emily. Truly, he is in love with her. He wants to play with her, kiss her, hug her, hold her, rough house with her and make her feel better when she is hurt. He likes to keep her in line and tell me when she is getting into something she shouldn't or tell her no when she throws her food on the floor and laughs.

He is an AMAZING big brother to her. And I am so glad for it, and pray that their love continues to grow. I want them to be best friends and for him to protect her when we aren't around. I want him to watch out for her and make sure no stupid teenage boy messes with her (even though she will never date 😬)

Funny and sweet stories between Conner and Emily:

He will randomly tell me that he loves Emily. Even when she isn't around, he will ask where she is and then say he loves her.

Conner wouldn't say her name for the longest time, he would only refer to her as baby. But over the past 4 months he says it, but it comes out as "omilee" or "oddily"

Every morning, Conner asks where Emily is. She usually sleeps a little past him, and I tell him that she is asleep. When she wakes up I bring her to bed and we all cuddle for a little bit, he says "good morning Emily" and plants a big kiss on her head.

Conner constantly asks for Emily to come and play in his room. But momma can't come. Just him and Emily.

He likes to rub her head and say that she's cute. (About six months ago, it came out as "cuke")

Conner loves to hug Emily. Sometimes he is too rough, but today they rolled around on the floor hugging onto each other and laughing hysterically. (This makes my heart so happy)

Today she dropped her pears on the floor and laughed and said uh-oh... Conner comes running up to her and said, "No, Emily. We don't throw our food... It's not funny, Emily!"