Look Who's One!

It is hard to believe that Baby Sister is One!! Where did the last year go? It was full of cuddles and smiles! Such a happy baby girl!

Gpa A is a favorite around our house. We are blessed to see him every week - sometimes more!

Baby Sister loved her piece of carrot cake. I thought twice about serving her a big piece of chocolate cake like Big Sister had as she is primarily still nursing...the carrot cake was still a bit much for her tummy to handle. She had not been spitty for months and then she was - pretty sure it was the food she ate at her party.

Looks Who Three!

Big Sister turned 3 this past weekend! This was a picture taken a few weeks earlier for her birthday invite!

Even though she was on her third day of fevers, Big Sister had a great birthday! We started the Saturday with our customary pancake breakfast. For some birthday fun, Big Sister put sprinkles into all our pancakes - yummy!!

Big Sister enjoyed playing with her cousin K during her birthday party. This was the birthday sensory bin I put together last week. It was great to see the idea of using rainbow rice as the base of this sensory bin as we had a whole bunch on hand from St. Patrick's Day. I then just threw in a few candles from our Melissa and Doug's Birthday Cake, some flowers, noise makers, small gift bags, and some 1's and 3's. The girls enjoyed scooping into the gift bags and emptying them back out again.

Big Sister was all smiles at her birthday party. I made the fun cupcake shirts for both my girls and Gma D C had picked up the fun skirts at a consignment shop a few weeks back! You would not have known that Big Sister was under the weather seeing this picture.

Showing off an assortment of items received for her birthday! It was so cute to see how much she loved all her gifts. There were a couple of items that were unwrapped and delivered directly to her bedroom. She wanted to be sure they were kept safe and sound. One was a My Princess Bible that we bought for her with her initials embossed on the front, and the other was a Cinderella princess doll.

Enjoying being pushed by Uncle D in her new John Deere wheelbarrow.

Big Sister ended her evening by coloring in a new coloring book with Aunt L.

DIY Project - Family Style

Everyone was anxious to pitch in and help redo our dining room chairs last week. As you can see they were in much need of repair. This one actually looks good compared to some of them.

Beatrix Potter - Garden "tea" Party

For the girls' birthday party, I decided to go with a Beatrix Potter garden tea party theme. We were truly blessed to receive a large box of Beatrix Potter collectibles from Daddy's great Aunt E from out in CA last year and thought it would be fun to really put it to good use for our party. The cake decorating idea was a Pinterest find - but of course I had to modify - the "vegetables" included starbursts, M&Ms, jolly rancher chews, cornflakes, and frosting. The cake itself was a recipe from Living History Farms.

Peter Rabbit jumping into the flower pot!

Big Brother help me put together these "carrots" with our napkins and silverware.

Teacups - also a Pinterest find.

Big Brother made this great carrot out of balloons. We had a ton of balloons hung all over in the house and garage for the girls to enjoy.

Lovin' Those Peas

Baby Sister is a lover of peas. She is also very independent and enjoys feeding herself. The down side to this is she does not enjoy bibs so we get very messy at meal time!

Costumes...

This year, I created a hot dog costume for Seth using a red, adult-sized hoodie and brown robe that I picked up for under $2 at Salvation Army. I did some cutting and sewing and more cutting and sewing and here is the final outcome. We did add an additional grill mark across Seth's face for our time at our church's Fall Festival and around our neighborhood.

We also picked up clear plastic bottles and swirled around red and yellow for ketchup and mustard.

Posing with Aunt Tina at the Fall Festival.

Enjoying some "candy" aka cereal : )

Fall Fun...Pumpkins

We love to create a scarecrow and set him up on our front porch for the season.

It's pumpkin carving time. Although Big Sister is rolling up her sleeves, she refused to touch the inside of the pumpkins.

Big Brother dug right in and enjoyed every minute of it!

Big Brother was able to carve his own pumpkin this year and he did an amazing job!!

This is Big Brother's pumpkin - note the bat on the side. He did all this carving on his own.

This was Big Sister's design with the heart (below) on the back.