Party Time!

On Saturday we celebrated Olivia's first birthday party with some close friends and family. :) It turned out to be a beautiful day, which was perfect for a party and a little pool time. I truly felt so blessed to have so many family members and friends come to celebrate with us the first year of Olivia's life. Even though the party seemed to fly by, I tried to cherish every minute of it!! We started the party off by eating some yummy food courtesy of me, my mom, and J.R.'s mom.

Livi, her Big John, and my granddad

A few friends that came to play.... SG

and CP

Livi checking out some presents and her tutu before we ate some cake. This is outfit number 1 out of 4 for the party...haha. I made this one for her. :)

Livi's godsister Mary Lee. Sorry Ash, that your face got cut off in the picture. Next time we will have to get a picture with all of us in it. :)

*Side note: this is such a typical picture. Olivia is making faces and squirming to get down, while Mary Lee just calmly sits there waiting to have her picture taken :) So sweet

After lunch it was time for some yummy cake! My sister Ashley made Livi's big and small cake and they turned out adorable!! I just loved them and they sure did taste great!! Olivia definitely seemed to enjoy it and dug right in!! I think that she ate more cake than she did actual food. :)

Her party hat I made her :) She was not to fond of it.

The only family picture that we took. I love this one because JR and I are smiling at the camera while Olivia tries to eat her cake. haha

Yummmmm!

After cake, it was time for some present opening! Olivia did not want to have much to do with it. She just wanted to play with all the toys that Mary Lee had in her hands. Oh my! Olivia is one blessed little girl and she received some very sweet and thoughtful gifts from family and friends! We really appreciate everything that everyone did for her. :) This is the only present that Olivia actually opened with me.

VERY tired!!

Then we headed outside to do a little bit of swimming. Olivia enjoyed getting to swim with her god sister Mary Lee! Livi loved watching Mary Lee and playing with all of her toys. Ha. Mary Lee was the best baby inthe pool and just loves to float and look around! She is just adorable and it melts my heart to see these two little girls playing together. :)

Daddy and Livi

This is the swim suit that my Aunt made Olivia for her birthday. It is just adorable and I will try and get a better picture of it soon. Here are both daddies with their girls. :)

Checking each other out :)

Mary Lee

Happy First Birthday Olivia Love!!! We love you more than you will ever know! :)

One Year Old!!

I just cannot believe that by tiny baby girl is one year old today!! It just seems weird to even say it outloud. We had such a great day celebrating as a family and I couldn't have asked for a more blessed day :) Livi woke up this morning to mommy and daddy singing her "Happy Birthday".....

Then we were off to eat some yummy breakfast. Blueberries are one of her favorite foods and so I decided to make her some blueberry muffins.

Then we opened a few presents

After nap # 1 , we headed out the door to go swimming at the Millington's house with a few friends. :) Mallory brought her 3 little ones and even though Livi didn't want to swim, she enjoyed getting to play with these 2 little boys. :) So sweet!

Then we headed back home to get the house in shape and make some dinner. While I was busy making dinner, Livi was busy terrorizing the house. :) haha. She was into everything including Charlie's dog food.... uh oh :( Not only was today her first day to ever eat anything sweet, it was also her first day to try a piece of dog food...haha. I felt like such a horrible mom when I saw her chewing it up...uhhhhh. On a much more fun note, we invited both our parents over for dinner tonight and had a great time!!

Yummy!!

And she's done with taking pictures :)

My Mom and Livi

I made some Magnolia cupcakes for dessert and gave Livi a candle in hers :) Keep in mind she has never eaten sweets before and so we weren't sure what to expect with the cupcake. :) Well she definitely takes after her mommy because she devoured it!!! She mashed those hands in and ate almost the entire thing!! She kept eating and eating and eating. :)

Thank you everyone for making Olivia's birthday so special!! Olivia, you are such a blessing to Mommy and Daddy's lives! I don't think that I could ever have imagined the love that I have for you! You make me smile with you crinkled nose smiles, laughs, the way you love to cuddle up in a chair and read your books, how you play peak a boo, your noises, and the way you pull your hairbow out the minute I put it in. :) You are the light of our lives and we treasure every minute that we get to spend being your parents! It is so amazing being able to watch you grow and develop and I am so blessed to be called your mommy. :) I love you baby girl and Happy First Birthday!

Baby Steps

Olivia Love has really started to become VERY active over the past few weeks. She is really starting to figure everything out. :) She can no longer be left in a room by herself and actually stay in the same place. For the past week she has been taking a few steps here and there by herself and I am so excited! She has just started letting go of something, voluntarily, and walking towards something she wants. Here is a short clip of our newest accomplishment. I think that full on walking is in our near future. :)

Yummy!

I decided to let Olivia try out some spaghetti tonight for dinner, and boy did she love it! :) Let me just say that there were noodles and sauce EVERYWHERE. We may not be attempting this again for a while. :)

She has gotten to where she closes her eyes when I get the camera out.... guess she know that flash sure is bright!

*Please notice the spaghetti sauce on her arm...haha*

Lake + Crawling + Pulling Up = Exciting Weekend :)

In case you didn't read the blog title..... Olivia is finally crawing!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!! This past Friday she just up and decided to go for a toy a few feet away. I was shocked and so excited. After all of these months of working with her, she finally did it. :) Better late that never :) We went over to the Millington's house shortly after her first little bit of crawling and I wanted them to see her crawl so bad. But unfortunately she would have nothing to do with it. So I decided to try and see if she would go for my wedding rings and that did the trick :) Diamonds truly are a girl's best friend...haha. She is getting much faster at it and is loving being able to explore the world around her by herself. She also mastered pulling up in the last few days. She can pull up on most things and loves doing this, especially in the bath tub. :) Here is a short video of her new accomplishments. Yay Livi!!!

This past weekend we went to stay at Payton's (Heather's Boyfriend) lake house. It was nice getting to meet all of his family and friends and getting to just spend a day relaxing by the lake.

Welcome to....

Yay for crawling!!

Livi and her cousin Kaley

And this is the newest outfit that I made Livi :) My first attempt at a reversible bubble outfit

Livi and Payton's niece Becca Joy. Not quite sure what to think of each other

No trip is complete without J.R.'s mom making some yummy baked good. Why is it not surprising to see her with lots of sugary goodness in her hands :)

Fun with Payt!

Olivia was laying her head on Payt's shoulder. It was sooo sweet. :)

We had a great weekend and enjoyed getting to spend time with family and friends :) Looking forward to many more lake days in the future. :)

Busy Weekend

This weekend we had planned on having a quiet weekend with just an outing or two planned. But on Saturday morning we decided that since it was such a beautiful day we would go ahead and get out and about! We started the day by going to a friends little boy's 3rd birthday party at Jump Zone. :) Let me start by saying that to say Olivia liked the blow up slides would be an understatement. She LOVED them. JR would take her to the top and slide down with her and she would smile and laugh the whole way down. :) The only problem was when she got to the bottom, she would cry and scream because the slide had stopped. So poor JR , being the wonderful daddy that he is, would climb back through the maze of blow ups to the top of the slide and come down again! After Jump Zone, we went to the Millington's for a day at the pool and Mrs. O just loved it! I think that water has finally gotten a little bit less cold and she just floated around the pool in her sun float and watch her daddy and Uncle Miah play pool basketball. What a great way to end a fun filled day! Wish I had more pictures to share but of course I forgot my camera so here are a few cute ones that Aunt Heather took while at Jump Zone.

J.R. , Livi, and Kaley

Livi and Payton (Heather's Boyfriend) Payt can always make Livi giggle :)

Saturday night we went over to my parents house to celebrate my brother Will's Birthday. We had a great night watching home videos, eating yummy lasagna and bread pudding, and just hanging out. We hope that you had a VERY Happy Birthday Will and we Love you so much!!

Livi sure does love her Uncle Will

And that would be yummy baby food.....prunes.... on Livi's shirt. haha. Its hard to keep an 11 month old clean :)

Beautiful Day at the Zoo

If an effort to get out of the house and to do something different, my friend Chandler and I decided to take our sweet little girls to the zoo today. :) We had no clue how the day would turn out having two little ones under the age of one but we went for it anyways. And let me say that I am soooo glad we did!! The girls were amazing!!!! We did not hear one cry out of either one of them the entire time we were there, which was 4 1/2 hours. Ha. :) We were shocked to say the least. The only noise that came out of these cute little girls were lots of laughs and giggles. :) They had such a blast together and it was so nice to get to walk around the zoo and talk with such an old friend! :) We have been friends since we were in about 4th grade, continued the friendship through high school, lived together in college, joined the same sorority, got married about 6 months apart, had our 2 little girls 3 months apart, and we are godparents to each others child. :) That is what I call a life long friend :) I hope that our 2 little girls will be blessed with friendship like we have been all these years! Hopefully it will be with each other. :) Here is a little snapshot of our big day at the zoo...

Getting out of the car and heading into the zoo... they were ready to go :)

Olivia was ready to see animals with her sippy cup in hand!!! Especially the monkeys.

She just can't get enough of Mary Lee. I think Olivia would sit in the stroller with Mary Lee if we would let her.

Checking out the flamingos

Let me start by saying that the little girls did pretty good on the carousel but the big girls (chan and I) did not do so well. When did we get so old that the carousel makes you dizzy and queasy??? How sad!! Chan and I were soooooo ready for this ride to be over with!!! haha

After about an hour at the zoo the girls both decided that it was time for a nap. They must have told each other that it was nap time because they both passed out at the exact same time, to the minute! :)

Precious babies!

After about a 20 minute nap, Olivia was ready to eat lunch and see some more animals!!

We decided to play in the splash park for a little while and she had a blast!!! She loved playing in the water and watching all of the kids run around! She just laughed and laughed and laughed. This is her clapping her hands because she was so excited!

After a change of clothes for Livi, since we both got so wet at the splash park (too bad I didn't bring a change of clothes for myself) we headed to see the monkeys.

Loved Chan's fan

This monkey came right up to the glass and put its hands on the glass like he was saying hello. The girls loved watching him.

We had such a great day and can't wait to go back!! Turned out to be a beautiful day with great friends!!