One Year!

Our Ivy girl turned 1 year on the 21st and what an AWESOME day it was!

We had a lot of fun at our family birthday party!

Ivy is the sweetest baby and we are so blessed to have her.

Here's some pictures from our celebration!
That morning we started with pancakes for breakfast!

We went out on the town to run birthday errands!
Weston even took work off so he could be home for her party that afternoon!

She loves Nana & Poppop!

Coming down from her afternoon nap to a party!

A little unsure about everything!

The amazing birthday banner my mom made!

She was sick & a little wiped out, but she was still completely happy, which I was glad about! 

No tears were shed on her birthday!

She wore her party hat the entire night!

She was not even interested in her cupcake! Huh?

These are the cupcakes I made for everyone else.

Not the prettiest, but oh my gosh, they were delicious.

"Dad, seriously, please put me down, I have presents to open!"

Making a break for her gifts again!

Her & all her gifts!

We got her a lot of books!

Nana & Pop Pop got her a baby doll (The MVP) and clothes!

Gigi got her cute clothes, a couple books, & a little ball toy!

Her Grandma & Grandpa Brinkerhoff got her a ride-on zebra toy that she also loves

and my friend Gretchen got her an amazing Little People princess cottage.

Adorable!

She looks all shy...but she loves attention... She was a little shy about all the gifts and standing by herself in the center of the room!

Here's the party hat I made her!

Her strawberry cupcake from Ivey Cakes.

I love that place.

With a gold glittery 1 made by Nana!

The gift pile!

She got a lot of generous gifts!

Her cute headwrap from Jenna!

We had such a fun day & she definitely did, too!

She wants to have a birthday party every day!

I hope y'all all made it out to vote!

 Sweet daddy-daughter run!

It was probably 35 degrees outside (brrr) and Ivy had just had her flu shot that day & was feeling not well. Wes bundled her up & I wrapped that blanket around her & she was so happy & giddy abouut the blanket addition. It's the little things!

 Also, Ivy started taking little steps a couple months ago & a month or more ago started walking! She still walks like a baby frankenstein and it's adorable!

Ivy keeps life exciting & everything is very good! It's cold here in Tennessee with the arctic blast & I'm pretty sure everywhere else in the country too! Stay warm everyone!

Birthday Pre-Show

Really mom? This is embarrassing.

She was staring down a lady who was oohing and ahhing over her.

We're working on manners. HA!

 We took Ivy birthday shopping with us for her birthday.

Call us bad parents, but I did not want to buy this child something she was not going to play with.

SO, we tested out the toys by sticking them on her lap.

We bought two of them she was totally in love with.

We actually did not end up getting the thing pictured in the cart here.

I parked the cart at the end of the toy aisle while we talked over which ones to get. When I turned back around at Ivy, she was on her feet standing backward in the cart drooling over all the toys on the shelves.

 While we were price-matching at customer service Ivy waved at everyone leaving the store. She made so many people laugh. I was laughing so hard over her. She waves at EVERYONE everywhere we go. Ivy's extremely social!

Life is GOOD.

Never take a hungry baby shopping. She kept licking her lips and lifting the bananas and signing "more."

And then I looked down and she was folded in half and sucking on the grape crate.

Poor poor hungry child.

 She had to lick the screw of the air filter vent just to see what it was like.

 Sharing her doll with Nana.

 This child is always so comfy when she sleeps.

 This child loves climbing the stairs and is lightening fast at sneaking up them.

Horrifying.

 This tiny partner in crime of mine LOVES our mommy-daughter dates to Target just as much as I do.

Both our hearts sing! I get to window shop & she gets to take in all the fun things around her.

 This step has hardly any room & she loves climbing up onto it. I love this tot.

 My mom kept telling me I needed to get a picture of her little hands signing "more."

Here's one. It absolutely kills me. I love this little girl & her tiny signing hands.

BYU vs. MTSU

BYU came to TENNESSEE!

We played MTSU, which is a complete NO NAME football team around these parts. But we couldn't miss the opportunity to go watch our cougs kick booty...and have way too close of a game. 

 We had a tailgate before the game of a delicious bbq sandwich!

 We also were bundled up like it was 0 degrees, because it was atleast 35 or so. Cold.

 Ivy LOVED the whole thing. Even though she was a little ice cube the whole time.

 She tried some lemonade and loved it.

We're working on the concept of how to drink from a cup. She thinks her tongue needs to be involved.

 Seriously, though, she was really happy and cheered & danced the first 3 quarters of the game!

 We had so much fun!

 Doing her usual dental work on Daddy.

 That night Ivy slept really REALLY hard.

I think she dreamt of being hog-tied.

Halloween!

Ivy blowing kisses to Weston.

We walked around the mall that day just to get out & about but not freeze our behinds off in the cold weather!

 We had so much fun on Halloween!

Ivy was the cutest little sheep. She is such a tolerant child! She wore her whole costume all day long! 

Weston is also a good sport & wears things I order on Amazon for him for Halloween.

I had the stuff to dress up as little Bo Peep, but my costume was a dress and it was WAY TOO COLD. So we adapted & I didn't dress up ha!

 

 Oh sweet baby, just stop growing!

 We had a good Halloween & finished the evening off with a good scary movie!

We're alive, I promise.

I haven't blogged in almost 2 months! Whoops!

It has been a good & action packed 2 months!

Ivy & I were both sick at the beginning of October & then we went to visit Weston's family in Utah! His parents got our Christmas gifts early & bought us tickets to come visit! It was an interesting trip! Ivy was exhausted & stressed out the entire time! Oh & she was stressed out unless she was in my arms through the whole flights, etc.

It was exhausting, but really good to see Weston's family!

I took on a project from a lady in town to sew some awesome pregnancy support bands! It was awesome & my serger and sewing machine both acted like doing that was going to kill them. It was a good experience, though!

Other than that we have been having a really fun time as a family of three! Ivy is hilarious and keeps us on our toes! She started walking & walks around like a little Frankenstein and it's absolutely adorable. She is very happy to show you where her nose and belly button are. She also loves to rub her hair. She says "Uh-oh" after violently throwing something onto the ground. She loves to steal the show at church and sing over the choir and loudly, proudly sing during the hymns. That's one of my favorite things! I am so excited for Thanksgiving! Most of my family will be here, except my very pregnant sister & brother in law! I am so excited for my nephew to get here sometime between now an December 15th!  

Ivy's first birthday is next week & we're having a little family birthday party to celebrate! I'm having fun making little party decorations & things for it! We are actually planning on doing Christmas cards this year, too, so I'm starting to work on those. & just getting done a lot of things that have been monkeys on my back!

I got 3 ornaments finalized from family events over the past year.

I completed a family year book & sent it to the printer.

I have filled in and gotten up to date Ivy's baby book.

Basically, things like that that I have been behind on!

It feels so very good! It's exciting & life is all so very good!