Charlie's Disney Cars 4th Birthday Party

To celebrate his birthday this year, Charlie had a little friends party at our house. It was just me and Trevor against nine 3- and 4-year-olds. At first I wondered if I was crazy for attempting such a feat, but it turned out really fun! Everyone played and listened well and things never got out of hand.

Additionally, I purchased all of the decor and also bought a store made cake this year, and it was WONDERFUL. Like, zero stress. Except for the moment an hour before the party when Trevor went to pick up the cake and they had--ahem--supposedly lost the order slip and never made his cake. Say WHAT? ... Luckily we ended up getting a free cake, but unluckily it didn't look exactly like the one I ordered (read: pick up a pre-made cake and put Cars toys on top and write on it). Oh well, the only thing that really matters is that Charlie didn't know the difference and he LOVED the cake. He was so excited to dig into it, and he didn't leave its side until the party started. Ha!

Here's a couple pictures of the decor. When I asked Charlie what kind of birthday party he wanted, the first thing he always said was "balloons and cake!" so I made sure those things were present and accounted for. :)

When all the tiny sized party guests had arrived, I let them play with the toys and watch Cars 2 for a few minutes. Then, we played Pin the Teeth on Mater. I let Charlie (being the birthday boy and all) go first. I put the paper blindfold/mask on him and told him to stick his teeth on the poster somewhere. He kept turning his head back and forth and up and down and before I realized what he was doing, he had put his sticker almost perfectly where it was supposed to go. That's when I realized he was looking through the cracks around the mask! Cheater!! Haha... I let it slide since anything goes on your birthday, but I told the rest of the kids that they couldn't peek and I tried to prevent them from seeing. It was such a fun game and some of the kids thought it was super silly. {$6 at Partyland. Can't beat that!}

Next, we trekked downstairs to hit the birthday cake shaped piñata (I didn't have enough time to order a Cars one... oops!) filled with candy and trinkets. Each of the kids took a turn. They got two hits per turn. We soon realized that their weak little arms weren't going to do much damage. Haha! Some kids did hit harder than others, and his little friend Austin (who also happens to be a 3rd child) hit so hard that he knocked it off the string and we couldn't tie it back up. At this point, we let him try to beat it on the ground (see picture below... so funny!) and when that didn't work, Trevor resorted to ripping it open and throwing all the candy up in the air. It worked, and all the excited kids ran and started filling their loot bags. :)

Run run run and get all the treats!

Here's that amazing picture of Austin taking names with the piñata. And then a picture of my sweet Charlie and his birthday cake. He (finally) was a pro at blowing out his candles! Getting sung to and blowing out candles on a birthday cake is probably his favorite thing in the entire world. He was in birthday heaven.

Here's everybody enjoying their cake and ice cream (except Kellen, the little neighbor two houses down who just really wanted to play with toys the whole time... like, I couldn't even get him to eat cake... what!?!) Starting with Charlie and going clockwise we have Chloe, Austin, Alyson, Aunika, Cohen, Oliver, phantom Kellen, and Elena!

After cake (and a good round of "let's clean everybody's face off") we opened presents! Charlie was slightly more interested in his bag of candy and party favors than his gifts, so we had to help him focus a little bit.

Kids live for presents, do they not!?

And sometimes even Dads are impressed by the toys! ;)

Overall, it was an hour and a half of high-energy fun! Charlie had a blast, and I just can't believe that my oldest baby is 4! Sometimes it seems like it's flown by... other times it seems like it's taken forever to get here. Either way though, I just love this silly, crazy, sweet boy and all of his quirks (like collecting everything currently important to him in one container and lugging it around the house... see photo for details hahaha). And finally, here's the invite Charlie personally delivered to all of his friends. I let him run up and knock on each of their doors and hand it to them. <3

Love you, Birthday Boy!

Gold and Pink Princess Birthday Party

We celebrated Delilah's birthday a couple days early, on June 6th. After seeing my friend's cute little one wearing a crown in her 1-year-old pictures, it only took me about 0.6 seconds to decide to copy her idea. A couple Pinterest minutes later, and I knew it had to be a pink and gold princess party for my little girl. The funniest part is when I was pregnant and found out I was having a girl, I couldn't wrap my head around all the girly things and I said things like "I will never call her a princess and do super pink-y girly things. That just sounds cheesy and gross." ... Well, here we are a year later and I'm totally eating my words, embracing all things pink and sparkly and princess-y! With no further ado, enjoy these pictures from her party:

First, just some customary pictures of the table spread in all its glory. I decorated it with pink and gold circles cut out of paper (thank goodness for my neighbor and her Silhouette!), a simple white tablecloth, and lots and lots of white (and a pink) picture frames full of the gorgeous photos we got taken at FotoFly studios earlier in the week. The amazing little crown cupcake toppers were a steal from Topper and Twine on Etsy and made such a big impression for the cost! I made the cupcakes myself out of a white box mix (after failing miserably at making cupcakes from scratch, yikes!) topped with a delicious buttercream frosting kissed with pink food coloring. I also made the little "wand" treats by using prepackaged vanilla wafer cookies with strawberry frosting dipped in melted white chocolate, also with a hint of pink food coloring. Then I finished it off with a paint stroke of dry gold pearl dust for a finish fit for a princess.

I borrowed this cute frame with a magnet board inside from my friend, but what a great idea! Just take any frame and fill it with a magnetic background for a very quick, easy, adorable magnetic surface! Her little girls love to hang up their pictures on display in their room. And finally, Delilah's wonderful, Pinterest-inspired smash cake! To alleviate stress, I asked my friend who is an awesome cake-maker-and-decorator to do the cake for me. She baked the two little 6 inch rounds about a week in advance and froze it. Then, the day before the party, she came down with the flu... so rather than make her decorate while she was sick, I decided to try it myself. For my first time trying this technique, I'd say that it turned out pretty darn good... definitely NOT a Pinterest fail!! :)

Here's my living room, mid-party. It's full of happy friends and babies. And it makes me happy to see all that happy. :)

Post-apocalyptic party living room. Ha. (There's Kimma talking to Grandma)

After we ate some of the delicious treats (may I mention we also served lightly buttered and salted white popcorn, those pink and white Mother's animal cookies {a HUGE hit with my 3 year old son}, and a veggie tray just to counteract all the sugar), Delilah got to smash her cake. She was in a pretty grumpy mood since the party happened during the time she would have liked to take a nap. However, after smashing the cake she perked right up and was happy for a few hours. Thank you, cake induced sugar rush! And, as usual, I couldn't pick just one or two cake smash pictures, so here's 5. ;)

I think she looks sooo stinking cute in her crown from Love Crush Bowtique on Etsy and her tutu/onesie from Onesies for Elliott. I mean, really, what did people do before Etsy and Pinterest!? <3

I think her toes even got a little taste. :) She was very matter-of-fact about her cake eating. It was all business and no play. No hesitation either. It may have helped that she got to dig into a cupcake during her photoshoot earlier in the week.

After a bit of cake cleanup, it was present time! 

Here is sweet Chloe, Delilah, and big brother Charlie. Friends Chloe and Millie brought her this little Fisher Price Cinderella princess carriage where the horse moves front to back when you push it along the floor. So cute! We love girly toys since we don't have very many of those (yet).

She also received a fun stuffed dog that plays music and teaches about body parts (ears, tummy, hands, feet) and colors, as well as her first little baby doll complete with disappearing milk bottle and sippy cup. Grandma and Grandpa Shipp brought some fun little trinkets and an adorable white lacy romper from Old Navy. Kimma and Bebop bought her the cute little pink Pottery Barn Anywhere Chair with her name on it. Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Cummings gave her a little pink ball and a chunky farm puzzle a couple weeks later since they weren't able to make the trip for the party.

Look at those adorable little friends... Millie (who's just 2 months older) and Delilah. Millie LOVED Delilah's chair, but D was good to share with her. Overall she had a fun little birthday party and it's so much fun that she's already ONE!

Delilah at 12 Months

That's the face of a cute little diva/trouble-maker if you ask me! She's already spoiled to pieces and she knows how to work it. She's got her Daddy wrapped around her finger and we just love her fiercely!

Some stats about D at a year:

• Weight: 18.5 lbs (28th percentile)
• Length (height): 28 inches (11.5th percentile - shorty!)
• Head Circumference: 17.5 inches (36th percentile)
• Size 9, 12, and 12-18 month clothes
• Size 3 diapers
• Same eating habits, 4 bottles of formula a day, and about to switch to whole milk soon!
• Eats three meals a day when we eat and snacks in between. She's usually never full, but on the occasion that she is, she will wave her hands in the air (signing "all done") and say "ahhhh duuuu". 
• Loves to drink her bottles in her bed when she's tired, and she'll turn over, get cozy, and pass out immediately after finishing the bottle and tossing it to the side. I guess she uses that as her comfort item since she doesn't use a paci. 
• Is starting to wean her second nap. Some days she still takes two, some just one. I actually prefer one nice, long one during the middle of the day because it can happen at the same time as Charlie has quiet time, but some days she just can't make it past 10:30 or 11am and will take 2 naps that day. 
• New words: "Cah" for car and "ged it" for did it or get it {also still says dada, (ba)nana, nigh-nigh, bye, hi, cracker, ba-ba, di(aper) and yay}
• She is walking about 50% of the time and getting better every day! Working changing direction and getting faster by the minute.
• Still no upper teeth, but I'm thinking they'll be here any day with as cranky as she has been lately.
• Mischief making now includes throwing toys, toilet paper, trash, and whatever else into the toilets or dunking the toilet cleaning brush in there and sloshing water all over the floor. Gag. Gotta make sure those doors are CLOSED! Yeesh!
• Has started taking bows off of her head any time she remembers it's there.
• Loves to play toys with her brother. She tries to copy everything he does, so if he puts a car down the big car ramp, then she will and shout "yaaaaaay" after. It's adorable. She's catching onto things way too fast! Smarty.
• For her birthday, she got a little baby doll with a bottle and she LOVES to cuddle the baby and say "aww" as well as feed her a bottle all the time. What a good little role-playing mommy. It's the cutest!
• Object permanence is in high gear. If she has something and I try to hide it from her, she will open my hands or look under me or try to find where it put it (or if I try to hide myself for a moment of peace she'll come find me) and if she can't get it or find it, she'll start throwing a fit and scream and cry until I either give it to her or tell her "sorry, sis". 
• Unlike Charlie, she hasn't shown much interest in books or television yet, which could pose a huge problem when we fly on a plane in a couple months, heaven help me. She's always just so busy and wants to be moving and doing and seeing and touching. She does like to turn the pages of books, but isn't into sitting still while I read her a book, unless it's "My Goodnight Book", this cute little vintage book that I found in a box of my old things that my parents shipped to me. It was one of my favorites growing up and I love that it's already one of hers too!
• She absolutely loves bath time and swimming or chilling in the float at our neighborhood pool.
• Scrunches her nose when she smiles or laughs really big, and kicks her feet like crazy when she gets excited, mostly when she's in her high chair and I'm getting her some food. 
• Loves riding in the car and will often take naps in there if she's tired at all. I don't blame her... I loved riding in the car too as a kid.
• Whenever Charlie gets sick, she usually gets it too, but it seems like she doesn't get as sick as he does. For example, when he gets a cold that causes a croupy cough, she doesn't get the cough or croupy cough. I've been quite thankful for that so far! On her birthday (while I was at girl's camp and my mom was watching her) she woke up with a fever of 102 degrees. She had it all day with no other symptoms but a mildly stuffy nose and it broke that evening and she was fine from then on. Teething fever? Virus that her body fought off quickly? Who knows... but I'm glad she doesn't stay sick for long, so far! :)
• With every month, she becomes more determined, opinionated, and independent. She wants to drink her own bottles and sippy cups, use her own spoons, go everywhere, escape outside, not be in her crib, etc etc and she makes her desires known with her loud outbursts and screeches. Silly girl ;)

Here's a comparison photo so you can see her growth over the past year (I STILL can't believe it's been an entire year! How did that even happen so fast!?):

I can't wait to see what toddlerhood brings for her... only 6 months until nursery at church! Ha!

Little D's First Year Studio Photos

I took Delilah for a girl's day out to get her one year photos done at FotoFly in Draper, UT. I really wanted the studio look to go with the pink and gold and white theme. I was over the moon with how great the pictures turned out... I loved almost every one of them! If you've ever spent time with a 1-year-old, you'll know how difficult it can be to get them to cooperate and be happy. I am thoroughly impressed with the photographer I had and the studio in general. I'll definitely be going back in the future.

I love how well these photos capture her inquisitive, determined, curious, mischievous, sweet and silly personality. Our family wouldn't be complete without her, and I'm looking forward to seeing how each of her personality traits shines as she gets older.

I just love this one where she's doing her full-mouth, crinkly-nose, cheese-face smile at me!

Mother's Day and Delilah is 11 Months!

How fun that Delilah turned 11 months old on Mother's Day! It reminded me how largely pregnant I was last year, and that this was my first Mother's Day with two kids. :) I really just LOVE being their mom, through both the fun, happy days and the rough, tantrum-y days. Here's the picture that I forced asked Trevor to take of the three of us, and I think it turned out perfect and authentic, accurately depicting our different personalities (cough, Charlie):

Now, let's talk about how much Delilah has changed over the last month! She is really blooming into a cute little toddler, and I couldn't be more thrilled with how much fun she is right now. Here's her 11 month photo. She has had a cold this week, so her nose is a little red and she's not smiling from ear to ear, but she still looks adorable:

Here are Delilah's latest statistics:

• Size 9 month and 12 month clothes
• Size 3 diapers
• Completely weaned! Yay! She drinks 4 bottles a day, with 5-6 ounces in each, for a total of 20-25 ounces of milk each day. It's nice to be done breastfeeding!
• Between bottles, she will have snacks or meals with us when we eat or when she's just being cranky. Some of her favorite snacks are banana pieces, frozen peas, cheerios, veggie straws, graham crackers, and ritz crackers.
• Basically sleeps through the night! Hooray! Probably 1 day a week she will wake up in the night crying too hard to go back to sleep without a bottle. She usually wakes up in the morning between 6:30am and 7am, ready to have a bottle. Sometimes she'll go back to sleep, sometimes she won't.
• Still naps twice a day, most days. Usually around 10am and then again around 3:30pm.
• New words: "Cra" for cracker and "Die" for diaper. 
• She's getting ready to walk! She walks proficiently around the furniture, and does a pretty good job walking while holding our hands for a short distance. She has taken up to 7 steps on her own before dropping, but usually she takes 3-4 steps and then nose dives toward the person she's walking to, so you've got to be quick and catch her or else she falls on her face. Whoops! :) I'll try to upload a video I took where she decided to start walking at me and I didn't do a great job of catching her. Haha.
• Her tricks include: Folding her arms on verbal cue ("D, fold your arms" or "Let's say a prayer"), clapping her hands on verbal cue, waving hello and goodbye, blowing kisses, clapping and saying "YAY" when she's excited about something like walking, pointing, and making mouth noises with her hand.
• The bottom middle two teeth finally popped through this past month!
• She loves to make mischief like pulling the silverware out of the dishwasher, pulling clothes out of the drawers or laundry basket, pulling the DVDs and CDs out of the TV stand, dunking her hands or other objects in the toilet, flushing the toilet, ripping magazines, pushing around ALL of the dining chairs, and just generally torturing Charlie by wanting to touch all his toys. I absolutely love how mischievous she is... I can never be mad at her for anything!
• Likes to sway back and forth to "dance" whenever she hears music.
• Anytime I go out front of the house without her, she'll crawl over to the window next to the door and peek out and happily yell and bang on the door. Silly girl :)
• I just love how determined and tenacious she is about life. When she sets her mind to something, she will not forget about it unless you can completely distract her with something more interesting. I hope that personality trait will serve her well in life.

We are amazed at how smart, sweet, and obedient she has become. I hope she always stays this obedient, but let's be honest, she has to be 3 years old at some point. :) Maybe she'll stay more obedient and set a good example for her big brother, who needs all the help he can get in that department! 

Here's that video of her taking a couple steps and then falling, as promised. She promptly started screaming after I turned off the camera, haha: 

Delilah at 10 Months

Well, we've reached the double digits, the golden age, heaven on earth! :) This little girl is already transitioning from dependent baby to independent toddler. I can't believe it! She's such a happy little thing and loves to follow us around.

Here's some stats about Delilah at 10 months:

• Size 6 (barely), 9, and 12 month clothes
• Size 3 diapers
• Pretty much weaned. I feed her every other day in the morning and she doesn't drink very much. It's more just to make sure my body doesn't freak out from cold turkey weaning.
• Drinks 4-5 bottles of formula per day, 5-6 ounces each time. 
• Starting to sleep through the night, but it's about a 70% chance that she'll wake up once some time between 2-4am to drink a bottle and fall back asleep right away. 
• Holds her own bottles, which makes feedings very easy for me! :) Hooray!
• Eats 2 packs of baby food each day, and likes to snack on graham crackers, ritz crackers, teddy grahams, baby puffs, or veggie straws whenever she gets the chance.
• Real whole foods that she eats are mac n cheese, bananas, apples, frozen peas, bread, yogurt, potatoes (not her fav), avocados (also not a fav), sweet potatoes, green beans, and basically anything soft and sweet that I'll put in her mouth.
• Just tried an "apple & chicken" baby food yesterday and she enjoyed it, so maybe we can do more meat soon!
• She can basically sprint in crawling form. She stands up on everything, and has started holding on with just one hand and walking along furniture. She has stood up on her own (she was holding onto the laundry basket and let go), with a record time of 3-4 seconds so far. ;)
• Claps her hands, waves hello and goodbye, has started to point, and loves to hit her fist on her mouth to make silly noises. She has also been caught successfully flushing the toilet once or twice. Haha!
• Loves to walk (and "run"!) while we hold onto her hands. Getting a little more stable if we hold just one hand, but that still needs more work.
• Loves to stand and walk with push toys or the dining room chairs. She's even strong enough to push one with Charlie on it! It's incredible! And he hates it when she moves him around. ;)
• Verbal skills: "Nana" for banana (her very favorite food), "Dada" for Dad and Mom, "Mama" occasionally for Mom, "Baba" for bottle, "Nigh-nigh" for goodnight, and lots and lots of other babbling and shouting noises. She's a verbal one and I LOVE it!! I really am not sure what her official first word was, but it was probably Dada.
• I'm teaching her the signs for milk and more. She quickly learned how to open and close her fist for "milk", now we just need to get her to do it purposefully. ;)
• Favorite toys include her stuffed dolls, any books but especially ones that have cool textures, the plastic dishes in the bottom drawer of the kitchen, and all of her brother's toys (cars, trains, tools, blocks, etc)
• She loves to follow Charlie around and torture him by touching all of his toys. She does it with a completely expressionless face, as he gets more and more upset, which makes it that much more hilarious. What a little rascal!
• Takes two naps per day, one around 10am and one around 3:30 or 4pm. Together they total about 2.5 to 3 hours. She always hates going down for a nap and will stand and scream/cry for 10-15 minutes until she consigns herself to just lay down and sleep. 
• She's great at going to bed at night, however, and will usually lay down and sleep without much fuss. She's also the happiest and most giggly right before bed. I think of it as the "golden" hour: the time between when Charlie has gone to bed and she goes to bed and I get to spend time with a super happy, somewhat giddy little girl. :)
• Sleeps at night from about 8 or 8:30pm until 7 or 7:30am. With that one time waking up to eat.
• Her hair is starting to fill out a bit, especially in the back. I finally did a cradle cap treatment on her this month and now it's all gone, yay!
• No teeth to speak of! She's been a slow teether, but her bottom middle two will be popping through any day now!
• Loves to act cute and shy when someone says hi to her or when we ask her to do one of her tricks on command. She'll bury her head into my shoulder or tilt her head so it touches my shoulder, trying to act extra cute. We love it!!

We really love this little girl's zest for life. I love that she doesn't like to miss out on anything and is our little shadow. When I read Charlie a book at night in bed (his bed is a mattress on the floor), she's always standing right there with her little head peeking over me to see what I'm reading. Such a curious cutie!

Also, here are a couple more photos that more accurately portray her personality right now:

Wearing her Easter dress:

And a video of her new clapping trick:

9 Months In, 9 Months Out

I can't believe my sweet Delilah has reached her 9 month milestone! She's been outside of my belly as long as she was in it! That blows my mind. Pregnancy definitely seemed to go slower than these last 9 months having her here. She's an itty bitty thing, but she makes up for it with a huge personality and really strong muscles.

Here are some notes and stats about Delilah at 9 months old:

• Size 6 month (barely), 9 month, and 12 month clothes... depends on the brand!
• Size 3 diapers
• Weight: 16.2 lbs (16th percentile)
• Height: 27 inches (22nd percentile)
• Head Circumference: 17 inches (29th percentile)
• Starting to wean her off breast milk. I probably breastfeed her about 4 times a day, and on top of that she's getting 2-3 bottles a day, 4 oz each time and will eat solids a couple times a day and snacks all the dang time. Haha!
• She likes most all solid foods now, except for stuff with meat in it. She totally barfed up a "chicken noodle" baby food mix. Soo... we'll wait on that! :) 
• Will drink water out of a sippy cup.
• I've been trying to piece up bits of grown-up food that she can try. She's tried and enjoyed pancakes, cornbread, eggs, sweet potatoes, and bananas. I might need to start introducing some more veggies, huh? ;)
• Still not sleeping through the night, and the doctor says it sounds like it's because she really does need to wake up and eat, so we're going to try to increase the size of her bottles during the day to help her sleep better at night. Cross your fingers!
• Now an expert crawler, which has caused her to become a bit of a daredevil when it comes to pulling up on things and trying to walk along furniture.
• She pulls up on everything. All the time. Including her crib. This means every time she wakes up, she instantly sits up and then pulls up on her crib and starts to cry. She'll eventually let go and lay down if she's tired enough, but it does make getting her to sleep more of a challenge (especially because she still hates pacis!).
• Loves to take baths in the big tub with her brother! They like to chew on squirt toys together, kick and splash, and giggle.
• Loves to wave hello and goodbye, and she'll sometimes say "haaa" for hi and "daaaa daaa" for bye-bye. Actually, she says "da da" for a lot of things. And still won't say "ma ma". Oh well! :)
• She is still very chatty and social. Like her mama.
• Will put anything and everything she finds on the floor in her mouth. This habit continues outside. I have to pull grass pieces, rocks, wood chips, leaves, etc out of her mouth consistently when we go outside. Fortunately, she somehow knows the difference between food and non-food, because she doesn't try to swallow these other objects. 
• Smiles at people all the time! She is occasionally wary of strangers, and will give a huge smile when I hold her again.
• When she actually gets the opportunity to do "big girl" stuff like ride in the grocery cart, she gets SO excited and will kick her feet and squeal the whole time. Poor thing gets stuck in her carseat too much. Second child syndrome? ;)
• Follows us around the house wherever we go. Her favorite room in the house is the bathroom, much to my dismay, and she loves to pull up on the toilet or the tub and bang on it. Yuuuuuck! I need to start closing the bathroom doors. 
• Her favorite toys are anything that her brother is playing with. She likes to chew on his hotwheels cars or wooden toolset. She does also like some of her baby toys, including touch-y feel-y books. She likes all toys that make noise, rattle, or sing and play songs. 
• She has started dancing! I LOVE it! Sometimes she'll dance when music is on, but she really likes to dance when someone in the house (usually her Daddy) starts to sing! She will rock her head and upper body back and forth from side to side. I love it! And sometimes if we start dancing first, she'll join in. <3

We are loving this age! So many fun things happen from about 9 months to a year. I look forward to enjoying every second of this stage!