Brooke Is 1!

It's so bittersweet that Brooke turned 1 last October.  Exciting, of course, it's so fun to watch her grow and learn new things!  But it's also really sad that she's becoming a toddler and not such a little baby anymore.  She has been the sweetest, most easygoing baby.  I am always going to miss baby Brooke. 

At 12 months old, Brooke is. . .

*Brave! This girl has never once had stranger anxiety! It's really refreshing, after having two babies who were always clingy, to have a baby who is happy to play with babysitters and the childcare at the gym, and lets anybody hold her.

*Happy!  As long as she gets to crawl around and explore and play, Brooke is a happy baby!  She's a total dream in the car and has always loved riding in her carseat and stroller.  The two older girls usually cry more every day than she does.  Bizarre, right?

*All OVER the place!  Crawling, exploring, climbing, you name it!  Oh, except for walking.  True to form, she's not interested in walking yet (well, now she is, since I'm writing this when she's 15 months old).  But at 1 year, she was a fast crawler who hadn't taken her first steps yet, just like her sisters were.

*Little!  I finally have a girl who's not in the 90'th percentile for height and growing out of clothes faster than I can buy them!  Brooke at 12 months was only 19 pounds and in the 20'th percentile for weight, and in the 40'th percentile for height.  Finally, a small baby!

*Smart!  She figured out really early how to clap, play peek-a-boo and other games, say words like "Mommy" and "Hi" and "Bath". 

*Brooke loves water!  She has a great time taking baths with her sisters and finds water anywhere she can.  One of Natalie's favorite tricks is opening the toilet lid while Brooke is there and then laughing hysterically while Brooke splashes in the toilet water.  Ugh!  I hate it!

*She's probably the worst sleeper I've had so far.  She's only been taking one nap each day for months now, and her nap is usually short.  She often wakes up after an hour and a half, and her nap is never longer than two hours.  She does sleep well through the night, usually from 7:30 until 5 or 6 am when she wants a bottle.  She just has a ton of energy.

*She really doesn't like being held for long.  She squirms and pushes so she can get down and crawl around and explore.  It's one of the only things she dislikes.  The only other thing she hates is getting her hair combed, especially after a bath when it's wet.  She also lets us know when she doesn't like a food by pushing it off her tray and onto the floor.  

It's such a complete joy to be Brooke's mother.  She's a total sweetheart, and she always goes with the flow and doesn't make too much of a fuss.  She smiles easily, laughs really easily, and very rarely cries.  Her smile and laugh brighten up my days, every day!  I love my baby Brooke!

 

Brooke's Birthday Party!

Way back on October 29'th, Brooke turned 1!  My almost-Halloween baby!  The only baby who was cooperative enough to come on her own (no inducing!) one day before her due date.  Oh, how I love this baby for so many reasons!  But I'll leave those for another blog post.  This blog post is just about her first birthday party!

I had her party at The Nest, a cute play area for little kids.  So I decided the theme had to be Owls and Birds.  Check out her AMAZING cake!  And no, I definitely did not make it myself.  :) 

To get details about who made her adorable owl cake, read this blog post here.

 

Brooke had a fun time crawling everywhere and playing with all the toys!

Thank goodness my mom came to visit and helped me with all the food the night before!  We made Oreo cheesecake truffles shaped like tiny apples, owl s'mores, caramel apples, and a popcorn treat.  

It was a great spread!  I resisted the urge to have a Halloween-themed party, but couldn't resist the Halloween tortilla chips.  :)

The birthday girl was her usual self. . . happy and adventurous!

It was a wonderful day, full of friends and laughter and great times!  Everyone sang to Brooke, and her sisters "helped" her blow out her candle and dig into her very first cake!

The tree stump part of the cake was for the guests, and the owl came off the top so Brooke could dig in and try to eat it!  It was awesome!  Kirsten got a huge kick out of watching Brooke eat her first cake. 

And I really think Natalie had more fun with the cake than Brooke did!

It got a little messy, so we had to take the cake away eventually.  :)

Such a fun party!!!  I wish we had taken pictures of our friends who came, but I'll always remember them.  Brooke is a lucky little girl, with so many people to love her!

Fabulous Finds. . . Picture Perfect Cakes!

If you live in the Seattle area,check out the absolute COOLEST cakes I've ever found from Picture Perfect Cakes!

I knew I wanted an owl cake for Brooke's first birthday and knew there was no way on earth I could make one myself that would resemble anything like an owl.  I found an inspiration picture online, gave it to Allison at Picture Perfect Cakes, and she used her imagination and came up with the rest!  I absolutely loved it, and so did all of our party guests!  

Everyone was amazed that everything on the cake was edible. The fondant icing on the sides of the tree branch was molded and painted to look like real bark!

Isn't it completely adorable???  Just look at that edible owl face!

I thought it was just going to be an owl, but Allison came up with the idea of doing the owl sitting on the tree branch, and then we could take the owl off and let Brooke dig into it and eat it for her first birthday. So the owl was a whole separate cake, that came off the top of the tree branch cake for the guests.  Genius!

Allison has been making cakes for three years.  She started taking some local classes and then taught herself the rest, using her creativity, passion for art, and eye for detail.  She has tons of different flavor and filling options to choose from!

I'm also amazed by her prices!  She will customize your price based on the size of the cake you want and how much detail is involved, but her prices are very reasonable for such an incredible cake.  For a birthday or other special occasion, it's so much fun to have a memorable cake!  She will make a cake for any theme, the sky's the limit!

Brooke sure did enjoy trying to eat her owl.  :)

Check out a gallery of lots of her other cakes at Picture Perfect Cakes, and like her Facebook page too! 

Adorable Etsy Shop Alert. . . ZoeLynn & Co Review and Giveaway!

If you have as many little girls as I do (or even one little girl, right?), you know how important it is to have ultra-cute accessories to go with every outfit.  We have a whole wall full of hair accessories and I still keep needing more!  Some of the most high-quality ones I have found are these versatile mix-and-match headbands from ZoeLynn & Co!

In fact, I love the Knitty Girl Black headband that I received so much that my little girls don't usually wear it. . . I wear it myself!  Each headband is hand-wrapped in fabric with a meticulous attention to detail.  The headband fits everyone from 12 months old to adult!  So you can share it with your baby or little girl!

The flower clip that attaches to it can also be worn alone.  These headbands are designed so you can wear the headband alone, or the headband with the flower clip attached, or the flower clip alone.  It's so versatile!  The black one that I got matches pretty much everything, and I can switch out flower clips to add pops of color if I want, or add my own clips that I already have to it as well.  You can also clip the flower to your purse, shirt, wherever!  I love it!

ZoeLynn & Co makes solid and satin grosgrain ribbon flowers in every color imaginable!  She loves custom orders, and is happy to create special accessories to match dresses and outfits.  There are so many beautiful options!

ZoeLynn & Co is offering a dazzling giveaway to my readers. . . a sparkle headband in your color of choice!  These are wrapped in metallic ribbon and do not contain glitter so you won't have to worry about glitter all over your hair or house.  :)  AND. . . 

A sparkle flower clip to go with it!  Also in your color of choice!  These flowers are just adorable!  The flower is made of felt with a sparkle center, and encircled by sparkle tulle.  It can be worn with the sparkle headband or by itself!

These sparkle headbands are some of her best-sellers at boutiques in New York City!  It's exciting that she's offering one as a giveaway to one of my readers!

It's really easy to enter using my Rafflecopter widget below!!!  Good luck!!!



Winners!

Aaaaaaah, these giveaways ended awhile ago.  My apologies for not choosing winners sooner, I don't know how I lost track of these giveaways!  But here are the two winners, chosen by random.org...

*Winner of the $10 boutique credit to Lexi's Unique Boutique is. . . #23, Christyn Mckenna!

*Winner of the Felted Circus Lamb Ornaments from BossysFeltworks is. . . #70, Tracy at Cotton Pickin Cute!

Both winners have been emailed, and have 48 hours to respond before another winner is chosen.  Again, so sorry about the delay and congrats to my winners!

Fall Fun!!!

Here it is at last. . . our entire month of October!  One of my absolute favorite months of the year, full of pumpkin patches, harvest festivals, spicy scents in the air, gorgeous leaves of all colors, and that crisp, cool air that means FALL is here in full force.  I adore it! 

 Our month flew by SO fast, and we had a whole ton of fun!  I'll be doing separate posts about Brooke's first birthday and Halloween weekend, but here is the rest of our amazingly beautiful October. . .

*The kids loved the Harvest Festival at Country Village!

*They practiced their trick-or-treating at a Halloween playdate!

*The whole family and some good friends spent a Saturday at the Harvest Fair at Fox Hollow Farm!

*They had mini John Deere tractors for the kids to drive!

*And lots of adorable farm animals!

*Natalie absolutely LOVED the kittens in the barn!  "Key-ah's", as she calls them.  :)  I love how much she loves cats!

It was more of a farm and not really a pumpkin patch, but it surely was gorgeous there!

*I took all three kids to Kirsten's preschool field trip at Carleton Farm.  It was a drippy, wet, and MUDDY day.  We still somehow managed to have a good time!

Kirsten, Brooke, a friend, and Teacher Penny!

*Kirsten picked her pumpkin!  She took it a few days later with Daddy to her Pumpkin Decorating night at preschool. 

*Me, three little girls, and a rainy, muddy field.  Am I brave, or just crazy?

*Natalie loved the pumpkin cannon!

*One of the coolest things about this pumpkin patch was the indoor play area that included a slide that ended in a huge pit of corn kernels!  Perfect for a rainy day!

*Brooke loved playingin the corn!  It was great. . . until she started eating them.

*Buried in corn!

*Because I wanted to prove just how brave/crazy I am. . . I took the kids to another pumpkin patch,  Craven Farm, with the mom's group on a whole different rainy, muddy day.  {Sigh}.
Natalie and Karsen had a ball playing in the mud puddles.   

*Kirsten: "Oh, the pumpkins are getting married!"

*And they loved running through the corn fields!

*The sun peeked through the clouds!  For about five minutes.  :)

An amazing October indeed!  And we're not done yet. . . we've still got a birthday party and a Halloween weekend coming!