My Baby is One Today!

Little Miss Meredith is one...  My baby isn't a baby anymore.  "/ 

A couple of weeks ago I was texting with my girlfriends who are both fabulous cake decorators, and was lamenting that they both live in Alaska and couldn't be here to make a cake for Meredith.  I'd decided I wanted to do a smash cake photo session with Meredith, and I wanted something that would look pretty in the pictures.  They both told me I could easily put a pretty cake together and not to worry.  Sent me recipes and honestly made me feel like I would be able to pull this off.  

This stupid cake was damn near the end of me!  I thought I'd get all creative with some decorators tips and do some simple flowers...maybe have a little purple and pink.  It came out pretty hideous.  In fact it was so bad that I scraped all of the icing off and started over...  Then I redid it thinking maybe the pink flowers were what was throwing it off....no...it still looked like crap with just the purple, and I was super bummed about it.  But, it was 11:00pm, and I was exhausted, so I went to bed and told Josh I might just go buy a cake in the morning.  I literally lost sleep over it.  I laid there thinking of ways I could fix the cake.  I had an epiphany around 2:00am while I was feeding Meredith who had decided it was her birthday and she was going to be up!  So, in the morning, I scraped all of the icing off AGAIN!  And voila!

Not too bad....Just think of all this poor little cake had been through.  It went from being white, to white and pink and purple, to white and purple, to just purple.  Good grief.  Talk about an identity crisis...

Weeks ago I started buying all of the stuff I'd need for this photo session.  Got a backdrop holder, some seamless paper, stuff to make the bunting, stuff to make the tutu.  I was really making so much more of this than I needed to, and it was stressing me out.  I kept thinking it was all going to flop.   I even bought a little lighting kit that I didn't end up using once I realized that enough light was coming through our living room windows.

In the past week I'd really started to doubt my choice of a white background...I'd seen a lot of adorable photos of little girls with bold purple backgrounds and got all jealous, but I think I'm pretty happy with the white.  :)

It took her a while, but she finally got hands on with it.

She never really sank her gums in (she's yet to get her first tooth), but she had a good time playing in it.  :)

Sarah Faye got her these bloomers ages ago.  I'm so glad they still fit!

I'm so stoked with how awesome the pics turned out!  :)

I thought I'd pay it forward and show a little of the behind the scenes stuff.  I've been doing a lot of googling this week, and really appreciated when people would offer up tips.

I bought a Polaroid backdrop stand that was only about $80.  The seamless paper was around $30 I think, and I got the 53" wide one.  I made the bunting from card stock and ribbon.  I hot glued it together.  I actually ended up pulling the paper out about 10 feet and taping it to the floor, but I didn't get a pic of that.

I used a Nikon D7000 with my 35mm f/1.8 lens.  I also used my cheapo SB400 speedlight.  I should stop slamming it.  It's a pretty nifty little flash.  :)

Anna sat for me while Meredith was napping and let me get adjusted to the setup.  Notice the edges.  I cropped nearly every pic of Meredith.  I thought the 53" paper would be enough, and I guess it was, but I missed a few shots because she was moving around so much that I couldn't get the shots because the background wasn't wide enough.  (side note...check out the bob!  Her new 'do is awesome!)

It wouldn't have be possible without my baby-wrangler, Rachael.  Poor Rachael, I know this had to have exhausted her.  It was like a very intense 15-minute workout.  :)  And my Mom was on-hand to keep our sons corralled. 

And that's about it for the smash cake.  Other than that I tried to get some photos of Meredith throughout the day, but she ended up taking a 3-hour nap.  

On Wallace's first birthday I got a pic of him right after he woke up, still in his crib...

Look at that cutie!

Yeah...Meredith is not a morning person...  ;)

Bitch stole my look!

hum....how can I drive my sister crazy?  Oh I know!  I'll pull all of her precious stickers off her wall....  

Hommie put all of the wasted icing to good use.  :)

And that's about it.  :)  Can't believe she's already a year old!  Meredith was the biggest surprise of my life, and she's been the most tremendous blessing!  And now...I'm exhausted and going to bed!  :)  Peace out.

Hair Attack!!!

Well...it happened.  Much sooner than I thought it would though.  I consider myself to be a very careful person when it comes to scissor storage in the house.  I have like 6 pairs of kitchen shears, and they are always right where they are supposed to be, up on the counter in their containers.  I also put my hair scissors up on a very high shelf in between Wallace's hair cuts.  So I was seriously shocked when Anna walked up to me on Sunday and said "Mommy look!  I cut my hair!"  I was just about to take my first sip of a nice relaxing glass of wine....  I managed to stay calm for her, but it was seriously shocking!  Anna found the one single pair of scissors that were easily within her reach.  A teeny tiny pair of embroidery scissors that I keep in the bathroom for cutting tags off of clothes.  :( 

This was her reaction when she began to realize I wasn't going to be able to put it all back on her head.  "/

I told her I was going to call my hair dresser and we'd be getting her a big girl hair cut, to which she completely lost it.  "I don't want to cut my hair!!!"  So, I took a picture of her self-inflicted mullet and showed it to her...  That didn't really make things any better.  She just seemed so confused by the whole thing.  I texted Kerri (my hair dresser) and sent her some pics of the damage.  She was pretty sure this was the worst "hair attack" she'd seen so far.  I honestly did a way better job on myself when I was older than Anna.  I had bangs that I cut down to maybe 1 inch long...possibly less.  Kerri was so sweet.  She actually made a house call to my Mom's the next morning, brought along a special brush for Anna, and set to work.  I think she did a phenomenal job considering what she had to work with.  :)

Homegirl wasn't too sure about it at first.  She apparently stood in front of the mirror and cried at her reflection for a while.  I've made some drastic changes to my hair before, and I distinctly remember walking by the mirror and having to do a double-take "oh yeah...that's right..I colored my hair..."  Anna wasn't really enjoying that experience.  She called me at work and told me that her hair was driving her crazy and that it didn't look like her.  And she asked when she could have her long her back.  I keep telling her it will grow.  She made my Mom brush it for an hour thinking that would speed up the growing process.  

I think today she's finally at peace with the new hair.  It's starting to grow on me.  I'd like to keep it in a bob, but I'm not sure she'll ever be willing to go back to Kerri.  "/  Maybe she'll surprise me.  

I tried for two days to get some cute pics of the new do, but Anna hasn't really been wanting to pose.  Plus, I think she's figured me out...

When she starts doing ridiculous stuff, I just give up and walk away...

So, I got some pics of Meredith instead.  She was happy to pose. :)

Speaking of hair...when is this girl going to start growing some????

Anna didn't have much hair at 1 year, but she had a ton compared to Meredith.

Wedding bells :)

My sister got married yesterday!  It was a very small ceremony, and I loved it!  I love tiny weddings.  Not that I didn't love my own wedding and all, but tiny weddings really are the best.  

Jenny and Bruce were planning on it being only them and the minister but decided to tell us about it almost as a courtesy, and then we all started to just invite ourselves.  :)  

I took my camera along, but didn't have much hope for it since I knew it was going to be an indoor, evening wedding.  Jen suggested I try to use my flash.  Not knowing how much I'd love using my flash, I bought an SB400.  It's fairly inexpensive, and it's pretty great for around the house....I've basically loved it up until recently.  I've got a few projects I want to try out, and I'm starting to discover it's limitations...  It's just not as versatile as I'd like it to be.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't work off camera, and when it gets overheated it can take around 3 seconds to recharge.  That's like an eternity for me.  "/  Maybe my batteries were low last night, but it was honestly taking forever between shots to be ready to fire.  

With all that said...It did an awesome job!  

I got some really great shots...If I do say so myself.  ;)

Lately Anna's been on this kick where she randomly says, "I don't want to get old, and I don't want to get married!" Like out of the blue.  I don't know...maybe I look super old and she doesn't think my life is as glamorous as what she's wanting for herself or something...  I can't figure out where it's coming from.  It sounds like she thinks marriage will just happen to you even if you don't want it...like a disease.  Ha!  

Anyway, when I first told her we were going to Jenny's wedding, she was like "What?!  Why is she getting married?!"  But I think the anticipation of seeing an actual wedding started to get to her.  And she saw that we were all looking forward to it and speaking positively about it.  We decided to head to Houston the morning of the wedding.  It wasn't until 6pm, but we wanted to get there in time to join Jenny at the hair salon and spend a little time with her.  Of course this would be the day that the kids all wake up early...so it was a struggle to finish getting packed and get them all and both of the dogs in the car.  I kept saying "ugh...we are running so late!"  I think Anna picked up on that because then she got all concerned that we were going to be late to the actual wedding.  I dropped the dogs off at the kennel, picked up Granny, and we made the long drive to Houston.  Anna kept saying, "oh no....we're going to be late for the wedding..."  I assured her that wasn't the case.  

We made it there in plenty of time, met Jenny up at the salon and spent some time chitchatting while she was getting primped.  Then I decided Meredith's cold she's been harboring for a week had just gotten too bad for me.  It looked like it had moved into her eyes.  She woke up with crusty eyes for the second day in a row that morning, and by this point the whites were starting to turn pink and she had some swelling around them.  :(  I decided to run her over to the urgent care clinic to see what they thought.  It was only 3:30, so I still had plenty of time.  

There were no other patients at the clinic, so we got in and out and ran to the pharmacy to get her eye drops.  Then I headed to the hotel and my nephew brought Granny and the other 2 kids there so we could all change real quick.  I guess I forgot how spread out Houston is.  Guess who was 30 minutes late to the wedding???  Good thing I also made the bride's son late.  They waited on us.  I felt so bad, and I'm beginning to think Anna might be psychic.  

So, Wallace was being a little fussy and then started trying to write in the hymnals, so I couldn't really get up and move around or take as many shots as I wanted to, but I'm pretty happy with the results.  

I think it's a good thing that the first wedding Anna will remember was so low-key.  :)  

Thank goodness Madison and Dallas were able to help me out with the kids and driving them and Granny around while I handled Meredith.  Look at Meredith's sad, puffy eyes....

I caught hommie standing still for one second while he and Anna were running around the church after the wedding.  

Two minutes later he face-planted into the altar.  :(  This poor kid.  He's got this big red strawberry on one side of his nose today.  On a side note....props to Sarah for figuring out my camera.  Since I switched to back-button-focus, people will pick it up and be like "what the heck?...never mind."

I'm so glad Jenny told us about her nuptials in advance.  It would have been so weird to not have been a part of them.

Love you 'sis!  Congratulations!  

These Two...

Every time I manage to get all 3 of the kids in the same bath, I slap myself for not having the camera ready.  "/  So, the other night I got it all ready to go, but Anna wouldn't jump in with Wallace and Meredith.  She's been refusing to bathe with them for a few weeks now.  Maybe she's decided she's a big girl, and I've missed my opportunity to get them all at once.  :(  

Bath time with Meredith is a little boring until Wallace joins her.  She kind of plays with a couple of toys, and I sing to her.  But once Wallace decides he's ready for his bath, the party starts.   :)  I got a video of them on my iphone, and Meredith was just cracking up at Wallace as he was splashing.  Once he gets in she kind of prods him to start splashing and playing with her.  

It's very difficult to get bath pictures that are suitable for posting.  ;)  But you can see that Meredith's been developing her splashing skills.  

The bathroom was soaked.  Glad I managed to keep the camera dry.

If Wallace isn't letting Meredith drive him bonkers, the two of them actually get along pretty well.  It's pretty much the cutest thing ever when you catch your kids playing together.  

After their bath, I got distracted with Anna and didn't notice Wallace and Meredith got into the white chocolate chips.  These two kids have sweet tooth issues.  

Wallace was passing her one chip at a time.  :)  She'd start snapping at him and slapping the table if he took too long to pass one over.

He took a break to do the hot dog dance with Mickey.  :)

It's been pretty tame here lately.  The weather has been craptastic, so we haven't been able to paint the fence we were working on, but it's all put together, and the dogs can stay in there during the day.  This past weekend I'm fairly certain I didn't even leave the house.  It was sooooo cold outside the whole time!

Building fences...

I'm beginning to think this is all we are ever going to get to do on our weekends....Josh and I have been working on a dog run for Hoss and Hilde.  It will also be a portion of our back fence.  Since Josh used to build fences for a living, this seemed like the perfect project for us to do ourselves.

The weekend before last we rented a bobcat and an auger.  My Dad never used machinery when we built fences together, but I grew up right outside of Houston where as long as there had been a recent rain (which was almost always) you could dig post holes by hand with relative ease.  Not so much the case here...  Some of these holes took 20-30 minutes to drill with that rock bit.  It was crazy!

Josh would drill away while I piled up all of the supplies (concrete, post, etc) at each hole.  I got a LOT of steps on my fitbit...

Anna helped out quite a bit.  :)

Although I never imagined we'd be cutting it close, we just barely managed to get all of the post holes dug that first weekend.  It's amazing how much a rock substrate can slow you down!

This past weekend was all about cutting and welding.  It's coming along.  We've only got one more side to finish up and then we'll hang the gate and paint everything.  I'm so proud of it!  :)

My Dad was a professional welder, but like most things...welding here is different.  The grass constantly catches on fire!  I'm not used to being on fire patrol!  Josh's pant leg nearly caught at one point because I wasn't paying attention.  "/  I also think I must have stood back farther as a child.  I don't remember getting burned with so much slag before.  I do remember seeing teeny tiny holes in my Dad's shirts though.  

Granny's been putting in long weeks and coming over to help watch the kids while we work outside.  

Wallace has had a rough week.  He managed to burn his hand on a freshly cut piece of metal.  "/

And then he got sick...He tends to fall asleep in random places, but this is his most interesting nap location yet.  

Is anyone else's kid this enamored with a washing machine cycle?  He's done this since he could first stand up.  :)