No longer a "Zero"

Chloe is now our cute little one year old. Crazy! I miss the newborn/tiny baby days, but not as much as I love to watch her grow. The more she learns, the more fun she and Karson have together and it is adorable! I had to work the night before her birthday, but when I woke up we all went mini golfing at Wahooz. Chloe had fun following the boys around, and taking their golf balls whenever she was fast enough. She decided to crawl around on one of the courses and Riley hit a ball right up her shirt LOL. On the last hole, Karson got a hole in one...which made the tiki guys shoot fire up into the air... it was pretty cool. Riley and Cris both missed, so they got sprayed with water instead.

After golfing, we had a couple friends over for a BBQ and some cupcakes. What a good day :)

Chloe's first birthday party :)

After lots and lots of fun planning... Chloe's big day finally came. I spent most of the day cleaning, decorating, and preparing food. Karson also had a soccer game at 3:10... which was a little too close to the party time, but it all worked out. We had just enough friends over that it wasn't too stressful, and I didn't feel like I was running around from guest to guest feeling like a chicken with my head cut off... I only had that feeling when I was trying to get all of the last minute things thrown together as everyone was arriving (thanks to the soccer game). 

I decided to make loaded baked potato salad, fruit salad, Lindsey's crunch coleslaw, beer-butt chicken (that caught on fire so the skin was just a little burnt to a crisp...but still good! LOL), blue raspberry pina colada punch, and chocolate dipped marshmallows. The little kiddos played in the kiddie pools and had a great time with rubber duckies and other squirty toys, and played on the slide Karson got for his 1st birthday. The adults played some horseshoes and just enjoyed each other's company :) We decided not to do cake since I had made cupcakes for Chloe's birthday on Thursday, and she didn't seem like too big of a fan. She really enjoyed the strawberries and the chocolate marshmallows though. Chloe got lots of cute clothes, and a couple fun toys that she has been enjoying the last couple days. Here are some photos of the party...

Chloe's first pony tail! Unfortunately she pulled it out before the party started while she was napping :(

Made this sign with some pinspiration from here

 

 

Surprisingly addictive! I'm not a big fan of marshmallows, but when paired with the chocolate they are hard to resist! The only thing I would do differently is put more chocolate on them!

I made some cute decorations out of baby food jars, Little Mermaid Squinkies, sand, seashells (from my trip to California) and string (got the idea here)

Photo chain from birth-12months

Mmmm strawberries!

Hello Daphnee!

 

Such a cute toy!

McKinnley with a yummy marshmallow

Chloe's New "Quiet Book"

I decided that I wanted to make something cute and crafty for Chloe's birthday... which is coming up way too soon! I found all of these tutorials on Pinterest (of course!) on how to make quiet books for the kiddos. After browsing through multiple different ideas, I decided to get going. I bought a deep-cut blade/housing for my Cricut, lots of different colors of felt, and some heat and bond to help my Cricut cut through the felt. Then I started looking through my Cricut cartridges to see what I could make. I decided on these page themes:

1. Hang the laundry on the clothes line
2. Pick apples from the tree
3. "Paper" doll dress up
4. Matching shapes
5. Put the petals on the flower
6. Mail a letter
7. "Basket weaving"

So I got to work cutting out my shapes with the Cricut (which by the way is so much nicer than cutting things out by hand). After my pages were all assembled, I went up to my craft room and rummaged through some fabrics that I had lying around.  I decided to use a cute pink receiving blanket with a butterfly on it for the cover of my project. For how OCD/follow the rules I usually am, the cover was actually a throw together/sew together type deal... but I think it turned out even better than I'd hoped it would. Karson tried it all out for me and seemed to like it...which may mean it is a little too advanced for little Chloe, but oh well. She can grow into it :) Cris was proud of me for using some of the valuable ideas that I have found while wasting my time on Pinterest. We'll see what Chloe thinks of it next week :)

Here's the final product: