Gingerbread Festival

This year we attended our first ever Gingerbread Festival at the hospital! Zach went hunting, so it was just us girls! Zach's mom and grandma came with us too! We had a blast and Ansley ate more of her gingerbread house than built, but we still had a good time! :)

I believe this was the third year for the gingerbread festival and they had a good turn out! They have a contest every year for the "best" gingerbread house! My co-workers and I got suckered into entering the contest this year! It was VERY stressful, but in the end we had fun and can't wait for next year. We ended up placing fouth :(  My husband helped us out at lot with the construction of the house! He made the blue print and the helicopter! We of course ended up having an ambulance theme! We actually made our little corner of the hospital! It turned out great! Hope you think so too! We spent sooooo many hours working on this house!  The pics below are of 1st and 2nd place! Awesome houses!

4th place!



Ansley "building/eating" her gingerbread house

Story time! :)

Have I created THIS?

Here she is CLEANING away in her room! I was dusting her room and putting keepsakes away in her action packer when I turned around to find her doing this!! :)

Its no secret that I have OCD when it comes to cleaning and trust me I'm not as bad as I was before Ansley was born! Teresa even video taped her at her house cleaning her high chair with her burp rag! lol.

I typically do all my cleaning when she's asleep, but I'm sure I'm to blame for my 1 year old cleaning! lol

Ansley's Part: Part 3

At last the final post on Ansley's Birthday! :) We had a great day and I want to thank everyone again for coming! THANKS :)  Some of the pics are from her actual Birthday at our house, some from the party and some of us at home in her diaper after the party!

Happy Bithday Monkey! We love you!

Ansley's party: Part 2

My husband will be so proud two post's in two days!! :)  Anyway, back to the birthday bash!! I believe there will only be 2 parts to her party! :) So here we go:

Cake: Don't you just love this beautiful MASTER PIECE!! :) Credit goes all to Zach! He baked it and decorated it! :) Got the idea from good ol' Martha Stewart! (don't really care for her, but she does have some GREAT ideas!) I love, love the way it turned out and Zach was pretty proud of himself too! :) Good job honey!

Cupcakes: Again. Zach baked these too! :) I lucked out on the baking this year! :) Zach baked them early Saturday and decorated that night! Zach's brother came to help decorate and I love the way they turned out! We used milk duds for the ears! :) LOVE IT! Thanks again Seth!

HAT: I ordered her birhday hat from ETSY! Love that place! :) I ordered them from this store! Again, very easy to work with and I loved the way it turned out! If only she would wear it for longer than 2 minutes! I didn't order it in time for her 1year pics, but I still loved the way it turned out! :)

We also made the banner from Brenda's cricut!

TABLE: Here is a look at the table all decorated up! The balloons and rose were a gift from gpa and gma McCaslin! :) Zach picked up the banana's and peanuts at a Candy Store in Wichita! The Nifty Nut House! Love that place! I guarantee you will see an ambulance there if you go! We use to stop there all the time at work! :) Yummy! 

The PARTY: We had her party at Kellogg Hall, west of town! It was a perfect place to have it! Besides, we couldn't fit everyone in our house! :) I forgot to take pics of the guest tables! We had a plate with the banana's and peanuts in the center, with suckers and soap around the plate! We also has this pic for the guests to take home! Thanks to Laura for getting us a pic so early! :) 

Ok, so maybe I was wrong! I think I will do a part 3 with all her gifts and guest's!:)

Ansley's party: Part 1

********** FYI I tried and tried to get the pics to go in order, but I believe blogger has put a curse on me and won't let me move any of my pics!! I'm hating blogger!!!!**************

Here we go with part 1 of Ansley's party! I'm hoping that there will only be two parts! lol. I started planning a few months before her party and I'm so glad that I did! Let's face it, I don't do well under pressure and when I'm surrounded by tons of people I become overwhelmed with stress! Hince why there aren't a tons of pics the day of the party or of all the decorations!

INVITES! Zach's grandma Carolyn and I made these adorable little monkey's! I found the idea from  Martha Stewart and loved the way they turned out! Thanks again Carolyn!

PARTY FAVORS: I looked and looked all over for party favors and of course found almost every idea from Etsy or my cousin Bethany! (She's an awesome planner and loved all of the ideas she gave me) Thanks again Beth! :)    

These adorble little banana's came from this shop! She was awesome to work with and the monkey erasers in the center were the icing on the cake! :) I got them in pink and yellow! I figured the few boys at the party wouldn't want pink!

Her Birthday shirt, balloons and PDF file came from this shop! I thought the balloons were going to be a little bigger, but I still loved them! I had a few issues with the PDF file, but Teresa figured them out for me!

Suckers! I made the suckers! Zach picked up the "I'm 1" mold from a candy shop in Wichita and were super EASY to make! I used a simple hard candy recipe with a little strawberry flavoring! SIMPLE!! I loved the way they turned out and I think I made 20 of them! I wrapped them with clear gift bags and put a "thank you for coming" sticker on them! :)

Monkey Munch! This idea came from Bethany! My husband made the monkey munch and it was a huge hit! I'll be honest I make the first batch and it looked terrible! I don't think I used enough powdered sugar! Anyway, my husband came to the rescue and it was delicious!

I ordered the plates and napkins online from here!

Thanks to my Aunt Brenda! She let me use her Cricut! I made 2 banners from her cricut! They turned out great and thanks again for helping with the banner's! I found the paper from Micheal's!

Banana soap                                                             b-day balloons! Had 2 of these

Suckers! and the PDF file that I used as stickers!

 Monkey Munch

Ansley's name banner used by the cricut!

Sneak Peek

Here's a little sneak peek from our photo session with Laura! Thanks again! This pic was a gift from Laura for Ansley's birthday! She's too sweet and can't wait to see the rest! Don't you just love the HAT!?! Thanks Brenda for the hat!

12 months!

Wow, here we are a year later and I honestly can't believe how time has flown by! We had a great birthday party Sunday with lots of family and friends that attended! Thank you for everyone that attended, we truely have great friends and family! I'm a week behind on posting Ansley's 12month updates, so next will be her birthday post! At 12 months:

• Currently has 8 teeth!
• Can stand for at least 30econds by herself
• Walked for the first time a few weeks ago! :) BUT hasn't much since then
• Can still crawl a hundred miles an hour
• HATES milk! I mean hates it! She gags and spits it out everytime I give her some in her cup.
• Thanks to Kristi, I've started adding milk to her formula bottle at night and she drinks that with no problem! I'm hoping with in a week or so NO formula!
• Has 2 bottles a day, but this week we are going to 1!
• wearing size 3 diapers and 12month clothes
• weighed 21lbs at her one year appointment
• Starting to become a picky eater and has learned to throw her food off her high chair! Drives me crazy
• Can say uh-oh, mommy, daddy and few other things that we can't understand
• Has quite the ATTITUDE! throws herself on the floor and kicks and screams! I have a feeling 16 will not be fun!
• Laughs at me/us when we smack her hand and tell her no! ~see what I mean by attitude!~
• Loves to push her walker/s all over the house
• loves taking rides in the wagon! I think our days of being outside are over :(
• Still not sleeping every night!

 I think that wraps up 12months!

~a little preview of the party!~

Happy Birthday!

A year ago today, our lives were forever changed! The happiest day of our lives! The gift that we will always cherish and forever love. The gift of being a parent. The gift of loving someone like we have never loved before! The gift that can never be taken away! The gift of being called mommy and daddy!

We love you monkey! I've never laughed, loved or cried more than I have in this year!

Happy FIRST birthday Ansley Jane! We love you bunches!

Pumpkin Patch & the BIG pumpkin

Zach has Monday's off we headed to Applejack's Pumpkin Patch in Augusta a couple of weeks ago! Ansley's still a little young for all the fun activities, but we still had a great time. We arrived at 2pm not knowing that they closed in an hour!Opps, but we still managed to get everything done!

Brandy bought this HUGE pumpkin for Macy's 6 months pics, so we decided to take some pics too! Thanks B!

Ok, Blurb book here I come! I'm starting from me being 9months pregnant til now!Wish me luck, only have 2 days left, so I can get 25% off!

Having issues with pics as you can tell!

TWINS!

Oh, no NOT me! Are you crazy?? I got a little taste of what having twins would be like and lets just say I'm happy with just a taste! Here are the princess' happy as ever!

Jaycie and Ansley 3 months apart!  Ansley 11months and Jaycie 8!

Jaycie came to spend a couple of hours with us a couple of weeks ago and the girls had a blast! They play great together, other than they both want to play with the same toys at the same time! Oh, and eat at the same time, but at this age they can both hold their own bottles, so I lucked out on that deal! I love Jaycie to pieces and she is such a good baby!

Notice she only has one sock on! lol. Thats thanks to Ansley. Ansley hates to wear sock and I guess she thought Jayice did too, so she helped her take them off! I think I put her socks on a dozen times that morning, just to have Ansley come rip them off!

Thanks Jaycie for coming to play, come back anytime!

Halloween pics!

Last week I had Ansley's pics taken by Kim Peri in her halloween costume! My mom made the shirt and bloomers, I made the tutu, Zach and his dad made her broom (which I forgot) and the leggings came from etsy! Alicia went with us to help with the outfit changes and for moral support. lol. We both left there thinking that Kim didn't get one good pic, thanks to Ansley not having it with her witch hat or tutu! I have to admit, there isn't one pic that I don't like! They are beautiful! Thanks Kim! :)  Click here and go to proofs. Password: ansley2010.  LOVE THEM!

Isn't this the........

CUTEST face you've ever seen!?! Yes, I know I'm bias, but can you blame me? :)

I'm loving this little princess to pieces! She has quite the personality these days and quite the attitude to go with it!! :) These were taken yesterday in the front yard, while riding her bike! Her feet finally can touch the ground and moves all over the cement by herself! She's getting so big and growing up way too fast! She loves to be outside and we sure are enjoying this weather.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is that day that I married my loving and wonderful husband 4 years ago! You're a great dad and husband! I hope you know that you mean everything to us!!

Cancun 2009

Look at that wedding ring, that has since been lost :(



Vegas 2010, 4 months pregnant

November 13, 2009 The day I went into labor (wow, I had gained 42lbs and you can sure tell lol)



The happiest day of our life

I love you Zach, always will!

Zach Brown Band here we come!!!