Charlotte's First Birthday

My sweet baby turned one this month. It was happy, but also a little sad. I feel like it went too fast and too slow all at once! I think maybe my lack of sleep makes things all fuzzy so I have a hard time remembering time...

For Charlotte's birthday I had my dear friend, Charlotte Lewis, take cake smash photos. They are stunning. I can't even explain just how amazing they are and how I will cherish them forever. If you need a photographer I can't recommend her enough! Check out her page at the link above. Do it now.

Here are the photos from the shoot, get ready to have your heart melt!!

The cake I made with the Wilton cupcake mold. It is the same one I used for Ella's one year photos.

We had a party for Charlotte in Spokane at the Quality Inn Oakwood. It was a beautiful facility and they were wonderful at getting the room set up for us! We had over 50 family and friends that showed up. It was just a very special time! Here are some photos of that! The theme was Vintage Rose so I had the photos from the photo shoot with roses and mirrors, used doilies for monthly photos, and had a few owls and birds. I made her a bunting with vintage colors to put on the gift table. It was very fun!

I still can't believe she is one! Thank you to everyone who came to the party, we enjoyed seeing everyone and felt very blessed that so many people love our little girl!

Ella's Pirate Party

This post is a little late since life gets in the way of documenting things sometimes! For Ella's 3rd Birthday she requested a Pirate Party. That's right, not a princess party or the oh so popular Frozen party, a skull and crossbones, eye patches, and hooks Pirate Party. Let them be who they are! So here are some photos from Ella's Pirate Party.

I made a fabric banner with pink, black, and pink skull fabric. I also made her a skirt to go with the theme that is somewhat piratey. She wanted pink...which is apparently limiting! We had a few printables from Etsy and "themed" food also including a pirate ship cake that I sculpted myself. It was really fun to come up with pirate things to add and the kids had a great time on a treasure hunt where the clues were shapes and colors rather than words or riddles since most of the children couldn't read. They even did the hunt several times over just because it was so fun for them!

She had a wonderful time!

Siblings

When we decided to have another child I had these sweet visions of my children playing together in joyful giggles. Granted my children are still  young, but these joyful giggles do happen but not as much as "I want to be alone!" "No baby, that's mine" or "That's not for babies!" Only one of them talks...so oh poor me when they can both argue.

Despite this very fun sibling rivalry experience, there are some fun times too. I take photos of Charlotte on the 5th of every month and now Ella demands to be in them also, which is fun and a little frustrating as are most things with a toddler. I want to share some of these weird goofy moments of Ella demanding to be in the photos too because I think they show a glimpse into sibling life that is often forgotten in the hair pulling, door slamming, and oh so fun pushing over.

And two of my favorites that just happened:

I know that when I look back I will think that these were the best of times and wish I could go back. Right now I don't really feel that way since I'm exhausted, sore, and would kill for a hot cup of coffee rather than my luke warm random gulps. They are only little once...which is both a blessing and a curse.

My Lake Cabin Memories

When I was growing up I was blessed. We had two lake cabins to go to and so our summers were filled with incredible water, sun, and family. It was wonderful. Moving to the Seattle area and far from my family and our lakes has been hard. It is hard that my kids aren't growing up around their family and also around water...well water that can actually go in because we can afford or know people who car afford beach access.

This past July we went to our cabins with both girls for the first time. I wasn't really sure how it was going to go because Ella hasn't been around a lot of water and Charlotte has been, well a baby I guess. Ella took to the water like a fish and didn't want to come out. I had visions of me and my cousin Sean standing in the water with our teeth chattering and my Grandma Rita laughing at us and telling us to come out and warm up. That was my child this time. It is crazy how life leads you full circle. My memories and love of the lake seem to have been bred into my child. She automatically loved her cousins and the water and the boat and pretty much everything. The kid that hates to get dirty was covered in grime by the time we went to bed and she loved every second of it. It is a magic place where time and problems melt away. You can sit for hours and not realize that you haven't done anything.

I want to share some photos of Ella at our lake cabin. The same lake cabin where I learned to swim, ate way too many s'mores, watched fireworks, got lost in the forest, stepped on a bees nest and survived, played way too much in the water, and learned how to make pancakes. It was where my Grandma and Grandpa taught me about slowing down and washing your feet before entering the cabin. Where we grew and learned as children, then teens, and now as adults. The process starts all over again with our children and friendships with family are created. It is special and real and magical and there is no place in the world quite like it.

The Magic of Sisters

When I found out I was having a girl both times I had several weeks of freaking out. You see, while I am a girl myself, I was scared of the bows, dolls, and later the make-up and dating and all of the other things that coming with girls! When I found out I was having TWO girls the fears only multiplied and I was worried that would hate each other, because let's be honest girls can be nasty! Now that I have been in the trenches for six months I can say that my fears were a little crazy. These two love each other! Like a love so deep that I kind of am sad I didn't have a sister! I know they are still little and the fights and hair pulling will come sooner than I know it, but there are these moments where I can see their little souls are so entangled with each other that they will have a bond that only they will understand.

I want to share this video that makes my heart melt. Charlotte was crying and Ella went and pushed her on the swing and sang her a song. Charlotte is so happy and content and Ella is deeply in love with her. When people ask me about whether they should have more than one child, I always tell them yes because of these moments. Moments where you see that there is a love that no one else can understand. A moment where you realize that they together are learning how to love and share and care for another person. There isn't anything else like sisters. There just isn't.

Being a Sports Fan in Washington State

I feel like this post has been coming for a while from me...what it is like to be a fan in the great state of Washington. I'm talking about those fans that every year pretend that our teams might actually win some games only to get halfway through the season and realize we don't have a chance so you start to talk about "next year". I am also talking about those of us that have to explain that we aren't all the weirdos that paint our faces and scream for 90 minutes or four quarters, but we are the fans that have a rotation of sports team gear that rotates with the season - baseball, soccer, college football, NFL, and for those nights when nothing else is on a hockey team that we would need a passport to actually see in person.

We are the fans that have been heartbroken and beaten down. We are the fans that have the low budget college team that the high budget college team on the other side of the state and that wear purple and bark at you for no reason say rude and demeaning things to even though they didn't actually get a degree there.

These are the fans I am about to talk about.

It is hard to get excited or even to be confident in your team's ability to win any game let alone a BIG game. We cheer and are happy at any success and fans that have teams that make it to championship games don't fully understand how being a fan like that feels like. I talk to Patriots or Yankees fans and they boast how their team is the best and it makes you shake your head because being a fan isn't about being a fan of the best it is about being a fan of what you love, where you heart is, despite winning or losing or making a total embarrassment of you (hello New Mexico Bowl 2013).

That is why when you are a fan of "your" team and they finally make it to the championship game you are cautiously excited. You want to jump and yell and scream, but you also don't want to do anything to cause some sort of catastrophic collapse that you have probably witnessed several times over (hello New Mexico Bowl 2013).

In this sense I would like to say HOORAY MY TEAM IS IN THE SUPERBOWL! and I would also like to say I HOPE WE WIN because I can't say we ARE going to win. That would be something that a Patriots fan would say and they aren't in the Superbowl this year...sorry folks.

If you are a fan of a team that people say isn't very good, or they make comments about how you suck for being a fan of a "sucky" team just politely smile and know how that person isn't a real fan because they don't get it. They don't get how you can support and love a sports team with a horrible losing record, to sit in frozen bleachers when your team is obviously not going to win, and still be proud to wear your colors the next day. The world needs all sorts of fans, but a sports fan in the great state of Washington is one that takes a little extra heart and a little extra cautious excitement.

Go SEAHAWKS!