Pony rides & baby Bryce

What a title huh?

 First off, on Friday, August 24th at 4:30pm Heather & Joey gave birth to their beautiul baby boy, Bryce Anthony, weighing 6lbs 12oz. and 18 3/4" long. He came 2 weeks early and he's just the cutest little guy! Funny fact, Heather's daughter Hannah weighed the exact amount and was the exact length as well. How cool/strange that that happened?!

 I went on Saturday night to the hospital and spent a good 2 hours visiting mom and dad.. and of course baby! I didn't want to give him back he was just so adorable! Here's me, Heather, & Bryce. I can't wait to see him again this week to take some newborn pictures of him!

(Sorry for bad picture quality.. had to take on my cell phone since I didn't take my camera!)

Today Mark, Lucy, and I made the drive to good ole' Finksburg, MD to see my good friend, Heather (another Heather, I know!), for her twin daughters' 3rd birthday party. 

She had it a really cool horse/pony farm but unfortunately the weather couldn't have been any worse! At one point it was down-pouring as you can see in these pics..

But the kids wasn't letting a little storm rain on their parade because once it got to a steady drizzle, we made our way to the horse stalls where the kids got to pet the horses and ponies. Some of the bigger kids even got to brush them.

Then the bigger kids even got to ride the ponies. Here's one of the twins (Maddie) being the brave one and being the first to ride.

It's always good to be able to see my favoritest twins (Heather & Stephanie) and of course their adorable kids. Even though it poured down rain and we were all drenched by the time we left, it still turned out to be a good day and a good party!

Happy 3rd birthday Emma & Maddie!

After the party we went to my dad & Kim's for dinner and so they could spend time with Lucy. She played for a couple of hours and had such a fun time! She's always getting spoiled by all her grandparents. She sure is one loved little girl!

So all in all, we had a wonderful, BUSY weekend and I'm beat. Off to bed so I can do it all over again... :)

The big 9-0!

Today is such a special day.. it's my Gram's 90th birthday! Take a second look at that picture.. can you believe it? I always tell her she doesn't look a day over 60. ;) We went to my mom's this evening for pizza and cake to celebrate. Growing up she was always my second mom and she is one of the most important people in my life. I hope we are blessed with more birthday's to come!

A little miss someone got to enjoy some cake too.. and she loved it! (As I knew she would!)

 

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We had a cook-out on Friday night at Sherri's house for all of the daycare families. That was really nice and Lucy even hung on until 10pm. She even slept in until 8:30am on Saturday. I'm still battling a nasty cold that is just dragging on and I was even starting to feel worse than better so I really had a very low key weekend which was much deserved. I got to finish up editing some pics and got them e-mailed off so I'm glad to have that off my to-do list. And I even got to shampoo my carpets that I've been dying to get around to doing for at least a month. It's the little things, huh?

Now off to bed I go because tomorrow is Monday already! Ugh..

 

Super model Sunday!

Just wanted to share some extreme cuteness from a photo shoot that I did for Lainie's kids today. For those that don't know, Blake is exactly one week younger than Lucy. They're built-in BFF's and they don't even know it yet. :)

 So here are Brody and Blake just being as adorable as can be, like always!

I'm so loving this photography thing, as you can tell! I'm doing Lisa & Josh's engagement pictures within the next couple of weeks so I'm looking forward to that. If anyone wants any pictures done let me know. I'll be happy to do so. :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Back to work tomorrow... :/

Saturday fun!

I've been dying to take Lucy to one of the Gymboree Play & Learn classes that I've heard all about. I figured now would be a fun age to take her since she's starting to get into music and is mobile and can play around on her own. When I looked up their classes I discovered they offer free classes so you can get a "preview" and decide if you want to sign up. It was all the way in Millersville so I picked my mom up on the way and we got there just when class was starting. (Late should be my middle name.)

Lucy really enjoyed it! However, she had a hard time sitting still on the mat and listening to the instructor. She was way too focused on all the balls in the room and wanted to climb around and do her own thing. Go figure!

 There were lots of tunnels to crawl through, although she was pretty skeptical about them. The only way I could get her to go through them is if I coaxed her with a ball on the other end!

After awhile, she would crawl under anything in order to get those balls..

She climbed up the slides.. all of course for more balls at the top.

She did love the parachute time though and the bubbles! Well, she more enjoyed chasing them and eating them since the instructor said they put sugar in their bubbles. Lucy and sugar = bad mix! LOL

All in all, I think she really enjoyed it. However, I don't think enough to pay the $69 a month (!!) they charge. No way. But it did get me thinking that Southern Maryland is in desperate need of an indoor play place for kids. Hmmm... maybe a good business opportunity?!

After we left Gymboree, we headed to the mall and Nana bought Lucy a pair of walking shoes from Stride Rite and we had lunch at Sparro's.

Oh, and I'm missing telling the best part of the day! My mom lives 2 blocks from a Goodwill that she swears she is always finding these great steals. I was just telling her on my way there how I've been looking everywhere to find a book shelf for Lucy's room that will fit in one of her corners. I kid you not, we pull up to Goodwill while a nice family is unloading their stuff and right there in front of me is the PERFECT book shelf. Granted it's old but it's great quality wood. The Goodwill employee literally JUST tagged the bad boy $20.00 and we statched it up quick. I kid you not.. 3 different people in line ooh'd and ahh'd over it but I wasn't letting it go! And even better... it fits perfectly in her room and my mind has been going crazy with what I want to do with it. Now the fun project begins! I'll be sure to post before and after pictures.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday! :)

Devil horns

Just wanted to share some adorable pictures I shot of Lucy coming back from her walk with Daddy and Silas. And of course her sportin' her piggies.. or I like to call her devil horns, hehe. Couldn't you just eat her up!? I know I can.. or do all the time. :)

 

Finally.. sleep!!

I so hope I'm not jinxing myself by posting this. If I do, this post is being deleted and I'm going to pretend it was never written in the first place. :)

Sooo... we now have a baby that FINALLY sleeps through the night. It only took 9 months but it looks like mom & dad will finally get some sleep without having to wake up in the middle of the night. She's on a pretty good routine the past several nights where she is asleep by 8 and then awake by 6:15ish. Hallelujah!

It's the little things in life you take for granted until you have children. :)

Awaiting baby Bryce

One of my very good friends since the start of high school is expecting her 2nd baby, a little boy, who she is naming Bryce. Side note: I don't know what it is in the water but I know so many pregnant people right now due in September, all having boys! I guess it's the year for the boys as last year seemed to be the year for the girls!

 Anyway, Sunday was her baby shower and it all turned out so nice. She really wanted a rubber ducky themed shower b/c we all know all good parties have to have a theme. :) I decided I was going to be extra crafty and not only make her my very first diaper cake but I was going to paint her a box to match Bryce's nursery so she can use to store things. So here's the finish product of the diaper cake I made. I'm overall very happy with how it turned out and was quite surprised how easy they are to make! I really can't wait to make another one. (Come on my kid-free friends, let's pop out some babies so I can make a diaper cake and help plan a baby shower :) LOL)

All I had to do was roll the diapers and I used 2 bottles to stack them. I used poster board to cut out the circle for the bottom and glued polka dot scrapbook paper that I had leftover in my crafting closet. I then bought the yellow and polka dot ribbon and overlapped them. I also bought the wooden letters and painted them to match. The rubber ducks were from the dollar store as well as the mini soaps, lotion, and powder. All I needed was my hefty glue gun and I got to work!

Now for the wooden box. That was way more time-consuming and not nearly as cute as the diaper cake but hey, I gave it a good try. I bought the big wooden box from Michaels and had the handy-dandy hubby cut, nail, and sand a piece of plywood to the front so I could paint. Painting was much, much harder than I thought and I totally smeared black on it when I was trying to outline the letters (that were originally blue by the way) so I ended up having to redeem myself by being forced to make a black road. It all turned out very dark but that darn black paint messed me up! Regardless, it's a truck box to match his firetruck nursery and it's big enough to store toys and diapers or what not. I also filled it with lots of goodies - diapers, wipes, teethers, bibs, blankets, binkies, etc. 

Now for the party pics...

Party banner to match the theme.

Favors.

Lucy sitting with Hannah.. eyeing what she can get into.

Rubber ducky punch.

Cake!

Playing games (Heather's mom, Grandma, & Aunt)

Sniffing dirty diapers..

Guessing how big mommy's tummy is.

Vicky during one of the games.

Mama opening presents.

Hannah admiring her baby brothers clothes. Can't you tell how excited she is?

Cute doctors bib! (Mom is a nurse so it fits perfect!)

The parents-to-be

I'd say the party was a success and baby Bryce is all set. Now we're just counting down the weeks until he makes his arrival. I know there are LOTS of excited people. :)

After the shower, Lucy and I met Mark at his parents house. Ashlyn came outside with me to take some pictures so I also wanted to share my adorable niece, Ashlyn. I just love this girl!

As everyone knows, it's hard to get kids to sit still for pictures at this age. So a little side note.. get them to sing you a song. Totally worked for me here. :) Ok, back to work for me...