Madelyn's First Birthday

Click here to view these pictures larger

Madelyn means “High Tower” or "Strong Tower,"  so we had a French/Parisian (I was thinking Eiffel tower) themed birthday for Miss Madelyn’s 1^st.  I decided to make it bunny and French themed because her birthday falls on Easter this year and I already had lots of bunnies out for Easter décor J

It was such an amazing blessing to have lots of our family (3 of which will turn 1 this year as well!) here to celebrate with us.  I don’t think I will ever get over how special that is…it is far from convenient for our family to come to our house, but it is so much closer than we have been in the past.  Thank you all so much for coming to celebrate with us and Miss Madelyn.  Please excuse all of the boring pictures of food and décor- this is just my way of documenting it for Maddy’s baby book and our family archives. 

A BIG THANK YOU to Nana and Papaw and Gigi and Poppy for all of their party help, house help, and help with the kiddos.  They cleaned, prepped, changed diapers, did laundry, cleaned some more, etc.  You guys are amazing!  I am really missing my house keepers now ;-) 

We had French themed food:  Fresh strawberry juice (Justin is on a juicing kick) with some bubbly, lemonade for the kiddos, Julia Child’s Salade Niçoise, Sandwiches on French Baguettes, & French Fries J.   Mom displayed lots of desserts that included vanilla and strawberry ice cream, cookies, Madeleine’s, chocolate bunnies, etc.

Maddy received a swing for our swing set as her b-day gift and she LOVED it!  So sweet- all of the cousins had fun playing with each other and hanging out.  I loved seeing Sid and Brennan wrestle and the babies just playing around the floor with toys together.  What a great weekend! One we will not soon forget- thanks again for celebrating with us!

Easter 2012

Click here to view these pictures larger

Here are some pictures from Maddy's official 1st birthday and Easter festivities...Sid having his Easter Egg hunt with his pre-school friends and teacher, Mrs. Frame; The kiddos acting silly before going to the Valley Creek Easter Egg hunt; Kate and her friends at an Easter Bonnet party at her friend's grandmother's house; After Easter services dinner at Rosa's with the fam; Hanging around the yard after church- notice the sad faces at the end of a long day of festivities when we tried to get all the cousins for a picture.  Poor Brennan was not having it- he just kept walking out of the picture to go and ride the tri-cycles :-)  Then Maddy and Kate knocked heads and both shed some tears :-(  We also had an Easter egg hunt with the Resurrection Eggs in our backyard with the grandparents and just hung around on Easter evening at home.

Kate's 6th Hello Kitty Birthday

Click here to view these pictures larger

Here are some pictures from Kate's Hello Kitty themed party.  It was such a laid back party!- I guess she is getting older and she invited mostly all girls- so they just sat quietly and worked on their craft projects, etc.  It was a fun afternoon with the girls.  We are encouraging the kids every 2 years to donate gifts to a good cause instead of having birthday gifts.  This year she wanted to donate to kitty cats- so we collected a lot of goodies for the kitty cats of Higland Village for the Highland Village Animal Care Services Dept.  We are hoping to deliver it this week...  We were grateful that lots of her buddies were able to share their afternoon with us and celebrate Kater's b-day!- Also, very grateful that our friend Miss Kayli came to help us with the party as well!!!