Sunday, June 30, 2013

All Aboard!

last weekend we put together a little celebration for jacob to celebrate his first year of life. it was a little crazy pulling it all together since we didn't really have any concrete ideas until a week before the party (yes, we've been a little preoccupied with fixing up the house). luckily, my sister in law is wonderful at party planning and was here for a full week before the party. my mother in law and father in law arrived a couple days later, too, which was very helpful. we started brainstorming and pulling things together. while i was chasing around j, cleaning and feeding the troops, lester and my mother in law were able to get a bunch of the decorations done. she also ran around rochester gathering supplies with me and provided entertainment for the little man. my father in law worked hard with ry to get the porch ready (that reno is ALMOST done - we just need to paint the paneling). my mother came in on thursday night and was able to do food prep with us on friday. it was a scramble to the end, but with all the help, it came together!

this jacob train was a gift from my inlaws for j - it worked perfect for the drink table:


my sister in law put these cupcake toppers together. they were free printables found here.


leslie also painstakingly wrapped these bottles with these cool labels we found at the same website. we protected the bottles with packing tape over the labels so they didn't run in the ice bucket.



all the food was put into red and blue "train cars" that we found at the dollar store. leslie used the cricket to make the train wheels. here's the "log car" full of chocolate covered pretzels. it was easy to find sprinkles with the correct colors thanks to fourth of july quickly approaching.



the dessert table with j's melissa and doug train!


i was pretty excited about making these rainbow fruit skewers with railroad signs. good thing my mother is a patient woman because she helped me put them together. leslie and i made the toppers.


leslie made this awesome banner:


another gift from the inlaws worked perfect to hold the silverware!


ry made some delish lemonade...i mean diesel fuel! 


food table (without food...i forgot to take a finished product pic...oops!):





family pic:


our birthday boy!



Wednesday, June 26, 2013

jacob jay: one year

i keep trying to write a one year post, but nothing really adequately expresses how much we love our little man. he is such a sweet boy, so full of energy, but so sweet. so, so sweet. most days are spent moving at warp speed, chasing beans, getting into things he shouldn't...the amount of sheer energy in this one year old astounds me. he goes so fast all day long that he crashes hard at the end of the night (and two naps in between). he's so fun and it's amazing to watch him grow and change from day to day. one of my favorite things that he does these days is that amidst his crawling around, he will spot me or ryan, crawl to us, give us a quick hug, and continue on his way. the other thing that i find to be oh so precious, is that anytime we are outside and he spots the neighbor's dog, he starts yelling and chatting and pointing until we go over there to say hi.  Once the neighbor's dog jumps up to say hi, he starts giggling so hard. it's so cute. (side note about chatting - i think he knows dada! he's said it a couple times looking at ry...but it's hard to tell...)

we love him and we are so thankful each and every day for him.

and here's some pictures from our day...

who doesn't like pancakes and real maple syrup on their birthday?!


waking up from nap is hard work...


silly boy sits like this all the time these days.


i missed the pointing, but he points at everything.


and what's a birthday without cake...even if we celebrated with cake on saturday!

this picture captures his goofy, funloving self. silly boy.


eat it up before beans does!


this one cracks me up....he bent down and shoved it all in his mouth!


not thrilled to hear me say, "all done!"