Macie is TWO!

I cannot believe it but today is Macie's second birthday! These last two years have flow by but in the same breath it feels like Macie has always been a part of our family. We've been doing a lot of celebrating this week for her, I like to make their birthdays special and this one was no exception.

We hosted a farm party this past weekend with some neighborhood friends and a friend from school. I found a place that will bring a petting zoo to you. It was great. They came and set up, provided food for the children to feed the animals throughout the hour, and cleaned up when they left. I was worried about only getting the animals for an hour but the kids were about done around the 45 minute mark. It was a huge hit and the kids love it.

I planned this party coming down from the peak holiday season and truthfully didn't want to host anything. Because of that, I was determined for the food to be either store-bought or catered. Between this and Amazon, this was by far the easiest party I've ever hosted, I'm not sure I'll ever go back!

I used a cut file from the Silhouette Design Store to make these super cute hats. The girls loved them. They were relatively easy and took about an hour and a half to make over the course of a few days.

Silhouette Hat File

Favor boxes were filled with all kinds of farm themed goodies (here, here, here, and here)

Favor boxes

Now for the best part, the animals! The kids were so excited it was virtually impossible to get good pictures but them having fun really is the point, not perfect pictures right!?

I am so excited for what this year is to bring us and Macie. She is learning so much---counting, sentences, and even potty training this week (day four today and almost no accidents). She is so spunky and tough but sweet on the inside. She will pull your hair and run away laughing but if you cough she is right there to pat your back. This year has been great and I love having this special little person in our family. She completes us!

Happy March everyone!

Valentine Cuties

In an effort to keep working on being more creative this year, I decided to have a little photoshoot with the girls.  I found these adorable dresses at Old Navy and thought they would be perfect for Valentine pictures. My plan was to take the girls to the park with a few Valentine props to get some cute pictures. After nap we loaded everyone up and headed to the place I was thinking. This spot is at a small community center with great tree coverage and a playset. We go to pull in and see there is an event there, bummer but not terrible. We decide to head downtown for the park that is on the river---perfect scenery and the girls would have a nice playset to play on when we finished! We get to the first block of the downtown area and realize there is a Art Festival this weekend. Traffic, both car and foot, was terrible. We didn't even get near the park and I already knew it would be busy. We kept driving through and stopped at a little fountain in front of our hospital. The girls were not at all cooperative, upset there was no playground after all of this driving. I got a few but we decide to call it quits head back home to the playground by our house for the girls.

We pull in and there is a Lacrosse tournament of some sort happening, cars parked everywhere, games going on and big kids all over the park. We let the kids play for a bit but the older kids were just being too rough. I was annoyed, no pictures after an hour and a half, the girls were upset that they didn't get to play in the park, everyone was grumpy on the way home--myself included.

When we got home I decided to give the girls their much deserved lollipops and then try to see if I could snap a few cute pictures. The girls mostly cooperated and I got some cute pictures after all of that. Success finally!!!

In summary, we loaded everyone up, drove for an hour and a half around town and ended up getting pictures in our backyard. Such is life! At least I got some pictures to play with and had an opportunity to play around some more with Lightroom.

Enjoy some of my favorites!

I hope you are having a great weekend so far! 

The Season of Colic

I sat in my hospital bed, sore and lonely. I was nursing my beautiful new baby, yet again, through the pain. I have been here before, I shouldn't have been surprised by the pain. She was crying and inconsolable and I was overwhelmed. My eyes were puffy from crying, I could feel it.

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Maternity leave is a blur for the most part. There are things that stick out such as some sort of white noise in every room because that is the only sound that would quiet her cries. Bouncing, lots of bouncing, bouncing in the bathroom because the fan was running, bouncing in the kitchen in front of the running stove vent, bouncing outside to keep her from waking the toddler. Walks in the stroller with people looking as I tried so hard to find the perfect white noise for her on my cell phone. Google at 5pm and 7pm and 3am. Venting to my mom friends and the godsend that is Amazon Prime. Receiving shipments daily that contained colic calm, gas drops, gripe water, baby heating pads, probiotic drops, and even the Windi (just google it, it's not a moment I am proud of). Desperation, that is a clear feeling I remember along with helplessness. My baby was miserable, if she was awake and not crying it was a good day. I had no answers but I tried everything I possibly could to figure it out. I never stopped trying. I blamed my diet, my oversupply, I thought she had reflux, I think somewhere between the oversupply and reflux I landed on "it's just colic".


"Just colic" are two words that should not ever be said together. Colic is life changing. Colic feels defeating. Colic makes you feel like a failure. Colic makes you doubt every decision you make, from your breakfast choices to how you hold you child. Colic is maddening. Colic makes you angry and then guilty for being angry at this little helpless child and then sad for this child, she must be in so much pain. I clearly remember crying right along with her many nights. She would be crying, I would be bouncing her and crying myself.


There was one night I remember in particular, seven weeks into this new life of ours. I walked out of her room, tears in my eyes. I needed to step away and tag in my husband. He looked at me and said "Well that's not too bad, it took seven weeks for you to get to this point". I looked at him and said "Not quite, I cry almost every night". He's not at all to blame for not being as involved in this process as I was. He was taking care of our oldest and since I was nursing and not pumping, he couldn't really take over the feedings. During those nights I felt very alone. I felt alone even though I read post after post about other moms experiencing this same thing and despite everyone giving me a time frame where it would likely get better, it felt like I'd never get there.


Most people said by twelve weeks, all of this would go away. This felt like unattainable. I wasn't sure how much more I could take. It made me extremely sad to know that the only twelve weeks I would get alone with her would be spent in this state. It felt impossible.


Despite all of my doubt and dread, she did get better. Around ten weeks she stopped crying as much and we even had a nice ending to my maternity leave. Those ten weeks were some of the hardest times in my life. I felt like a bad mother for not being able to fix her, not even mentioning the lack of time I was spending with my oldest.


In the end this is all a distant memory. I now have a spunky almost two year old that is still a lot of work but it's a much easier type of work in comparison. Our nights are now spent reading her favorite books, which lately has been "all of them", instead of bouncing and crying together. Our days together are full of painting and bubbles and dress-up. It gets better.


If you are in this season of life, I see you. I see your tears and I see your frustration. Focus on the end, have hope for the end. It will end. Your little baby will get bigger and grow out of this phase. You will become a normal, functioning member of your community again. You are doing everything right. You are a great mom even though I know at time it doesn't feel like it. Pretty soon you will be worrying about teething and crawling and introducing new foods. Motherhood is never void of opportunities for worry but this specific season of worry will end, I promise.

All In A Touch

When my husband and I were engaged to be married, a family friend who would be our wedding officiant recommended a book for us to read titled "The 5 Love Languages". This book started out by explaining how everyone gives and receives love in different ways such as personal touch or quality time. The author then described the different love languages and there was a quiz in the back to see which love language we each had.

We've referred to the book many times, seeing how not only our love language affected our relationship but how our own love languages changed over time as our priorities changed. We came quite versed in these, taking the quiz a few times throughout our marriage. We also began recognizing and understanding others love languages through everyday interactions. When Henley was born she always needed us close by, even just to touch us with one hand. I knew from the start her love language was personal touch.

There were many, many hours spent driving around with my arm stretched into the backseat to hold her hand as she was rear-facing, even as young as two months old. Up until about a year ago, she would always have her fingers in her mouth and would pinch our hands or elbows with her other hand, sometimes causing pain with those tiny little nails. Hanging out before bed on the couch is typically spent touching side-by-side.  Even now, when I lay with her to go to sleep she is rubbing my arm or pinching my elbow.

Fell asleep at 17 months holding my hand through the crib

In the moment this can get tiring. My arm would ache on long drives being stretched towards the back of the car. After a long day of work I just wanted to be left alone, not constantly touching or being pinched. I may have snapped a time or two that I just need space, immediately feeling bad. Thinking back now, this little person was comforted just by touching our hand, all fears and concerns melted away. Her pinching your elbow became a great compliment, if she felt comfortable and trusted you, she would melt into you and would start pinching. 

Now that Macie is getting older we are already starting to see what we think her love language is, Word of Affirmation. Macie loves hearing she's done a good job. When she goes on the potty she pops up (before even wiping at times) and runs into the other room to tell Daddy "pee pee!!!" with so much excitement. She loves getting a rise and making people laugh, sometimes being a little mischievous but even then it's pretty cute. 

I'm not sure if these perceived love languages will continue as they get older but I love feeling like I have a one-up on them, knowing how they feel love and being conscious to let them be loved that way. If you haven't read the book I highly recommend it. It's interesting to see things you never really put into words describing exactly how you feel. 

Hope you guys are having a good weekend. I am glad for the weekend to be here, this Tuesday alone felt like two days long. 

First Snow

I've mentioned that we are in Virginia this weekend visiting family. We really hoped we would get to see snow since the girls have never seen it being from Florida and all. It doesn't look like we are going to see snow falling but we were able to go to a mountain and play in it. We went to Whitetail Resort in Mercersburg, PA, about an hour from my in-laws and the girls did some tubing. 

She kept eating the snow, I normally wouldn't have cared but it was dirty!

The snow pants were almost too much for me to bear, almost feel the need to plan something else cold so the girls have an opportunity to wear it again. 

Hope you are having a nice, relaxing Sunday. We definitely are.

Santa Claus is coming to town...

Let's hope what he brings the girls isn't based on Macie's interaction with him. This picture cracks me up every time I look at it.

Merry Christmas to you and your families. I hope you have a great holiday and get in some much deserved rest and relaxation.

Disney World---Happiest Place on Earth

We are annual passholders as of recently to Disney World. In order to make these worth their while we are planning to go up to Disney three or four times in the next year. We went last week for Henley's birthday for about two days.

While I was watching Henley on a little train ride at Disney Springs, I was looking around at all of the kids faces, it's so amazing the joy. For the most part, the kids are so enamored with the characters and the rides and the parents are thrilled watching the joy on their kids' faces. Of course there was the overtired toddler and annoyed parent here and there but really for the most part it was pleasant. I really enjoyed watching the kids as much as their parents, especially during the Character meet and greets.

Even though we went just two months ago, I feel Macie has opened up even more to the rides and characters. She loved the Ariel ride and the Carousel, even saying "more horsey" over and over again. I mean, look at this face! Pure joy.

Henley of course was just as excited...

Happiest place on Earth....see you again real soon.

::Random:: Donut You Love Friday's?!

Does anyone not love Friday’s, I mean seriously?!


Friday’s around here mean donuts with sprinkles for the girls. We are usually running behind so these are typically eaten in the car, which as you can imagine doesn’t always end well. Nothing that a few wipes can’t handle though.


Today was even better since we had time to go inside to eat. Mama even got a pumpkin muffin which made me very happy!


Here’s to Friday’s and to sweet little girls with sweet little faces, literally.

Have a great weekend guys!

::Macie:: One Year Old!

I'm a little late posting this but I am going to make a conscious effort to blog more often as an outlet and a little scrapbook for myself to look back on.

On March 1st, my smallest lady turned the big ONE! This last year has gone by so fast and it's getting better with every month that passes.

About a month or two ago, Ted and I decided to take a shot at getting some photos of the girls. We recently had professional photos taken and didn't really want to incur more costs for photos, plus the hubs typically does a great job. We got the girls all dolled up and headed downtown with baskets and balloons in tow. Being a mom of two, I know capturing shots of two toddlers smiling is virtually impossible so we set ourselves up for success and got some pretty great shots of them interacting with each other.


Here are some of my favorites:

We used this one for Macie's First Birthday Invitation:

Macie's birthday party was on March 5th at our house with a very loose theme of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, incorporating lots of pinks and golds. 

I made Macie a little tutu and onesie that peppered our entire house with gold glitter, (sorry hubs!). She looked simply adorable!!

We had a few close friends and a few grandparents come over to celebrate Macie. She wasn't too into the smash cake but, just like mama, was a big fan of the cake pops. (I'll post my secret to the perfect cake pops soon!)

Macie loved opening presents and is a big fan of a sandbox from her Papa. Overall the day was so great. I love when all of the littles from my friends and family can get together and play. Seeing everyone grow up together has truly been a blessing.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!