Happy Hump Day!!!

Here it is again... another month gone by (and then some) and no posts from me. I'm going to give this a shot again...

I'm going to venture out and start posting some of my scrappy creations on here for funnsies. I enjoy anything paper-crafting and I enjoy sharing it even more... problem is? I don't share it online.... only the recipient usually. Which, is fine, I guess, but I'm hoping I can "pay it forward" somewhat and inspire others as I have been inspired by so many from their blogs. One of these days I'll figure out how to add a "tag" (or whatever its called!) to those inspirational people on my blog so you can see what I'm talking about. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a photographer so the pictures I am going to share with you... well... you'll just have to deal with them as they are. They get the point across (I hope!) and that's all I can offer.

Last weekend was Sophie's first birthday! Can you believe it? NEITHER CAN I!!! Where did that year go? We traveled to Wisconsin and had a little party for her at mom and dad's house. We kept it simple - a summer cookout! We had brats and my mom's SUPER yummy hamburgers on the grill, corn on the cob, potatoe salad, tuna macaroni salad, yellow jello (thanks Marianne!), strawberry spinich salad and I don't even remember what all else but there was enough food there for an army and every last little bit of it was just AMAZING goodness!!! The forcasters kept calling for rain on Saturday so we were a bit concerned that we were going to have to move the party indoors but God heard our prayers and made the day just beautiful!

Dad and Jeremy set up our large screen tent outside while Sophie supervised (hee).


Can't you just eat up those thunder thighs??? :)


Mom made these ADORABLE table clothes out of some cupcake material that she found so we put a piece of plastic over them to protect them and set the tables up outside under the tent. Mia helped arrange one of the floral centerpieces and my sister brought a BEAUTIFUL arrangement that she made herself out of the flowers from her garden. Aren't they GORGEOUS?!?!

I decided to make a pennant banner for decoration since I knew were weren't going to be doing much other decorating since the party was going to be outside. I'm just going to take a minute and toot my own horn here because I am absolutely IN LOVE with how this turned out! I have saved this Daisy D's paper for a few years now and I've finally come to the point in my life where I'm ready to use it.... a little bit any way. :) I fell in love with this vintage-y feel nursery/baby paper the minute I saw it and bought 2 of every kind the store had. Of course, it needed some embellies to pretty it all up and I turned to non other than Papertrey Ink for most of it! Thank goodness I had most of the colors I needed on hand to complete this project! Just look at all of the yummy ribbons and buttons used! I cut the letters using my Cricut. Each pennant was backed with some salvaged cardboard from the backs of legal notepads my coworkers at work have been saving for me! I just wanted it to have some sturdiness. I connected each pennant together by punching a hole in each of the top corners and then just tied a scrap piece of ribbon in a double knot and voila! Added some pretty, wide, sheer, green ribbon to each end to tie it in place to hang it and thassit! Easy peasy and SOOOOOO fun to make!

Sophie showing everyone that she was, for a one year old, a member of the clean plate club! :)

Now... bring on the cake! (yes... I made the hat too... but let's not talk about that...) I'll try to do a progression of the mess without too many pictures (it's hard because she was just so darn cute!)

This is of her signing "all done". :)

Of course she wanted to share with Wally...

It was easier just to let him have at it at his own level (but we all sure got a good laugh out of watching Wally R-E-A-C-H to get what was on the tray when it was connected to the high chair!

All that party-down is really hard work for a cute, little one-year-old! We had to finally wake her up from her nap after 2 hours and there was NO sign of waking up when Jeremy went in and got her. She probably would have slept another hour at least.