The Party

We had Abigail's party on Sunday. It could not have been a more perfect day! The weather was gorgeous so I decided to take the party outside! It was awesome! We had a great crowd and are so thankful for the friends and family who joined us to celebrate our baby girl's first birthday. God has just provided so much for us here in Tuscaloosa. I am humbled beyond belief at the way He has given us such great community in such a short time.

Anyway, here are the insane amount of pictures...enjoy...and you might want to grab a cup of coffee:)

Beautiful birthday girl!

I had fun making the decorations for cupcakes, the sign, her invitation, her "1" bib, and the party favor tags...you'll notice I used the little bird from my header here as inspiration for the party! I love the colors and how everything turned out!

Publix (where shopping TRULY is a pleasure) did the cakes of course


family shot

Abigail loves doing this...and Samuel is so sweet to her

Jeff's parents with the birthday girl

cute Abigail lit up when she saw her Aunt Jenny (on the left) and she actually smiled in the pic with my parents too (on the right)!

ready to be sung to

not sure about all this attention or the cake

she didn't care for the cake and wouldn't even try it

Abigail hated how the icing made her fingers feel!

However, the other kids couldn't get enough of it...

opening some presents

the dress came off so she could crawl around and play with all the new books, dolls, and toys she got

Happy First Birthday Abigail!!

I seriously can't believe it's been a year since I gave birth to the most precious baby girl. Our sweet Abigail Marie has brought immense joy to our family. I get overwhelmed just thinking about the last year of her life. I have to say it's been one of the best years we've had in a long time. Her birth was so sweet and I relived it last night by watching the video. I may or may not have cried more last night than I did on her actually birth day. Meeting our precious bundle of joy was a moment in time I'll never forget. The birth of a baby truly is a miracle. Gosh, I never cease to think about that without tears of gratefulness that the Lord has allowed me to experience such an occasion (twice now)! I know I have said it before, but Abigail truly was and is the joy after mourning. We named her Abigail because of that. Her name means "my fathers joy" or "source of joy." She truly has lived up to her name. Not to say that there haven't been challenges in her first year of life, but overall it has been a year full of joy and happiness in seeing our sweet miracle grow and change and become part of our family. We actually prayed that she would be an easy child (after the first 2 have not/were not/and are not - ha) and God totally answered our selfish prayers! Isn't He cool? For the most part, Abigail has been a really easy baby. We are so thankful for that.

At 12 months old Abigail continues to be a momma's girl. She stands up a lot but has yet to even show a remote desire to walk (which is expected as EK did not walk until 14 months). Abigail loves to play with her siblings, dolls, paper products, little people, pillows, the leap frog fridge magnet, and anything she is not supposed to. She loves baths and still loves to eat! Abigail is a sensitive child and already seems to have a much more compliant spirit when it comes to me telling her no (as compared to her strong willed sister). She gives great hugs and kisses and babbles alot and has a few words that she tries to say consistently.

Now, if you will oblige my sappiness and love of photos..

Let's take a walk down memory lane









1 month



2 months

3 months

4 months


5 months



6 months



7 months


8 months


9 months


10 months



11 months



12 months


Happy First Birthday Abigail Marie!
I love you so much and am so proud to be your mama!

Feeling Nostalgic

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around how my sweet little Abigail went from this...

to this

in what seems like a blink of an eye.

I can't believe she turns ONE on Friday! If I let myself, I'm pretty sure I would bawl my eyes out. My 3rd (and maybe last) baby is growing up!

Halloween Pics!

Our neighborhood is so much fun at Halloween. Several people do hayrides through and we have a block party with pizza before trick or treating. The kids loved it and they got a lot of candy this year!!!! Thankfully, my parents stayed and handed out candy at our house....although after we were done trick or treating, Samuel took up that job with great pleasure. I think he might have enjoyed handing out candy more than getting it himself! Silly boy!

The family
(Abigail was not too happy with having a hat on...guess we won't be wearing a birthday hat this weekend either)

The kids with Abigail protesting the hat



My 2 happy ones!



pitiful baby (all over a stupid hat her mean mama kept putting on her head)



handsome pirate



pretty pink crayon



on the hayride



trick or treating

All in all, it really was such a fun day! It was great for our families to be here as they got to see the kids dressed up and watch them go to a few houses. I loved the way the girls crayon costumes turned out and the best part is I was able to take the black felt off and now I have perfectly good pink turtlenecks and pants!

Thank you for all your sweet comments on Samuel's party. It really was my favorite party I've done. I really can't take too much credit though because I scoured the internet for ideas and pictures...but I do appreciate all your encouragement about my creativity. I don't know that I'm all that creative...I just copy well!!! Ha!!!

Arggg Matey!!!!

Yesterday was a busy day for us!!! Not only was it Halloween (i'll post pics of that later this week), it was Samuel's birthday party!!! He had been asking for a pirate party for several months and was so excited about it! I really had a blast planning it and putting it all together. We had so much fun watching all the pirates run around and I think the kids really had fun too! Samuel told me it was the best party ever! I'm so happy he enjoyed it! The forecast was for rain and thank goodness it ended up being a pretty day. However, we set up most of the stuff in the garage just in case. I think it turned out great. Here are all the pictures before the kids got there and destroyed everything:)

garage transformation....















the table for them to decorate their telescopes


the handsome pirate!

this littlest pirate got to skip her nap so she could follow the big pirates around!

KEEP SCROLLING FOR PICS FROM THE PARTY...

Lots of Pirate Fun!

Samuel had 5 other boys join him as pirates! They got to dress up (if they wanted to) with the eye patch, head scrarves/hats, and the pirate hook. Then they went to search for hidden treasure in the sandbox. They had a little treasure hunt sheet for them to go by and most of them found what was needed to fill their sheet (it's in a picture in the above post). The boys loved walking the plank especially because I was giving out little treats for doing that! By the end of the day, even Ellie Kate was doing it by herself. They also decorated telescopes (spray painted paper towel rings) with glitter glue and stickers and the highlight of the day might have been the treasure hunt. Jeff did a great job coming up with clues and leading them on the hunt. It ended at the "Captains Quarters" a.k.a our shed. Inside, they found a pirate pinata as the lost treasure. Then they each took several turns trying to pop the pinata, but in the end Jeff had to help! Of course, Samuel loved opening his presents and we are so thankful both grandparents could come as well as Aunt Jenny and Uncle Buddy!! It really was an awesome day to celebrate Samuel...