It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, not actually at my house...yet. We're gearing up for the big 1st birthday party in 6, yes, that's right 6, days. Ever since I was in grad school, I have pulled out my tree and all my decorations out the day after Thanksgiving (well, except for last year, but I'm blaming that on being 38 weeks pregnant at the time!). I've had to postpone it a week this year because I didn't think a houseful of babies and a tree would be a good combination. I love Christmas time! I love the songs, the decorations, the smells, finding just the perfect present, and the cards. They're like getting a litte gift in the mailbox everyday. In fact, I received our very first one of the season today. :-) My favorites are photo cards, and I'm very glad that this year I can just have a picture of our beautiful little girl on ours instead of dragging John, Max (our dog), and Baby (our cat) to some picture perfect location! One of my favorite websites for anything picture is Shutterfly. Take a few minutes (or a couple of hours!), and check it out here. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites...

I've always loved a blue card, but this red, green, and white one is super cute!

I'm a sucker for black and white pictures, and I like how the wording pops on this one.

I love the message on this one.

Alison, you and Jay absolutely need to make this your card this year!!

I really love a card with a snowman (or 2) on it!

But I think this might be the winner...

Guess you'll have to wait and see! :-)

I should also tell you about a few of their other great products they have over there on Shutterfly. Do you live far away from your family? I have the perfect gift for grandparents--a photo calendar! That way, they can see that sweet grandbaby's face everyday! Start making yours here. And who wouldn't love to get a personalized thank-you note? They have those too. Take a look here. And last, but not least, check out the birthday invites you can make here. So cute!

Ok, guess I've done enough rambling for now. Make sure you check out their website. Then let me know what your favorites are! :-)

1st birthday peek , part 2

Here is a little look at the birthday banner in progress:

Think this little guy wants to join the party??

And that's it for the sneak peeks! You'll have to wait until after the big day to see the rest! :-)

Disney!

My sister went to a conference at Disney World this past weekend, so Caroline and I packed up and headed down for the night on Saturday. We had a great time and learned a few things:
1. Don't get trapped by a circle of parade floats when your baby has never been to a parade...specially when it's time for her to eat.
2. When you're waiting in the 30 minute line for a 30 second ride on Dumbo, have something to try and occupy the little one. This is very important when you have an almost 1 year old who think she needs to walk everywhere now.
3. Get as many FastPasses as possible but know that you still kinda have to wait a long time.
4. The Aladdin ride is the same thing as Dumbo for a fraction of the wait time.
5. The Pirates of the Carribean ride is a little scary, but it's worth it for the mommy (and aunt) because they did a great job making the animatronic Captain Jack Sparrow look real!

1st birthday peek :-)

Here's what my little birthday girl will be wearing on her big day...

11 months exactly :-)

So, are you impressed? I'm actually doing Caroline's update on her b-day! And I'm getting to be a better blogger...I've posted a few other times since her last update. Go, me! October flew by. We had a very busy month. John went to GA for his job, and we took a family trip to a friend's wedding in Pennsylvania. It was really nice to have an extra set of hands traveling with Caroline. I think John was a little stressed, but both he and Caroline did very well! :-) We are packing up for another trip tomorrow--heading to MS to visit family and my college BF's. I am very excited!! Crossing my fingers and saying a little prayer that my wiggle worm does well on the plane. Here are her monthly facts:

*She weighs around 19 pounds.

*She is standing by herself some. It usually lasts until she realizes she's doing it, and then she plops down on her bottom.

*She loves to feed herself now...it's amazing what actually becomes finger food when they reach this stage.

*Her favorite foods include chicken meatballs, kiwi, pineapple, and peas. And she leans in with a wide open mouth to take a bite of whatever I might have in my hand at the time.

*She is imitating sounds I make and seems to be trying to imitate words some times.

*We've tried formula in a sippy cup a few times, and it's going pretty well.

*We tried out level 3 at Gymboree. She was not so sure about all the small people walking around. It was strange to see her as the little kid in class again.

*She has 6 teeth now--3 on bottom, 3 on top.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now! I've been super busy working on her birthday party...maybe you'll get a sneak peek sometime during the next month! :-)

I just love baby feet!

Playing inside my cave (aka--the entertainment center)

my 1st waffle--yum!

Pop, pop, pop! Pop those bubbles!

Reading my new Halloween book with Daddy

I love how she's looking at her babydoll. :-)

Halloween

Ok, so I was pretty good this year. I refrained from taking my 10 1/2 month old trick or treating, so that I could steal her stash. :-) We did have a lot of fun celebrating this year, even without the mounds of candy! On Friday, my friend's church was having a Party at the Patch, so we decided to join in. I've heard of this trunk or treating thing but have never seen it in action. Well, little did we know, but we were going to the Disney World of trunk or treating! There were around 80 cars to visit (we only stopped by a few...Caroline was amazed by the Dora car), bounce houses, games for the kiddos, and yummy food (including some fantastic coconut cream pie that was a steal at $1 a slice!). Oh, and did I mention that there were thousands of people there?? We had a great time, and Caroline enjoyed checking out all of the costumes, including her cowboy boyfriends, Mason and Jace. On Saturday, it was all about football--forget Halloween on the weekend of the FL/GA game! Thankfully, the Gators were able to squeeze by the Bulldogs in overtime. On Sunday morning, we decided to carve our pumpkin (better late than never!). I scooped out all the guts and drew on the face, and then John took over. He did a great job carving out our smiley pumpking! After that Caroline and I partied with the babies in our playgroup (this is a group that I'm not super involved in, but it gave us another excuse to break out the costume). It was fun...not super fun...but fun. Caroline looked adorable in her Minnie costume, if I do say so myself. :-) And then on Sunday night, we played in the front yard while we waited for the neighborhood kids to come take our candy. Enjoy the pics!