Julia's 3rd Birthday!

Julia's birthday fell on Easter this year.  This was a blessing because all of her Hall-side cousins would be in town for Leadership Training for Christ.  Blake's girls, Maddie and Macie, could also make it this year because Blake was battling a kidney stone and they did not travel out of town for Easter.  So, lots of family this year!  By the way, Julia fell a few days before this and her face crashed into the edge of a door.  I think the images have been edited a bit to reduce the bruising!

We ended the party with a couple who walked up to the house and wanted to see inside.  I guess they thought we were having an open house!  They took a tour and met all of my family while the party was going on!  Too funny!

The theme was Hoppy Birthday, combining the celebration with Easter.  Had yummy vegan cupcakes from Spiral Diner.

Mimi and Audrey.

My beautiful Nana at age 94.

The birthday girl with Poppy.

 Opening presents.  Audrey has my phone in case we got a call for a showing of the house.

Just look at how gorgeous Meredith's profile is here!

That's excitement there!

 We should have called this a My Little Pony party because nearly every gift was a My Little Pony!

The tough task of blowing out THREE candles!

A picture of the man that passed a kidney stone during the party.

A picture of a woman about ready to give birth!

Very, Very Delayed Julia's 2nd Birthday

Julia turned 2 over a year ago!  I better document the party a bit before posting her 3rd birthday party!

Julia had a very simple family party of just her grandparents, my grandmother Nana, and my aunt Sasa. It was an owl-themed party and I did my best to make the party vegan.  It was my first go at vegan party food, and it wasn't bad.  It could have been much better though!  We had cupcakes that, together, formed an owl.  I stole these pictures off my dad's facebook page.  I don't know if he has a picture of the food or not.  But she had fun and we entered the wonderful age of two!

MaMaw's 80th Birthday

Last Thursday, we packed up and headed to San Antonio to celebrate Michael's grandmother's 80th birthday. MaMaw has a lot of children and grandchildren and most were able to travel to the party. Even cousins from Paris and Berlin came!

MaMaw is something else, one of a kind, special. When her Sunday school class learned of her party, they created a "Flat Jean" (like a Flat Stanley) and took pictures of her all over town. It was the funniest thing I've seen in a while. People were kissing her, she was popping out of bushes, and lots of other funny things. Perfect for her and her personality.

Happy 80th, MaMaw!

Some Flat Jean pictures. (She's in black)

Audrey

Cake. Her favorite color is purple. We were encouraged to wear purple and the decorations were purple too.

Julia

Averys, Halls, and us. Burrows were not able to come.

Us

MaMaw looking at the gift we got her.

Embrace the Camera 4.7.11

Embracing the camera with my ONE YEAR OLD! We're singing Happy Birthday with a bunch of family around. It's been a week already and it still hasn't sunk in that she's one.

Julia's First Birthday Party

WARNING: Picture overload!

On Saturday, we celebrated Julia's first year of life. We had a lot of fun and I was so happy so many showed up for her birthday celebration!

The theme was Milk and Cookies. Julia had her first sip of milk on Thursday and she's a fan! Good thing since it was her party theme. Audrey just last week decided that she liked white milk.

For the milk, we had white, strawberry, and chocolate milk.

For the cookies, we had chocolate sugar cookies with pink icing in "J"s and "1"s; Oreos (ran out of steam to do Orea Balls); Cocoa Krisp Treats with black/pink M&Ms; M&M cookies; and German chocolate cake cookies.

We also had chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes and cookies and cream cake.

A special thanks goes out to Rachel for making me the German chocolate cake cookies when I had a baby and introducing me to Annie's Eats.

I like to have family-only parties for the first couple of years. I tried to get pictures of everyone, but didn't get them all.

Here's my great-aunt, Barbara.

This is my "great" aunt, Sandra. We call her Sasa.

My niece, Maddie and sis-in-law, Jaime. Blake and Macie were there too.

My parents, Papa and Mimi. They hosted.

Of course, Audrey was there.

Michael's Dad, Poppy. Audrey being shy.

Michael's Mom, Ma.

My grandmother, Nana

Papa, again.

My cousin, Jill. Her kids Hannah and Hunter were there too.

My cousins, Jana, Judy, and Ashley were also there.

Mimi bought Audrey this sweet little pink and black dress for the party.

Julia got her very own cupcake to eat.

She preferred just eating the mini morsels.

She finally got a bit of icing.

Love her!

If it were not for my mom, I could not have pulled this off. She watched the girls for me while I made a mess of her kitchen. She also helped me put all of the last-minute details together. She was awesome!

Happy Birthday, Julia!