Monster Bash Birthday Party

We had such a wonderful week this past week. It started with J's actual birthday on Tuesday and didn't stop. We had a positively wonderful visit from my Mom and BOTH my sisters! That never happens. And it was so great to spend time with all of them and J. She really loved having them all here. But the real fun was J's second birthday party! You can read all about the decorating details at my HootyCutie blog.

J is really shy around people, and the day did not get off to a good start. Poor Shane had to give her a bath while she screamed the entire time. But once the party started she cheered up some (I think it might have had something to do with all the presents).

Thanks to everyone who came. We really enjoyed having you all with us to celebrate J's big day. It wouldn't have been as special without all of you.

Jaycelyn Turns 2!

I cannot believe I am saying these words, "I have a two year old"! Happy Birthday to my beautiful, amazing, wonderful, creative, inquiring, full of energy, daughter. You are truly a gift from God.

We had a wonderful day today. We woke up early and got cleaned up. J's new thing is refusing to get in the tub. She yells "No, Bath!" and literally kicks as I get her undressed and into the tub. Then after 4 seconds she is splashing away. I'm not kidding about the 4 second thing! Then it takes us 25 minutes to get her to get out of the tub. And if you have to get her out before the 25 minutes are up... que the kicking and screaming.

After we were dressed, we came down and had breakfast and I told her we were going to see Daddy. She just loves to go see Daddy at work and have lunch with him so she was really excited. So excited in fact that it tuckered her out. That's right she feel asleep before we even began the day. (Please excuse all the upcoming crappy iPhone pics)

We had a very nice lunch with Daddy and headed home. We played for a few hours and waited for Shane to get home. The it was off to Moe's. Fancy, I know. But J just loves it. She quite enjoyed and was hamming it up for the camera.

Next it was off to Target to go shopping! My grandparents sent her some money and we thought it would be fun for her to go pick out a toy. And what did she pick? A Belle barbie doll. Apparently Beauty and the Beast really struck a cord when we watched it yesterday. She pulled it off the shelf twice, so we figured that was the right one. She insisted on carrying it all trough the store. It was absolutely adorable!! The box was bigger than she was and she had to keep taking breaks to re-adjust.

She carried the bag to the car in her usual style. I have no idea why, but my child LOVES to carry bags. Shane had to take the doll out of the packaging in the car all the while listening to her yell "Belle" over and over.

We came home and played for a little while and then we put the birthday girl to bed. She went right to sleep and I'm not surprised. It was a wonderful day and I am so blessed to spend days like this with her.

And get a load of these comparison photos. That's right, she is wearing the exact same dresses as she wore last year. My little peanut. But she has gotten significantly tall over this past year.

2 Year Photo Shoot

I thought I would share with you guys the photo shoot we did a few weeks back for J's birthday invites. This photo shoot was the whopper of all photo shots. All to get two simple pictures for J's birthday invitations. It spanned two days over two locations (several mini locations within those) with two cameras (and two iPhones). But boy did we get some great shots! So many of them simply take my breath away.

Mimi was here for the weekend, so she was in on the fun. The first day of shooting Daddy was at work, so the girls to a trip up to Havana to get some railroad shots. J of course was not all that excited about having her picture taken (hence the second day of shooting), but we did manage to get some really great shots. And Havana was such a beautiful back drop.

The next day we took Daddy along with the girls to a local park that is one of my favorite locals for photographs. I'm sure on lookers would have gotten a good chuckle from the three adults chasing after the one little girl shouting directions at her. But our craziness paid off.

It was a really hot day. We had sweat pouring down everything! So when we took J over to the fountain to get some shots...

It's not surprising what happened next! And I am so glad that we let her get in. These are my absolute favorite shots of her from these shoots. And they might just be my favorite shots of her all year! I love that we were able to capture her playing and get a glimpse of her real personality in some of these.

J's 2nd Year - Part 2

And with this post, the blog will be up to date. Who wants to take bets on how well I keep up with it?

In the last post we came to the end of 2011. So we will pick up with 2012! The first pictures I have a from a trip to the park in February (what do you know... pics of something other than a holiday!). I just love these photos. Something about the colors and the joy on her face just makes my heart melt. 

Next up... the unofficial first haircut. Since we only cut the rat tail, we are still holding out that Aunt Amanda will give her her first official all over haircut (that is if she would ever come to visit us!). But nonetheless, we document the occasion. Boy was Mommy glad to see that rat tail go!

March 4, 2012

Also in March, St. Patty's Day. J is so tiny that she was able to wear the same dress from 2011 (see a comparison in this blog post from the HootyCutie blog). Which was great because I loved this dress on her. And she wore an actual bow clipped to her hair for the first time. Huge milestone I tell ya!

On to her second trip to Disney. In April Shane had a conference in Orlando, and one of the beauties of being a stay at home... J and I went with him. The day we got there we went to downtown Disney and J loved running around there. Later in the week, my mom (J's Mimi) came up and we took J to Disney (Epcot and Animal Kingdom). We ended the trip by taking her to the T-Rex restaurant at Downtown Disney and she LOVED it. It was a wonderful trip! You can read more about the specifics in this blog post from the HootyCutie blog, but here are some of my favorite pics from the trip. 

Next up is Easter. These are some of my favorite shoots. She was having a very off day and cried for most of the day. But what I love about them is that she is pushing through the tears and collect those eggs. It was priceless. And in spite of her emotional tribulations, we did manage to get in a smile or two and overall the day was wonderful.

And guess what... the blog is caught up! You can check out my post about the 4th of July here. That brings us to August. I plan to finally share here 2nd year photo shoot here on the blog tomorrow. We are gearing up for her birthday party this weekend, so I will be sure to share that with you as well. Ta-ta for now!

Jaycelyn Turns 1!

It is amazing the transformation a little one makes from the day they are born from the day the turn 1. They go from little balls of sweetness to little balls of fire full of personality. The first year of Jaycelyn's life was a wonderful time for us. It was so much fun to watch her little personality develop as she learned to interact with us and the world around her. And turning one was a big deal around her. She had not one, but two birthday parties and a mini celebration (complete with a mini cupcake) on her actual birthday. I will cherish those days forever. I am enjoying revisiting these memories as we gear up for her next mile stone.

I posted about her birthday parties on my HootyCutie blog, so you can go read up on them there. 

Leopard/Zebra Theme Party in Sebring

Owl Party in Tally

Jaycelyn's 2nd Year - Part 1

So here we are on the night before J's birthday and I still have not finished my goal of catching up the blog before she turns two! So Here is a very quick recap of this past year. It has been an absolutely wonderful year. It is unbelievable the changes that a little one undergoes from the first to second birthday. J has gone from a baby to a little kid in one very short year! At her first birthday she only had two teeth, one said like 5 words, and could not even walk yet. The teeth are still slow coming (although she has way more than two now), she RUNS around talking all day now. Her vocabulary has really blossomed in the past two weeks. It is wonderful that she is able to voice her needs better now, but I do miss her sweet little miss pronounced words.

Again this will be mostly holidays due to the fact that those are the recognizable pictures. First up Halloween. We had a visit from Mimi and went to the Pumpkin Patch. J had just started walking, and she had a great time tottering around the pumpkins. This year the initial plan was for J to be Tinkerbell, but after much slacking on my part, we ended up as a simple fairy. But boy was she cute! She did like trick-or-treating... but that might have just been because she got to ride in a wagon.

Next up on a quick tour is Christmas. This Christmas was great. She loved helping decorate the tree and opening presents. In fact she loved opening presents so much that she opened one or two early due to some sneakiness on her part.

Decorating the Tree

Opening Presents with Mimi

Christmas Day at Bochi and Pop's complete with meltdown shot!

And this post is getting long, so I am going to cut it off her and add a new post in the a.m. But to finish up 2011, here is J's Christmas photo shoot pics.

Jaycelyn's First Year - Part 2

We just wrapped up an amazingly wonderful extended weekend with Mimi. We had her here for a full 4 days! It was so great. J took to her so quickly this time and loved having her here. And with J's birthday coming up we did not one, but two photo shoots to get some pictures for her invitations. I will be sharing some of them soon, but these photo shoots were a reminder that I still have a year and a half of her life to cover before we reach her 2nd birthday. So on we go...

In my last post I shared about J's first 4 months and left off right before Christmas. So that is where we will pick up. We spent that Christmas with my family in Sebring. It was the first real visit with our little angle and it was so wonderful to share her with everyone. I remember being so excited to by her gifts for her to open. She of course could have carried less, but she did enjoy tearing the paper. 

I can't seem to find any pictures of that Christmas which means the must have fell victim to the the external hard drive mishap. So any of my family out there that has pictures, you better send them to me! But here is a terrible phone pic of J and Santa.

The next major event in J's life... solid foods! We choose a method called baby-led weening. In this method you give the child soft foods whole. Meaning no purees/baby food. We loved this method and she did to. It was a little messy, but very fun. Her first official food was a banana (if you don't count the whip cream Shane gave her at Universial). And her favorite food was broccoli of all things. Here are some really fun shots of her enjoying her eats.

Very First Solid Food - Banana

Isn't she a ham?! She has been entertaining us since day 1. 

For the rest of the post I will share pictures of J from the holidays leading up to her first birthday. With our pictures being a jumbled mess, the holiday's are really the only ones I know for sure. First up is St. Patty's Day (a big deal in the Lavin family). I love this little pillowcase dress she wore. But seeing how poorly it was constructed, it was the first time I got it into my head that I could make clothing for J myself. But it looked great from afar and I loved these photos we took of her (although this is one of two we have left, and only because they were posted on Facebook).

Up next was J's first Easter (outside the womb). We spent it in Tally, but Mimi was here to celebrate with us. J enjoyed opening her Easter baskets, but she really loved collecting the eggs. She has a had joy for putting things in some sort of bag/basket since she started playing. 

Morning baskets from Mommy and Daddy and Mimi

Afternoon baskets from Mimi/Pop and Aunt Shannon/Uncle Roy

Easter Egg Hunt

And last up for this blog post. 4th of July. We took J to see the fireworks in our neighborhood. And Aunt Dani was here with us. She actually enjoyed them and didn't really seem scared at all. I am a huge fan of fireworks, so I was so happy that she enjoyed them. And of course we do not have the pictures, but I do have some from a photo shoot we did. I found pictures of the fireworks!

Coming up... J turns 1!