Lexi turns ONE!

This post is a huge picture overload... but I just cant help myself!

We had a fantastic Fourth of July/Lexi's birthday!!!

Our day started with star pancakes, and some red/white/blue flair on the side.

The birthday girl loved it!

We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting everything ready for the party. I love this wall in my breakfast nook. It's the perfect place for the birthday banner that I made and for her monthly pictures. 

I'm so glad I remembered to take pictures each month!

And remember when I talked about this super cute invitation from Tiny Prints? 

Well, I partnered with them to help make Lexi's party extra special with those cute invitations and the decorations I made to match. How cute is this bunting to match the invitation?? Love it!

And  more of the set-up from the party... drinks!

I made lemonade, then we provided tequila or rum to add to it. We also had sweet tea, beer, and water bottles (but who wants boring ol' water? ;) )

We used these cute mason jars for drinks. I ordered the lids and straws from Enchanted Frog Events on Etsy. 

For food, we had burgers, hot dogs, and chicken... because you can't have a Fourth of July BBQ without those things! We also had baked beans, caprese salad, watermelon skewers, and red/white/blue fruit parfaits. Dessert was chocolate cupcakes, apple crisp, and homemade vanilla ice cream. We had a feast, y'all!

I used Pinterest to get some cute ideas for the party.

I didn't get a picture of our watermelon skewers, but it was based off of this.

(picture from Pinterest)

Our red/white/blue fruit parfaits

How cute are these berry ice cubes?!

And these sparkler box wrappers! 

We handed these out at the end so that all the kids could go out front and light them.

The birthday girl had a great time. 

She loves her Grammy (Ryan's mom)

The boys loved the watermelon skewers.

Me and my favorite girls!

(Lexi's adorable shirt is from Sweet T Kids... thanks Tami!)

Lexi is greatly outnumbered by boys around here!

My loves

And my sweet birthday girl!

She was interested in the candle...

...but not so much in the cake. We had such high hopes for an awesome smash cake because she is always screaming at us for whatever sugary treat we have, and she usually devours her food. But she totally disappointed! Boo! She ate one bite... after I had to hand it to her... and that was it. Not cool, Lexi, not cool. Jax was unimpressed with his smash cake too. Why won't my kids smash their cakes??

She did enjoy opening presents. The paper was much more fun than the actual presents, of course. 

After presents, we headed out to do sparklers. She wanted to grab them so badly!

 After sparklers, we put Lexi to bed then the big boys played in our playroom while the grownups relaxed and chatted until the sun went down. Once it was dark, we headed back outside for our fireworks show. A bunch of neighbors pitched in, plus our friends brought some, so we ended up with lots of fireworks!

These 4 boys are the best of friends. I love them so. 

We let the boys do more sparklers until everyone decided it was time to wrap things up. It was almost 10pm and we were tired!

 We are so blessed to have amazing family and friends who love us and love our kids so much. 

We had such a great time celebrating Lexi's first birthday!!

It's here... 12 months!

Lexi Nicole, you are ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!!!

How has an entire year passed by since THIS day??

Lexi has added so much joy and happiness to our family over the last year. It been amazing to watch her grow and develop, and to watch Jax turn into an amazing big brother. 

I don't have 12 month stats for her yet because her well baby check isn't for a few weeks, but I will update with those once I get them. 

Ya'll, this girl is SO SO opinionated.... and I just don't know where she gets it? (wink wink). She knows exactly what she wants and isn't afraid to let you know. When she wants something that you have, she screams at you until you give it to her... or until you tell her no, in which case she starts bawling. When she wants more food, she jams her fingers together (sign language for "more") and says "mo, mo, mo, mo" until you give her more. And when she's done with something, she signs "all done", but does it violently and in your face. She is seriously something else!   

She is such a sweet girl and loves to see familiar faces. She gets a big grin on her face when Daddy/Nana/Grammy/our best friends/anyone she knows walks through the door. She also loves to wave at anyone and anything. Yes, sometimes she just waves at nothing. Ryan says it's because she sees angels :)

Here are all of her monthly pictures that I've taken. 

I was much better at this with her than I was with Jax!

1, 2, 3

 4, 5, 6

 7, 8, 9

10, 11, 12

Happy birthday, my beautiful girl!!!

Birthday Banner Tutorial!

I first started making birthday banners when Jax turned one. I did A LOT of cutting and gluing for that first one. I have come a long way since then, and have even begun selling banners for any occasion ($15 each... if you're interested, let me know!!). 

For Lexi's first birthday party banner, I was inspired by this insanely adorable invitation that I found through Tiny Prints (more about them later!). 

I decided to make a banner that looked like the bunting on the invite. 

First, I gathered my colored cardstock. 

(Not pictured- the red/white striped scrapbook paper that I later decided to add)

I used a ruler to make a triangle on a piece of white cardstock, then cut that out and used it as my template for all of my triangles. 

I traced lots and lots a triangles on each of the colors of paper. I knew that whatever was leftover would be used to make basic bunting for party decorations. 

I used a paper cutter to cut out each of the triangles. It's A LOT less work than using scissors, and it also helps ensure that you have perfectly straight lines. 

Once I finished cutting all the triangles, I decided the order that I wanted them, then stacked all of them in that order. 

On my computer, I typed "Happy Birthday Lexi", chose the font I wanted, then played with the sizing until it seemed like a good size to fit the triangles. This ended up being 150 pt font. 

I have this Martha Stewart circle cutter that can cut a circle any size from 1 inch to 5 1/2 inches. You just stick the little hand held blade in the hole for the size that you want, then draw a circle. The center plastic spins so it makes a nice, even circle. I will say that it can be a little tricky trying to hold everything firmly so that the paper underneath doesn't slip, but with some practice, it isn't too hard. 

 I lined it up and cut out each of the letters. 

Until I had everything that I needed

This is what I used to attach the letters to the triangles. They are little double-sided sticky squares... easy to use and they stick really well. 

See!

 I used skinny red and white ribbon to tie each piece together. The other option is to just string one long ribbon through all of the letters. It's much less work that way, but not quite as cute!

And here is the finished product! 

I love how it turned out and can't wait to finish up the rest of the decorations and get things set up for her party!