Kalia's 1st Birthday Party : Invites

I have no idea where the last year went.  Zero, zip, nada.  I can't believe in a few short weeks, Kalia will already be a year old.  Sigh...

I'm slightly obsessed with taking pictures of Kalia.  Before she got mobile, if she was throwing a fit, I could whip out my camera and say "smile", and she'd oblige.  She'd stop whatever cry fest she was having, and smile for the camera.  I don't exactly know how you train your baby to do that, I just chalk it up to be obsessed with taking pictures of her.  She's a pretty smiley baby anyways, so I guess that helps.  Err...toddler...sigh...

For Kalia's 1st birthday invitations, I wanted to incorporate my obsession with her cuteness into the invites, but I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for them.  So I made them myself :

Sorry for blurring out our home info - sometimes my life is like a fishbowl on here as is :-), which probably scares most of you away from wanting to show up unannounced, but I do have one darn cute kiddo, so ya just never know!

I just took pictures from every month of Kalia's life so far, starting with month 0 and ending with month 11.  I resized them down to 1.05" High by 1.57" wide.  I messed around with the sizing of the images until I got 6 across that would fit in a standard 4 1/8" x 9 1/2" envelope, which I already had a ton of on hand.  I fit two of these on one sheet of thick cardstock 8 1/2" x 11" paper.

For anyone interested in creating the same sort of invite, my margins were : left and right : 0.5", top : 0.38", and bottom 0.13".

I've got so many  decoration ideas floating around in my head.  I have no idea how many I'll actually manage to get done, but I'll be sure to share what I do with you guys!

So what do you guys think of her invites?  Do you guys DIY invites or order them out?  I'm not gonna lie, figuring out the pictures and sizes took a bit more time than I thought it would, but it just cost me postage and ink to send out.  With this down to one income ordeal, every penny counts!

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Happy Monday!

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H E L L O W O R L D

Gosh, how I've missed this blog...

I write posts in my head to it all of the time. Occasionally I sit down and actually start a post on a project, but then Kalia wakes up from her naps and needs me, and the moment and train of thought are gone. To be completely honest, I kind of have writers block with this blog right now. I mean, where do I start off? Do I just talk about my projects and ignore the fact that I've been M.I.A? Do I tell you about what I've been doing in the meantime?

For those of you that are strictly here for projects, those posts are coming. We've done so much to the house over the past few months, all of which I do plan on posting about.

For those of you that have emailed and commented asking how things are going, this post is for you.

Last month was a big one. I quit my job, turned 30, and became a stay at home Momma. I'm breast feeding Kalia, and she's never taken a bottle. So working (albeit from home, which was both nice and a nightmare at times) while being my little girls sole source of nutrition left me at the breaking point a few times. My sister in law asked how I was doing with it one day and I told her it was like a juggling act, but I kept dropping all of the balls. I didn't feel like I could give 100% to either work or Kalia, so something had to give. Being an Electrical Engineer isn't exactly a mind-numbing career, and trying to design and debug computer chips while nursing Kalia was just...beyond challenging.

I am so blessed and fortunate that we're in the position for me to walk away from my job. One of the reasons we waited 5 years before starting to build on our mini family was so that I could take this option if I wanted to. If you knew me in high school or college, I used to say I was never getting married and never having kids. I've got a million private reasons why I used to say that, but the bottom line was I hadn't met the right man that I could see forever with. And then when I did meet him, I wanted to make sure we were solid before expanding. I honestly don't think I ever realized how amazing all of this could be.

Now don't get me wrong, Motherhood is much more challenging than I ever thought possible, but it is also much more rewarding. So much more rewarding!

As for Kalia, she's growing like a weed and doing all sorts of fun things these days. She is 10 months old and started taking her first steps last week. She can crawl faster than Kodi can walk, is very energetic, doesn't sleep a lot, eats a ton, is quite animated, laughs a lot, is a complete goof ball, and is like a bull in a china closet when she plays. She's every bit our daughter, and there's not a single thing I would change about her. Well, maybe I'd like it if she slept a little bit more, but I can say she comes by it honestly!

So for all of the holidays I've missed on posting about, Kalia says :

Happy Thanksgiving!

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy 30th Birthday Mommy!




and finally...Happy Easter!

Thanks for all of the sweet emails checking in. I promise project posts are coming up next! Hope everyone has been doing well, and I'm excited to 'be back'!

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Birthday Weekend

Friday was my 28th Birthday. I've decided that early, mid, and late 20's no longer applies. I am now just in my 20's. I didn't get any older, just better!

Chris woke me up with breakfast on Friday. Strawberry covered pancakes with whip cream on top...yuuum!!! He asked me if I wanted him to make me dinner and I just laughed at him. While he does try in the kitchen occasionally, he's much better at turning on the oven, taking something out of the freezer, putting it on a baking sheet, and setting the timer these days. His cooking skills with school and work combined have gone waaaay down. That's okay though, my breakfast was delicious!!

We had our friends from Gainesville come into town for the weekend, and my PT (paper twin) Erin cooked everyone a yummy dinner and brought it over. We played Taboo and Apples to Apples. I wanted a mellow birthday weekend...the past few weekends have been a bit much for me!

On Saturday, Erin, Janelle, and I headed to the Strawberry Festival to meet 2 of my other friends (coincidentally named Erin and Chris also), and to show my PT Erin what the Strawberry Festival was all about. Erin caught the most entertaining part of it on video. Pig Races. They were hilarious. Heats 1 and 2 were actually really fast. Click here to check out heat two. (And yes, the bleachers are packed. We got there early to get our seats!)

Heat three was the funniest though. Erin couldn't get them all of the way around (bandwidth reasons), but the beginning is funny enough to watch. The initial front runner had to stop to use the rest room and wound up finishing last.

On Sunday, we met up with 2 more of our friends the 4 of us (Janelle, Yulander, Chris, and myself) played quite a few games of beach volleyball. One of my friends out there's daughters made me cupcakes for my birthday, so everyone joined in singing Happy Birthday to me with the kids. It was super cute and sweet!

I had such a great birthday weekend...I am blessed every day to be surrounded by the people I am in my life!!!

Happy Monday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!!!

Jenny became one of my best friends our freshman year in college. We went to high school together, and at the very end of our senior year started sort of being friends, but we were inseparable for most of our college days.

Jenny taught me that being a complete goof ball isn't dumb, it's fun. She taught me to dance and sing when I feel like it. She taught me that it's possible to laugh so hard in one day that your cheeks are sore for the next week. She taught me to not care what others think, just be me.

She's such a great person, and I love her to death!!! Hope you have a great one Jenny!!! Thanks for being there for me throughout the years...my life is much better with you in it! I miss you tons!!!! Have fun today at Jimmy Buffett (I figured the pirate pic of you was semi-appropriate for that)!