Klutz

You're going to have to give me a break this morning, I haven't had any coffee yet. I just realized it. This is how I've been lately. Forgetting EVERYTHING. Or breaking things. Yesterday morning, I was picking up the ground coffee and the white filter, when I dropped it. People, I couldn't just let it fall! So, somehow, I ended up getting the wet coffee grind all over the floor, the dishwasher, the pantry door, and the counter. I cleaned it up, then asked Stephen to please clean up the rest. He made a comment about me being a klutz, but actually cleaned it with no fuss.

It's times like these that I'm reminded of yet another reason why Stephen is the one for me. Before we even moved in together, I spilled a glass of wine on my carpet floor. He went to the store with me, bought some Oxy Clean and cleaned it up for. His amazing ability to laugh at my clumsiness and help clean it up continued on when we moved into together and lived in our first apartment. Remember, I have a knack for these things. I wouldn't suggest trying them out. Seriously. One traumatized example:

I was in elementary school and I was helping my mom get ready for my birthday party. I dropped a 3 gallon container of Hawaiian punch and it was all over the kitchen. I can't make this stuff up. This is just what I do.

These stories could go on and on. But, I'll give you a break. Back to my point. This makes Stephen the one. Through all of my extremely klutzy experiences, Stephen always laughs it off and helps me. This is a great quality to have. In many ways, I'm much like a child. He has patience for my ability to destroy a room. What a wonderful quality.

Today, I'm going to leave you to read another blog. This was an expensive, but very cute idea. If I had $100 to spare, I'd probably do something very similar. Austin is full of homeless people, so I'd definitely go broke.

Enjoy.

Ian is ONE!

Has it really already been a year? Ian is already one year old! The weekend went wonderfully. We have a billion pictures. I will try and control myself and only show a few. Thank you for everyone who could make it, we had a full house. And thank you to everyone who couldn't make it, your thoughts were appreciated! Let's see, I weighed Ian on his birthday, 18.6 pounds. So, no forward facing car seat for a while. He has his one year check up sometime tomorrow, where he will get his mumps and polio vaccine... I think.

We will start this blog by letting pictures tell the story. I will add commentary as well.

This is Ian on is actual birthday. He has no idea what's about to happen to him. He's just excited that so many people are here to see him! Robe and Caroline, Granny Janny, and Grandpa!

Caroline and Robe got Ian a 'Little Gentlemen's Outfit.' It took a while to get this smile out. But there were flippin' paparazzi around! I have a picture of that too somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment. There are about 4 or 5 camera's and we're all crowded around him taking pictures. It's a shocker he's smiling and not crying. But come on, isn't that outfit adorable?!

Before we went out, we met up with Granny Janny and Grandpa so that they could watch Ian so Caroline and I would help my mom prepare. Ian is playing with a new toy truck. He's having so much fun! I'm so glad that I have such a happy baby, so full of personality. Speaking of which, Robe and Stephen went to a bar while we were gone. Which brings me to an adorable story. Stephen would be embarrassed if he read my blog, but he doesn't, so here it goes:

Caroline and I caught Stephen and Robe sitting outside of a Starbuck's sipping on their drinks while talking about the wedding. When these two ladies get together, it gets ridiculous. They also went on a 4 hour hike together in which they swam in the water holes on the green belt. That's right, there's water there now.

Back to Ian.

So, of course we baked the cupcakes and cake, but this is one more thing we made. Looks confusing right? I got this idea off of another blog, maybe I'll write one with what we did. But basically, it's home-made hot chocolate sticks. You warm up some milk, water, or, as Stephen and Robe did, coffee, and stir in this chocolate goodness. Caroline and I added marshmallows to the bottom to make them look cool. We then individually wrapped them all and gave them away as the adult favors.

Food pictures! Sadly, we did not get pictures of the pizza or hot dogs.

All of those cupcakes are homemade except for the white ones. Those are from central market! Like the wind up bugs on top? My mom found those for really cheap. The kids (young and old) enjoyed them. They were adorable. They added some pizazz to the cupcakes.

Behind Caroline is a banner we made. It has 13 pictures of Ian from Newborn to One Year! It didn't turn out as expected. Next time, I have some very different ideas. By the way, the boys hung it up. It was pretty adorable though. Ian looks the same size from 6 months on. You can also tell that his ridiculous personality kicked in around 3 months. The picture idea was fabulous. I also picked that up from a blog. I'll add the inspiration links later... after Robe and Caroline leave. Ian is awaking them right now.

Now for Ian's cake. Notice how my child is not dirty. Weird right? Also notice, my kid has a hat on. Very strange. He never wears hats, he always throws them off in a fit of rage. Surprisingly, he didn't cry when we all sang Happy Birthday to him. He looked around confused, and by the end of the song, he was smiling with his famous cheesy smile. What a ham. Anyways, we put the cake in front of him, and he begins to neatly pull of the sprinkles. Eventually, my dad stepped in and helped him, that's why there is a chunk missing. However, Ian still did not get dirty. Leave it to my kid to eat his first birthday cake very neatly. He's adorable.

Ian even started feeding those around him. Here he is feeding my dad. I guess it's nice that he shares. He's still clean. FWIW, he stays clean the entire time. Only getting his hands slightly dirty.

Onward to the presents! Notice D-Money in the background. He read ALL of the cards for me, very helpful. Marissa opened all of Ian's gifts for him, very helpful as well. Ian was on overload not realizing there was a new toy until a few gifts later. I think it's safe to say he was always two gifts behind. He seemed to enjoy it. I think I'm going to put some gifts away and leave some out and rotate them. Finally, we leave...

Here is Ian with Caroline. He's tired. Can't believe we let him stay up late (he had TWO naps, which is incredible, I think this only ever happened one other time when he was sick with the measles). Needless to say, the birthday weekend was a success. He loved it. Remind me to tell you at a later date what I did for his Thank You cards. I haven't done them yet, I'm awaiting for something to arrive in the mail first, but I already wrote them out.

Time to see the guests out, Ian has FINALLY awaken Robe.

Birthday Envelopes

I have been busy. I don't mean your average, every day life busy. I mean busy. Most of it is my own fault... what can I say? Ian's birthday is coming up soon. I created the invitation and had them printed and today, I used some paper Stephen and I had left over from our Save the Date video and made homemade envelopes. OMG! They are so adorable! Since the paper is busy, I printed the addresses on those Avery stickers. I didn't take step-by-step pictures because I didn't think to document it. :( But, I will walk you through it.

The invitations I printed are 4x6. So, of course, my envelopes needed to match. I didn't know envelope sizes, so I Googled It. (I am obsessed with everything Google). I needed A6 envelopes. I googled "free A6 envelope template" and I got a great one! I then printed it out, cut it out, and traced it onto the paper I wanted to use. I held the envelope together with some double-sided tape that I already had.

I then put the invitation in the envelope and sealed it with a cute return label on the back! It is wonderful. Total cost of Ian's invitations? Less than $3. Wonderful! :) I love his invitations too. But, I can't share what we wrote on them until after his birthday because people haven't gotten their invitations yet.

So no... I do not need these extra added things to go on in life. But, who would I be if I was denying my creative side?

I'm sorry. I'll try and update more frequently. Until next time...

Keep it real.