Dining Room Decor

I have been collecting random plates for a loooong time. I love the way they look when hung on walls. In all of my previous apartments, I had these lovelies hung in my kitchen and eating area, but when we moved into our house I decided to pack up the collection. I thought it might be too girlie or not nice enough for a grown up house.

Until a couple of weeks ago. And then I decided that one of the walls in our dining room needed these plates. And they look great! Why in the world had I left these packed up in the garage? The navy walls make for a perfect background for the plates to really POP. This is a growing collection, as as soon as I get 3 more I will add another row.

Here are a couple of my favorites.....

Dallas Blooms

Dallas Blooms is going on right now at the Dallas Arboretum.... I could spend all day just soaking in all of these beautiful flowers.

Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for all of these pictures. My dad took them!

***New pictures over at Baby M***

Problem Solved

What do you do when you have a puppy that is whimpering to be held, yet you are busy cooking dinner and tending to your toddler?

You put him your baby sling!

One Little Candle and a Cupcake...

We celebrated Miss A's 1st birthday over the weekend and we all had a wonderful time! I feel like I have been planning this party for months - so to see everything come together was a great feeling.

The day was perfect in every possible way -- great weather, a fun party to celebrate our little one and we were surrounded by our closest friends and family. What more could you ask for?

The inspiration for the party was based on 2 things - bright colors and a tablet of Martha Stewart scrapbook paper I had. The colors were fun and vibrant - perfect for a spring party. The invitations were designed by Rice Designs and I loved them! I emailed her pictures of the paper and she was able to incorporate that into the invitation. She did such a great job - it was playful and fun without being too 'babyish.' As you will see in the rest of the pictures, I was able to use the cupcake with the #1 candle in lots of other ways.

My mom/personal seamstress made this jumper and bib for Miss A. I love it! She wore the dress to church yesterday and I think she needs to wear it to all of her spring birthday parties. The coordinating bib was so Miss A would not be topless in her birthday cake video/pictures. I want her to be able to look at these pictures when she is 16 and not get annoyed with me.

Cupcakes galore! I made batch after batch of vanilla cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese icing. I loved how they turned out. I made little toppers for all of the cupcakes using the polka dot Martha Stewart paper and the cupcake with #1 candle from her invitation. Each cupcake was then topped with little round sprinkles. The small cake on the silver pedestal was her personal smash cake. And boy did she smash it!

For the beverages I made adult pink lemonade and regular lemonade. This picture was taken at the end of the party, but each pitcher had strawberry lemonade ice cubes. I made ice using lemonade with sliced strawberries in each cube. The adult lemonade was spiked with strawberry vodka. We also had bright colored swirly straws for the kids (or adults.)

We also had bottled water, a variety of juice boxes for the kids and birthday beer.

The rest of the food included: animal crackers, gold fish, string cheese, mini muffins, chicken salad, and cucumber yogurt dip. I wanted everything to be kid friendly, plus some good food for the adults -- plus, I did not want to mess with cutlery so everything had to be finger foods. I also did not want anything that required me to cook during the party. What fun is a party when you are constantly in the kitchen making sure the food is not burning?

For the decor, we had lots of birthday banners. The Happy Birthday A banner (against the navy wall) was made using the tablet of Martha Stewart paper and the cupcake from the invitation. I also made a banner with pictures of Miss A from the past year. It was fun to look at the monthly pictures and see how much she has changed. I think these pictures will be fun to keep in her baby book. I also made the bright, hanging pom poms. These were fun and easy to make.... they are actually still hanging up. They are so fun to look at, I hate to throw them away.

I blew up her invitation to 8*10 and had all of the party guests sign it. I think this will also be a fun addition to her baby book.

As much as I love fresh flowers, I also love bringing the outside inside. My parents have a great ornamental pear tree in their backyard, so I used some of those branches for arrangements.

All of the flower pots on the front porch had pink and white flowers in them.... and I threw in some bright orange marigolds in the backyard. I also put some of the cupcake toppers in the flower pots. We had bubbles and sidewalk chalk in the backyard for the kids to play with.

And that was Miss A's first birthday party!

Want to know what she got for her birthday? Or want to see her after eating that smash cake? Head over to Baby M for more pictures... ones that include people!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sweet girl!

This has been such a wonderful year... words cannot even express how fantastic she is.

It is hard to believe that just one year ago I was holding her in my arms for the first time.

Puppy Dog Eyes

My brother's dog recently had 9 puppies and over the weekend we made a trip down to Austin to play with the pups.... and see if one wanted to come live with us. I think the white puppy would make a pretty good birthday gift for Miss A.

How could you ever say no to this big puppy dog eyes?!?!

***New pictures over at Baby M***

Parenthood is...

... having your baby get sick in the car - past her bedtime.


... then having to clean out the car seat - outside on the back porch - in the dark - using only the small porch light. ... then going to spray off the car seat, but then having to cut the water hose because there are too many kinks in it and water will not come out.

... then going to wash the car seat cover only to find that you are out of laundry detergent.

... and then going to snuggle with your little girl because she does not feel well.

Sure, it can sometimes be a little hectic, but I would not trade it for anything in the world.

UPDATED ... and then getting that same stomach bug!

The Cupcake Debate

I have mentioned that Miss A's 1st birthday is rapidly approaching. I am pretty sure I have been planning her first birthday party since she was only a couple weeks old.... once we have had her party, I will show pictures of all the fun details!

Right now I am testing out cupcake recipes... I make sure to always make them on Monday so I can take them to my bible study - I do NOT want to be left with dozens and dozens of cupcakes.

The first recipe I made was a wonderful pound cake. A friend passed along the recipe and it was indeed a lb. cake. If I ate too many of these I would definitely pack on the lbs. I added some fresh lemon juice and some pink food coloring in the mix and then made a lemon glaze for the top. I called them pink lemonade cupcakes. They were dense, not too sweet and melted in your mouth.

But, they did not look very festive. And I thought they would be too hard for Miss A to dig into at her party.

So, I turned to the trusty Barefoot Contessa for round #2. And I have to say that this round was the clear winner. Her flower cupcakes are delish. Once again, I put some pink food coloring in the frosting and I added some sprinkles for flair. I think these will be great for her party.