Dear Elaina,

Happy birthday sweet girl! Mommy can't even explain to you how wonderful the past two years have been. You have brought so many people such joy and happiness. Watching you grow up is so bittersweet, but I wouldn't stop it if I could. I absolutely love the little girl that you are becoming. Hearing your sweet voice say "Love you, Mommy" is worth all the "work" I've had to do in the past two years. Thank you for choosing me to be your mommy...I can't imagine my life without you in it.

ALL my love,
Mommy <3




Now I'm going to go cry like a baby because my little girl is TWO!!

Favor bags on the cheap...

Party favors are by NO means required, but I for one love doing them. For Elaina's first birthday party, which was safari animal themed, my mom crocheted 6" animals for each of the kids and attached them to a chinese favor box filled with animal crackers. They were a huge hit.

This year, I decided to do a favor bag, but wanted something in it that the kids would actually use/enjoy. 

Here's an example of what each kids bag contained. First off, the bag itself is reusable. They're a Target $1 bin find. I got 4 different designs, each Sesame Street themed. Inside were 3 books, 1 was another Target $1 bin find and the two write-n-wipe books were from Dollar Tree. Crayons were purchased at Wal-Mart for $0.25/pack, crazy straws were 6/$1, snack size ziploc bags were filled with Sesame Street themed snacks (Goldfish crackers & Cookie Crisp), and the two coloring sheets were printed for free from online sources.

That brings each bag to a total of...less than $5. I'm gonna say around $4.50 - $4.75! THAT is a bargain in my book. And the good part is that this isn't $5 worth of trinkety (made up word?) junk that's going to get tossed within a couple of minutes. 

Moral of this story? Dollar Tree & $1 Bins are your friend!!!

MIA apologies

So, I've been MIA lately. I don't know why honestly.

In the past month I've been working on Elaina's birthday party (this weekend!), starting Weight Watchers (7.5lbs gone! woohoo), and working (boo)!
Elaina is quite the chatterbox now. She's constantly asking "Whasdat?" which is her way of saying "What's that?" She's started composing small sentences/questions, which I love. She's also saying "Wuv you mommy/daddy/papaw/nana/mamaw". THAT melts my heart like nothing else. Even if she doesn't understand what she's saying, it's still so sweet to hear.

As far as the birthday party is concerned, we're pretty excited. Elmo himself will be making an appearance. Yeah, can't wait for that! Elaina is going to love it! I promise pictures soon.

Now some randoms from the last month...

melting the heart of an uncle

As if her uncle Jason could love her any more, Elaina looked at him yesterday and said "Jas-y"...needless to say he smiled bigger than I've probably ever seen him smile. I know how crazy he is about his niece and it's quite obvious that she's pretty smitten for him too. I love the relationship they have and hope they're always close. He's always been an amazing big brother to me, so I know he'll always have Elaina's back as an uncle.

(June 2011)

vocabulary explosion!

Elaina has taken off in the vocabulary department, and I couldn't be happier. It seems like she's saying something new everyday!
My favorite is still "mummy" (no clue where she gets that English accent?!).
Her favorites seem to be "book", "babies", "duck", "bye-bye", and "yeah". We don't get "yes" and/or "no" from her, we get "yeah" and "nah". And this morning I asked her if she wanted milk and she said "please"...manners make my heart melt.
I love getting to hear her voice more and more. We've been hearing it for quite a while, but now we're finally understanding all the "Elaina jibberish".

I haven't mentioned our beach trip, but in one word it was amazing. We had such fun taking Elaina to the beach for the very first time! She loved the ocean and the sand. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the week...

{happy anniversary}

4 years ago today Kevin and I got married. In some ways the past 48 months have flown by, but then again I feel like we've been together for forever. Little did we know that our 4th anniversary would be spent with our beautiful (nearly) 2 year old daughter on a date to Salsarita's and Target. Sure, a nice romantic fancy dinner would be nice, but we both know and agree we'd just miss Elaina and talk about her the entire time. So, Tex-Mex and Target is a-okay with me! Happy anniversary Kevin! <3

conversations with E

me: "Elaina, what color is your shirt?"
her: "abiba"
me: "Does that mean purple?"
her: "abibish"


we need a translator.