thank goodness for nice, soft diapers

Claire's Cake Smash

Earlier this week we let Claire have a little cake before her birthday... I really wanted to take some cake smash pictures for her birthday invitations. :)

This is the cake and her before the "smash" (she wouldn't keep the party hat on, so this is the only picture I have of her with it on).


This was our whole set up. She wouldn't crawl over to the cake. She was super excited though "ooh oohing" for it and pointing. We tried to encourage her to "go get it" but in the end we had to put her right next to it. :)

She actually didn't get too messy with it, and most of the smashed cake part was our doing... he he. :)

And just as a side note... my whole July C's centers around these pictures. I'm counting the cupcake as my 'Cook'. I made a candy liner for the bottom. I think it looks a lot better than if I had tried frosting it. :) For my 'Create' I made the tutu, the party hat, the pennant banner in the background and a couple other birthday hair bows, (but of course she won't leave those in). And obviously the cake smash pictures are my 'Capture' for the month. I'll post more of them on my photoblog if you want to see. :)

As for the birthday invitations... I think they turned out pretty cute (in my unbiased opinion). :)


Can't believe our baby's almost one! :)

let freedom ring baby claire!

oh, what fun and mischievous memories this holiday conjures up! there was that time my family sat so close that the remnants of the fireworks fell straight down into our faces. there was that year that my friends and i had a huge war with a ton of roman candles, each of us nursing our fair share of burns when we were done. there were countless independence days spent trying to blow stuff up with firecrackers, from barbie dolls to milk jugs filled with gasoline. there was that one late night that ended with us rolling a flaming trash can off a dock into the lake. and there was that one fourth of july that amber and i spent together, comforting our little girl and reassuring her that fireworks really were a good thing. :)

the day started nice and early. we were up at 5:45 to go see the local balloon festival. we weren't expecting a huge crowd that early in the morning, but we were proven wrong and we ended up getting in a nice long morning walk. we wandered around amongst the hot-air balloons as they were being blown up, then settled in to enjoy the spectacle of 30 balloons taking off at once. the weather had other ideas. a sudden gust of wind blew many of the balloons over so they decided, though not severe at all to us land dwellers, the impending storm would be a little too difficult to battle on its own turf in the sky. so we packed it up and attempted to go see the parade.

we held no hopes of getting a great seat at the parade. it seemed half of provo was already camped out along the parade route staking claim to the best of spots. we ended up lucking out and ran into a football buddy of mine who had some extra seats that we were welcome to. nice. well claire slept through most of it, and when she was awake seemed far most interested in everything other than the parade, but we still had an enjoyable time.

in the evening we headed up north to visit my aunt and uncle for some family fun. we did some grilling, played at the park, and got in a fun game of ultimate frisbee, amber's first time playing since getting pregnant. she still rocks at it. :) afterwards we headed to the church parking lot to enjoy the show put on by my cousins. after a few loud bangs, claire wasn't quite sure she enjoyed fireworks and started to give us a little whimper. after we explained to her how much fun fireworks are, she seemed to not mind them so much. :)

Another Birthday

I had a lovely birthday thank you very much! :) It's been a great year for us and I've grown and learned a ton (it's amazing how much you learn just by becoming a mom... :)). I'm so ready for this next year and whatever it may bring!

We celebrated my birthday a day early by having a picnic at the park and going swimming at the Scera pool in Orem. It was such a nice warm day, we all loved it! And then that evening we went out to eat at Olive Garden. Yum! :) It's too bad I didn't get any pictures of that day though. On my birthday I woke up to these lovely flowers...


I do love getting flowers occasionally. We always say how we'd rather spend our money on something that lasts cuz flowers just die, but they do make me feel special when I see them so it's always nice to get them every once in awhile. :)

I had to work a few hours on my birthday and Scott had a football game so we had my cake in between everything. I love my ice cream cakes... they are so yummy! :)

Claire is going to be a pro at blowing out candles when we get to her birthday! :)


Just had to show these pictures... one of my presents was this little rocking chair. It's sort of a present to Claire as well, obviously. I'm excited to paint it a bright color though and use it has a photo prop for kids! :)