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! :)

June C's

Create- We have wanted to make some "Bryson" blocks for our little shelf for a long time now. We got a scrap piece of wood to make them almost 2 years ago and it's just been stashed away in a closet this whole time. The hard part was cutting the wood into blocks. We didn't have a saw and so the whole project was just kinda forgotten. This month though I asked my little brother Daniel to help me out with it. He has taken a few woodworking or carpentry classes in the past so he knew what he was doing. We got my dad's old power saw thingy (like my use of terms?) out and cleaned it off (it was covered in cobwebs and dirt) and cut the wood into blocks. The machine kinda scared me so I only cut 2 blocks off and I let my brother do the rest. :) Then he showed me how to use the sanding tool on the power drill thingy, and I sanded and rounded the edges and corners with that. Thanks Daniel for all the help! After all that it was a lot easier. I just painted them, mod podged the paper and letters on, and decorated them a little with buttons and ribbon and stuff, and ta da... we finally have our "Bryson" blocks! :)


Cook- Like I've mentioned in a past blog, we love Fazoli's... and we also love Olive Garden! The thing that we love and always get at these places is the Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo. So this month I searched for a similar recipe and found this one. I even read the comments on the recipe and changed it up a little with some of their recommendations. We all loved it, including Claire! :)


Capture- At the beginning of the month my friend from work had asked me to take pictures of her family and her little girl that was turning one. I got to take pictures for them on her birthday! She was such a cutie and I had a lot of fun taking them. I also entered a couple of the I Heart Faces Photo Challenges this month so you can look at those on my photoblog. And then, just cuz I've been trying forever to get a good picture of Claire's eyelashes (which are so long!), I finally captured this one and so I thought I'd post it. :)

100th Blog Post

I was about to do my June C's post but figured that was lame for a 100th post so instead I'm doing a post all about Claire. She's a whole lot cuter and more interesting than my C's (of course she's a "C" too, my favorite C- for Claire, get it? he he).

Claire is getting more and more personality lately and we love it. She's learning all these new things that make her seem more like a little girl rather than a baby.

She's getting into things and making messes...


She plays with her toys now like she knows what she's doing. I know this seems like such a silly and small thing to mention, but for us newbie parents every little accomplishment or new thing she learns is just amazing! I can't help but think wow, she's so smart! She learned how to put a ring on a post! he he :)


She hugs things she likes. Me, daddy, stuffed animals, her bottle, ect. I love when her little arm wraps around my neck and squeezes. It melts my heart. I so wish the first picture wasn't blurry. It's hard to get her to smile at the camera these days, I seriously have to jump around and act like a monkey to get her to smile, but then I'm rocking the camera a bit too much... :)


She's taking more and more steps as she tries to get from one place to another. And no matter how hard we try to slow her down by putting her in boxes, bags, and in her crib, she's still learning way too quickly. :)


We also spend time with friends occasionally. The other day we went on a bike ride, played in the sprinklers and ate popsicles. It was lots of fun. It's funny seeing her play and interact with other kids. She does get a little shy like her parents, but I know she's having fun. :)


Summer is here finally and she loves being outside. She points to the door a lot now letting me know she wants to go out. She points to everything and anything she wants. It's kinda funny. She's such a silly girl. We can't believe she'll be 1 year old in just a little over a month! whoa. :)

Splash Pad

If a picture is worth a thousand words... how about a dozen pictures? :)

We'll definitely be going back soon...wanna join us? :)