The girl’s birthdays are only 10 days apart so with all of the fuss over them, we didn’t want to leave little man out. Here is a quick photo shoot Adam did on Sunday. Little dude keeps us entertained for sure!

He looks like his cousin, Nathan, in this picture!

Little farm dude in his “work boots”

Our baby girl turned one this month. We decided on a small, family celebration this year until she is more aware to “friends” and “presents.” I made stuffed shells and homemade bread and everyone but MJ enjoyed vanilla cupcakes with strawberry icing (left over from K’s birthday cake).

As most of you know, we don’t give our kids refined sugar until they are 2 (we do our best) so we used a watermelon for her cake.

We did this with K as well on her first birthday so I think we will continue with this trend. She loves watermelon so it didn’t take her long to dig into her “cake.” We had a blast watching her stuff huge handfuls of watermelon into her mouth and then she would offer us some as well.

This was her first time opening presents so it was interesting watching her figure that out. She was more interested in the paper and bags than the presents inside.

The latch board was a huge success with all 3 kids. They love opening and closing all of the doors. I got this for free with my Pampers points!!

She still doesn’t care to walk, although she can. She will stand up and take a step and then realize she can move a lot of faster during her unique crawl/scoot.

She loves Ashli Grace but she hasn’t quite learned to be gentle and she is usually trying to steal AG’s pacifier.

We are so blessed with this little girl even at 2 in the morning when she would rather play in our bed and say “Dada” over and over!

Birthdays are a big deal in our home so we had a lot of fun celebrating K’s birthday this year.  Adam had to work on her birthday so he took her kayaking the night before.

My handsome man!

K took the pictures of Adam.

She requested breakfast in bed (our bed for some reason) so I made the PW waffles with fresh squeezed OJ.

We climbed trees and swam on her birthday and then we celebrated as a family that evening at dinner.

The following Saturday, we celebrated again with her friends; we are so blessed with an awesome group of friends. Her party “theme” was reading with a table to make bookmarks and a book exchange. I loved the idea of asking people to NOT bring presents and to bring a used book instead. Each child had the opportunity to decorate a bookmark and then pick a book out of the pile to take home (I laminated the bookmarks so hopefully they will last longer than a week). My in-laws were wonderful hosts and everyone loved the peaceful, country setting. There was a sandbox, a swing set and a bouncy house (thankfully we own it) and of course lots of trees to climb! K requested a homemade strawberry cake and homemade peach and strawberry ice cream. I had peaches and strawberries in the freezer from the summer harvest of a local farm and everything was delicious!

My cousin, Derek, came from Pensacola. The kids love him (we do too of course)