Bailey's birthday!

 

 

Our sweet Bailey turned 1 last Saturday.

This has been the best and fastest year of my life.

We had a wonderful day, had many friends and family over to celebrate with a polka dot themed party.

 

Here are some of the party details:

One of my favorite party things: our mantle decorated with pictures of our sweet girl. There is a picture for each month of her life and some other favorite pictures in frames.

 

The entry table filled with pictures and the guestbook. I had guests leave Bailey a note in the Dr. Seuss book: Oh, the places you'll go.

Another of my favorite things about the party: Mason jars for drinks, wrapped in pink polka dot duct tape.

{Jars and lids from here, Straws from here, Polka dot duct tape from Michael's}

The drink table, filled with the mason jars, more pictures of Bailey, Lemonade, iced tea, and margaritas. {Happy birthday banner from here}

 

 

We had some delicious appetizers:

~ Caprese sticks (small mozzarella balls, basil, and cherry tomatoes with balsamic dip)

~ Dill, ranch pretzels

~ teriyaki bacon wrapped water chestnuts

~ Cheesy baguettes

~ Chips and dip and salsa

 

We had pulled pork sandwiches, fruit salad, coleslaw, green salad, Old Country Deli beans, and  pasta salad for lunch.

 

 

For dessert:

Personalized Bailey cookies from here (they were SO good!), strawberry lemonade and confetti cupcakes from here

 

We've been pretty strict with Bailey and haven't let her have sugar up to her birthday. So she was a little leery of her smash cake, but once she saw we were letting her enjoy it, she dug right in!

I think she got the hang of it!

 

And because I can't get enough of our Bailey girl, here are some more pictures of our fun day!

Grandpa and Nana (my parents)

Grandma (Chris' Mom)

{My heart!}

 

The Crosbys

Silly Daddy

Driving her new car

She had a good day!

She got some fun new friends!

 

She enjoyed her bath in the sink after her cake!

 

It was an amazing day! We had so much fun celebrating our little one and a year of being a family of three.

I'm looking forward to seeing that the future holds for us all!

 

Backyard reveal

I'm so excited to show you our new backyard! I am absolutely in love with it and have already spent a lot of time sitting in awe of the changes that have occured and how it is now an outdoor living space.

First: the before pictures:

The sheds after we painted them. You can see the white picket fence on the left, old fence on the right and scraggily grass.

The roots of the two ficus trees are all coming up through the grass, a big tripping hazad!

A view of the back corner



Some more before pictures right before we bought the house. Gravel and stepping stones, crabgrass and dying plants.

  The guys worked SO hard getting the old grass out. It took about two weeks for the grass to die before they could start to remove it. Two guys, working with pickaxes for three days and the grass was gone.


Dirt, dirt and more dirt!

 New topsoil was brought in and wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow they took it all to the back. The picture on the bottom left was our driveway full of dirt and by that afternoon it was all spread around in the back.

In the bottom right picture you can see there is a deck built (I thought I had a better picture but I guess not. I got my inspiration here). We had two built around the ficus trees to cover the roots and they are absolutely perfect!

Between the two decks we have a planter and it is going to be so colorful!

We are sticking with a tropical theme and wanted lots of bright flowers. We also have bird of paradise, cannas, lilys, grasses, and some other plants that I can't remember the names of.




Here is a panorama of the yard. It is so peaceful sitting out there, like our own little oasis!



We are SO SO happy with the results and even though it doesn't look exactly like I had imagined, I love it just as much as I thought I would. I'm looking forward to many, many days and nights enjoying our new space!