Birthday girl!

It is unbelievable to me that Sophia is one year old. I suppose every parent feels that way, which is why I have heard "It goes so fast!" or some variation thereof about 5,000 times over the last year.

I remember bringing our tiny bundle home from the hospital, and telling John that I wished she would just stay little. (At least I wished that until she started in with colic . . . ) Yet every stage has been better than the last, which I also have been told many times from other parents. I really couldn't have imagined how wonderful motherhood is, and am so glad my plans of no children EVER have not come true!

So we had a first birthday party. And what a fun party it was! Sophia was a very happy birthday girl, bouncing from one grandparent/auntie/friend to another, eating lots of yummy food, and playing Pin the Bow Tie on the Bear with just a little help from Mommy.

The weather was absolutely beautiful for Sophia's birthday; clear blue skies, warm but not too warm, and no humidity. We spent much of the day preparing for the party, and Sophia tried to help as best she could. She helped blow up balloons, with her version of blowing raspberries into them. Not very effective, but she enjoyed it!

She also wanted to help tie ribbons, although that mostly ended in a baby wrapped in ribbon instead of ribbon tied on balloons. Note the cute birthday girl t-shirt, thanks Auntie Helene!

After the second nap of the day, it was time to get dressed up, which involved wearing a pink diaper to go with the pink shirt, and top those with the tutu of course!

Like everything else Sophia comes into contact with, the tutu is for eating . . . when you are teething is there anything that is not good for eating???

Check out those cute little top teeth!!!

What would a teddy bear themed first birthday party be without lots of teddy bears?!

Sophia had so many teddy bear friends come to her party, old and new, big and little.

And Sophia was not the only one to enjoy the teddies . . .

Carson in particular had fun playing with the teddy bears, though I think here he is plotting how best to go about destructing this one!

Ramsey won the prize for biggest (scariest?!) bear of them all.

Sophia got to try some new foods for her birthday . . . hot dog, raspberries, and pasta! What do you know, she likes them all.

"Do you want some of my hot dog?"

Let the games begin! And may I say, how I WISH I had pictures of the grown-ups doing the clothing relay race. I think I would pay to have permanent evidence of Ramsey, Dad, and Ryan tripping down the lawn in their getups, heels included!

Next it was time for Sophia to open her gifts. Well, Mama to open gifts and show Sophia what she got . . . if the Snuggler had opened her gifts we would still be sitting there working away at them!

Here's Sophia meeting her as-yet unnamed teddy. I made him for her, and we also bought her the book "Courderoy," what a classic! Just by my left elbow you can see my old teddy, Bartholomew. He was made from a towel by my great grandmother, and if Sophia loves her teddy half as much as I have loved Bartholomew that will be a well-loved bear!

Next up: time for cake! The cake alone could be a blog post, but you don't want to hear the whole story, trust me. It was delicious, I'll say that: Apple Cinnamon cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream frosting. I have never made such complicated frosting, but it was worth the look on Sophia's face when she tasted it!

I'm afraid Sophia is going to be a sugar bug like her mama, though we will be holding off on giving her any more such concentrated doses!

By the end of her party, Sophia was a worn out little baby in a sugar coma. What a fun time we had celebrating her young life with so many family and friends! Thank you all, we are truly blessed.

The drapes, the drapes!

I have been working on making over the dining room the past few weeks (Really, over a month, but who's counting?!) and finally have some fruits to show for my labor. Below you can see the before, ugly brownish mustardy tan color, with horrible lace curtains. Also, you probably can't tell, but the trim has about four shades of white and cream in various places.

Once I painted the hutch and moved it into the kitchen I finally had space in the dining room to set up shop and go to town painting. It took a ridiculous amount of time to pick a paint color, but it was worth it because I am so pleased with the green color I finally chose! It is bright (but not too bright) and sophisticated (in my opinion), and works perfectly with the curtain material. And it only took painting five sample color squares on the wall to find it! (If anyone is looking for Benjamin Moore paint in green, I now have every green sample strip they make.)

But really, the curtains are what this post is about. I only mention painting the room because you can see the color in the picture of the finished curtains. But really, I can't seem to get a good photo of the color, it just has to be seen in person!

I found fabric that I absolutely fell in love with at the Fabric Warehouse here in Auburn. For $5.98 a yard! With 8 1/2 foot long panels x4, a nice low price was a necessity.

I did take the extra step of lining the panels with a thermal lining fabric that will help the house stay cool in summer and warm in winter. We have such huge windows lining the drapes was important to me. I would much rather have lined drapes than plastic covered windows!

Here they are! I had planned on one day of sewing, but that stretched into five as I sewed, ripped apart, sewed, ripped apart a number of times until I was happy with the results. The fabric was VERY particular about how I sewed it, and if anything was off even a little bit the panel did not hang well.

It's all in the details, right? I found a curtain rod with a neat little glass bulb at the end that will coordinate with the chandelier (once I get time to make over said chandelier!). I actually bought and hung a different rod, but then decided I hated it. The rod was too thin and didn't look good with such substantial drapes. Back to Lowe's once again, but these are worth every cent extra.

Thanks to Mom, who helped me choose a color and then trimmed out a large portion of the room. Without her I would have been even more undecided about what color to pick!

And also, many thanks to John, because if it weren't for my wonderful supportive husband, I wouldn't be able to do any of my projects. He helps pick up the slack with the rest of the house, always has positive things to say, and lets me decorate however I want, which is such fun! He actually told me later that when I first brought the paint home and showed him the color he didn't like it, but didn't want to hurt my feeling so kept quiet. Two coats later he says he loves it!

Water baby

We have taken Sophia to Range Pond a few times now, and finally she has decided that the water is not such a bad thing. The very first time she screamed bloody murder . . . but most recently the water was nice and warm and she decided going in with mama was fun!

Thanks to Helene she has a cute little pink bathing suit, complete with a decorative heart on the front of it. The suit fits her pretty well, but is just a little bit baggy, especially on the bum, which only makes it even cuter!

"Hmm, this is pretty cute, but I wonder what it tastes like?"

"Yummy!!!"

So at last we have a happy baby at the beach, not a screaming-don't-put-my-toes-in-the-water baby. I don't love her more or less according to her willingness to get wet, but going to the beach is so much more fun with the water as part of the equation!

Little reader

Sophia's mama loves to read. A perfect afternoon is one spent cuddled up in a cozy chair wrapped in a blanket with a good book and some chocolate while a storm rages outside. Rain pounding the windows while I am off in Egypt with Amelia Peobody or playing with Emily Byrd Starr a hundred years ago on Prince Edward Island . . . bliss!

By all appearances, the little Snuggler seems to be taking after her mama. My (four) faithful followers will remember seeing her sneak a peek at my book while on the way to the beach a month or so ago.

As you can see, she continues to love her books!

Mom and baby chilling out with their books at the beach . . .

a mystery for mama, Noah's Ark for Phia.

"Ooo, what are you reading?"

Notice Noah's Ark has been discarded, because whatever Mama is doing

is what the Munchkin wants to be doing. It's always more fun!

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

This morning I got home from work, and found "Go, Dog, Go" on top of the bookcase,with page 23 lying on top. Out of the book! Crumpled by my favorite little bambino's adorable dimpled hand. I am glad she is learning early to love books and if a few pages get torn out with her exuberant arm waving while "reading," so be it. Though, we'll see how happy I am about said "reading" and page tearing when I am writing a check at the library because she has been enjoying my books . . . might be a different story then. (Ha! Pun intentional.)

Read on, folks!

Goodbye . . .

This summer is flying by faster than ever before, a frenzy of plans and events, not quite enough cuddle time with the Snuggler, and NO time for strawberry picking.

What a sad day it was that I realized I would not be stocking our freezer with berries to last thru the long winter. Even when I was ginormously pregnant last summer, I picked five gallon bags worth of strawberries for the freezer, and enough besides to make a pie and eat them for days.

Not so this year. How time flies with an almost-one year old, between laundry, meals, cleaning, playtime, working a night a week, and my current dining room redo.

And now, last summer's berries have run out. I made John a strawberry-blueberry pie for his birthday, and emptied every last berry from the freezer. At least it was a pie to remember! Flakey crust, berries oozing out, cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top, and just warm enough to get the vanilla ice cream a little melty. Perhaps my best pie ever!

So with a sigh, I say goodbye to strawberry muffins in January, cobbler in February, and waffles with strawberry syrup in March. At least blueberry season is still going strong, so there is still hope for blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup on Christmas morning.