My Inner Party Planning Lady

Before getting married and having a baby, the art of party planning wasn't too crazy involved. (well at least for me) Once Seth purposed, there was a switch that turned on and the planning lady came out, full force with glitter, pearls, sequince and crafts pouring out of her pours. She hasn't left either, but I think has gotten a little stronger after finding out I was pregnant with Kadance. 

After recovering from planning our wedding, I planned my own baby shower, Kadance's first birthday and now working on her second birthday party!!! I've learned secrets and inexpensive ways to make party favors, fancy foods, decor and activities. So I don't break the bank. 

Sneak peak for birthday #2

The dinning room table is getting full of party fun!

Kadance's cake topper! I made out of craft paper, twine, and small wood dowels

Dinner Date

Dinner time with our family is usually a challenge. Seth and I aren't picky eaters and more times than not, we don't care what we have for dinner. This can go on for an hour between us, while I am making something small for Kadance, so she doesn't have to suffer in the decision process. Now this doesn't happen every night, mostly when we are going to go out. Last weekend was one of those non hour long decision nights!!!! I called the spot without hesitation and Seth agreed. On our way to Kabuki we thought it would be nice to invite our friends that just moved to Valencia and my school days girlfriend and her family. Needless to say we thought about it too late and neither could make it. During dinner there was a large family sitting at the table next to us taking pictures of each other. Every time Kadance saw the flash she would say "cheeeeeeeeese"! I ask her if she wanted her picture taken and she nodded yes! I pulled out my phone and said, "Ok baby take a picture with Papa and say cheese!" She was up and saying cheese right away!

When we walked outside Seth asked Kadance if she wanted to take a picture with Mama.....she wouldn't take another picture without Papa being in it. (totally getting to the age of being Daddy's little girl) So sweet!

After the photo session, on our way to the car, we noticed people feeding some ducks at the pond by CPK! I thought Kadance would have a blast watching the ducks, we didn't have any bread to feed them, but she could still watch. After a few minutes a very nice lady that was also there and actually feeding the ducks, offer a hot dog bun she had, so Kadance could feed the ducks too. Kadance thought is was really cool how the ducks would get so close and when you threw the bread they would go crazy over it.

Our family dinner night was so fun we didn't want it to end! Seth and I thought why don't we go get ice cream, Kadance was for that!!! I navigated us to the closest Cold Stone. We got our ice creams, sat outside to eat them and some little girl (Kadance) took over my ice cream. LOL! She wouldn't even share with me, I think she likes ice cream. Seth had to go in and get me another spoon, so I could also enjoy my treat! After a few minutes of letting her have at the ice cream I started to eat it, pretty fast too, so she wouldn't eat the whole thing. I got a little bit of a brain freeze =-(

Slide Slide Slide

 I Slide ~ I Slide ~ I Slide

She's so excited that she's going up the stairs all by herself!

 

There are so many joys when having a baby and watching them grow. I have loved watching my little precious angel grow in the past 2 years. There are so so many firsts and it's so hard to document every single one of them. Believe me I try. With the help of keeping a journal, writing in her baby book, blogger.com and making albums on Shutterfly, I think I have done an pretty good job =) 

August 22nd 2012 we had gone to watch my friend Stephanie's softball game, it would have been her last game if they didn't win....but they WON!!! Yaaaay! Anyways, there was a playground and Kadance made her way over after having a few snacks and becoming a little bored with the game. She hit the swings first, then saw the SLIDE!!! I went up with her a few times and even slid down the slide with her. After three times doing it with Mom, she wanted to go for it on her own. Up the stairs and down the slide all by herself.....well as being a scared Mom I tried to guide her half way down, but I don't think she really needed me to do that =)

Take Me Back to The 80's

This past Saturday we went to our friend Vanessa's 30th Birthday Party and can you guess the theme......oh yes the 80's! It was so much fun dressing up and seeing every ones outfits for what they thought the 80's style was! I wanted to make sure mine was bright and it needed to have sparkle and big hair. I managed to get my hair big for a little while, but it just kept falling.....oh well!

Kadance & I getting ready to leave...Mom had to take a picture of us before left! This spot is where Mom always took my first day of school photos =)

Vanessa's Amazing birthday cake!

Scott & Chelsea were fun and funky

Scott's pants were MC Hammer style! Loved

Kadance with her amazing retro glasses

Lila made matching plastic spike necklaces out of bracelets for her and Kadance

My 80's hair! 

A New Chapter...For Mama-in-Law

The last few weeks we have been trying to go to Burbank on Seth's days off, to help his mom pack up her house. She has been in her place for over 12 years and there has been many great memories. Even though I have only been around for almost 7 years now; Seth and I lived there after we moved back from NYC, we got engaged while living there, we had our engagement party there, Jamie let us have my parent's 40th Anniversary Surprise party there, many great game nights, Christmas Mornings, Thanksgivings and there are some sad memories too, but I like to always keep the good ones at the top of my list!!! =)

Anyways, there are SO SO many closets, drawer, corners, nooks and crannies to go through. Needless to say we found some AMAZING pictures while going through boxes!!! I just couldn't pass up sharing some!!!

Seth's brother Cooper and our good friend James

Seth's younger brother Adam and him (Dodgers vs. Braves)

Seth in the most amazing Christmas outfit ever!!

A Fish is Born

In an earlier post, our friend Sheena and her boyfriend Chris came to visit us for a 5 days and we house sat for a friend of mine's parents. They have a pool and my goal was to attempt to teach Kadance to swim or at least get the hang of it.
The last two days we were at their house, something seemed to click and Kadance was jumping off the step with the kick board. I got to the point that I didn't have to hang on to her and just have my arms close, in case she flipped or something. She was all smiles every time she jumped off the step and swam around the shallow end!

So proud and excited!

She was screaming cuz she was so excited! I had to scream with her LOL

Having so so so much fun!

Just loving it!

The Kadance, The Dress & The Dress Form

Last week I had gotten a order for a uni-sex burp cloth, the parents want to be surprised. I found some super soft giraffe patterned fabric and multi colored polka dot fabric, I purchased both, even though I have a lot of fabric at home, I don't have any that would be good for uni-sex. While I was sewing the burp cloths I glanced over at all my other fabric and thought.....why don't I try to make another dress?!?!??!! I had made Kadance's baptism dress last October and thankfully it turned out exactly how I had envisioned it, plus I managed to not use a patterned. After I finished up the last burp cloth, I took the remainder of the giraffe fabric and started to measure and drape for a dress! I decided to kinda make it like those pillow dresses you keep seeing all over pinterest.

This was the ending result

I liked how the giraffe dress turned out, that the next day I made another out of some cute paisley flower material. I made it a little longer, more A frame shaped and did one bow instead of two. Kadance of course was my model again, but first I took some pictures with the dress on a kids dress form I bought at a local yard sale. Kadance wouldn't take pictures without the dress form in the shot.....she kinda loves the little torso LOL.

Oh I did get one with just her....yea the back of her LOL

From Connecticut to California

Our amazing friend Sheena came to visit with her boyfriend Chris on the 26th of July! We haven't see Sheena since July of 2009.....yes that is 3 years! She was suppose to move to California in August of 2009 and then she met Chris......that all changed and she stayed in Connecticut. I was so super sad that she wasn't moving here, but I knew she was happy. So, through the three years of talking about them coming to visit and a lot of convincing Chris that CA was amazing, they finally made it! PS this was Chris' first time in California. 

Seth unfortunately had to work a lot while they were here, but good thing is he had Thursday and Friday off. We did Hollywood and Highland, The Griffith Observatory, went to Viva Fresh in Burbank to see 5th and Birmingham (Friends of ours that are in a country band), had a tour of CBS Studios (Thank you Jamie!!!) and In N Out 3 times =-( LOL! What can I say they LOVE In N Out!!!

When Saturday came around, Seth had to go to work, so we decided to get some shopping in down at the Camerillo Outlets. I decided to take them the scenic route.....126 threw Fillmore. Sunday we got up at 6:30 am and headed to Burbank/Toluca Lake, to see if we could find some amazing yard sales......bad idea, it was like everyone knew we wanted and were ready to yard sale. We found I think 5 and they were all a bust! The rest of the trip was pretty much spent at the pool, with a quick trip to DT to get some material for a tutu and a little alley shopping. 

Walking down Hollywood Blvd.

Chris & Sheena on the golf cart @ CBS

Our first picture together after 3 years. We are in Cooper's office

Pool fun!!

CSI NY

Kadance passed out

Photo session with Kadance

Our $5.00 British tanks from DT

Their trip was WAY TO short! I miss my Sheena already and she isn't even back home yet, because they stopped off in Salt Lake City. COME BACK TO CA!!!