Epiphanie Bags Giveaway

Thanks to my friend Maegan for alerting me to this fab giveaway! Everyone knows my love of giveaways, and this is my new favorite of all time. How amazing would it be to win a new Canon 5D Mark II?! The other prize option is a $2500 gc to Southwest Airlines, which is SUPER tempting, but you need money to stay and eat once you fly somewhere, so that's not as appealing as the camera this time around. And, if I had a fabulous camera, I would of course go and get one of these great bags! I'm loving the Belle bag the most. You only have another hour and a half (midnight CST) to enter - so go go go!

Family

I'm SO excited to share this with you. We got up super early this morning and met up with my friend Erin for a great photo shoot. Avery was a peach, and she was so tickled by Erin and by being the center of attention (but, um, when isn't she the center of attention?). I can't wait to see the rest of the pics and it's going to be so hard to choose just a few to have printed. I wish I had more wall space. Luke thinks I'm crazy for having so many pictures done, but I love them all. I love the ones my fab sister-in-law has done, documenting Avery's first year. I love these family shots from today. I love being able to look back at them and see how our family has changed in the past year. I love looking back and remembering what it was like to have a newborn, and a 6 month old, and now an almost-one year old. And one day, when she's grown, we'll pull the pictures out again and I'll tell her the stories from one of the sweetest years of my life.

Best Wishes

I think my youngest sister has had enough time to share her good news, so I can talk about it openly now. She's getting married!!  Her betrothed is a fabulous man by the name of Dane, and we are so excited to have him join the family. Congrats Brit and Dane!

**Um, I totally don't know how to make the picture fit within the frame this time, or how to change my blog design to fit bigger pictures. My apologies.**

Party Planning

You should see my kitchen table tonight. There is glitter and paper and glue stick smears and hot glue strings everywhere. Rhinestones and needles and thread and ribbons. All to produce this lovely:

 Many thanks to my hubby for 1. modeling with the banner and 2. smiling for the picture finally

I've been diligently, slowly, over-meticulously (is that a word?) planning Avery's first birthday party. She won't remember it, but I will, as well as the 35 other family members coming to it (or at least I hope they do). Really, I blame all of this attention to detail on my mother. You should see her when she plans weddings. I'm just getting lots of practice in now before I help plan my daughter's (or plural) wedding(s) [plural on the daughters, not the number of weddings per daughter]. Did I just confuse you?

The banner is just a little preview for you of what's to come! I've got a whole lineup of desserts planned for the party, lots of flowers and pompoms and pretty little things for the prettiest little gal around.

And I can't take credit for the creativity behind this birthday sign...inspiration found here at my new favorite blog, Style Me Pretty. If you haven't checked this site out, go NOW. It's amazing, and I find all kinds of ideas on here that could be used for birthdays and baby showers and bridal showers.

I Love this Face!!

Balloon!

Avery was given her first balloon at the grocery store this week, and as the checker handed it to her, Avery looked up at me with such delight on her face, as if to say, "Mom, Moooommmm, did you know about this wonder?!"

So we took it home and she bounced it and bopped it and giggled. 

Zoom Zoom

Zoom! from Luke Presley on Vimeo.

I'm so behind on putting pictures up, and I've been getting complaints. (Sorry Mom and Shell!) Here's some old favorites from the past month or so.

She loves books. They're her favorite thing to pull off the shelf or out of her toy basket.

She was crying, but then Nana pulled out a book. All better!

Posing for the camera - I missed the goofy grin by half-a-second.

Girls' Weekend 2010

Sometimes you just need to get away for awhile and relax in the bright sunshiney-ness of God's creation. 

Avery and I were blessed with a spontaneous trip to Port Aransas with my dear friend Crystal and one of her precious babies. Good talks, lots of laughter, relaxing, eating, and being able to spend some uninterrupted time in the Word made for a very good couple of days. This was also Aves' first trip to the beach, and I think she loved it.

Analise sporting some stylish duds and preparing for a nap on the beach.

Please notice the puff cereal stuck to her swimsuit, by the flower. We don't leave home without those. 

 

Once the puffs were gone, Avery switched to eating sand. Not just one bite, but multiple bites. Instead of stopping her, I took pictures. Mom of the Year? Probably not.

February 2010

February was SUCH a busy month for us. Looking back, I'm not even sure how we filled our time, but here we are, now into March. We traveled to Houston for birthday parties and then again at the end of the month for the birth of our new nephew Sidney! He is just the most precious baby, next to our daughter, of course.

 

sweet Sidney with his daddy (Luke's older brother)

I don't think Avery even noticed his existence - you have to be bright and flashy to catch her attention these days.

Smiling for the camera.

 We've been taking lots of trips to the park. I love that she has hair that blows in the wind now.

She's close to walking - she is working on standing on her own, but she won't take a step unless she is holding onto someone or something. So, she cruises around the coffee table and back and forth between it and the couch. She's also bending down to pick up objects, which she promptly drops and picks up again. Over and over. And! This is a big one...she tackled stairs all by herself (with me hovering directly behind her)...she's never been on them before, and up she went without hesitation. How did she figure that out?!

I also spent some time doing some baking for friends. Forgot to take pictures of a couple of the cakes, but I did manage to snap some shots of these. And, to check them out from a better photo shoot, go here.My fab friend Erin is a great photographer, and these were for her daughter's 1st birthday.

Sorry for the sparse posting lately. We're quite busy and we're both battling colds this week- Avery was so nice and decided to share hers with me.