Where, OH whereeee have I been?!

Hey guys! I have been so busy busy busy. Opal and I are currently recovering from a small cold that seems to be passing pretty quickly. 

I wanted to share a few of the photos from Dillon's trip. We had so much fun, it was amazing to see Opal and her daddy reconnect and form a bond again. She has been asking for his every day. He is literally the first thing she asks for in the morning. She pops up and smiles really big and lets out the cutest "dada?".... 

It melts my heart. 

Anyways, while he was here we did a lot of activities, so here are some of my favorites:

First, I picked him up in Los Angeles, so we headed to Hollywood BLVD and had lunch at Dave & Busters. We then walked the strip and went to Ripley's Believe it or not. It was a lot of fun and they had some really neat stuff.

We went to Ikea afterwards, and then hit the road to go home.

When we got home we decided to take Opal to the zoo and to an amusement park for children.

 Dillon and Opal fed and pet sting rays. It was very cool.

 They fed the giraffe together! Opal was amazed at how big the giraffe was.

 She loved the petting zoo. She kept saying, "dog, dog, dog".. haha!

She is basically as tall as me, now!

I secretly loved having Dillon there to push the stroller so that I could do more fun stuff!

Opal really enjoyed the merrie-go-round. After this photo was taken, tons of other kids hopped on with us.

 nursing pit stop!

We also took her to the park to play. She and daddy went down all of the slides and she got to go on the swings.

I have a lot more stuff to share, but I still need to edit the photos.

After his week here, we drove to Monterey, CA and to San Francisco. It was amazing.

We had a couple bad luck scenarios but we made the very best out of it.

:-)

9 month update.

Nine Month Update!

My beautiful, amazing, brilliant baby is 9 months old!

I can't even believe this! She is pulling herself up,

attempting to stand on her own, and even walk on her own!

I know it is coming soon. Hopefully she will stand on her

own while her daddy is here to experience it!

 

She has been eating off of my plate non stop now.

She loves yogurt.

She gets to see daddy in one day!

 

*edit: She stood up for her first time: 9/15/2014

Grandparent's day 2014.

Our first Grandparent's Day!

September 7th was grandparents day!

My mom is so amazing and loves Opal so much!

I got her to pose for some photos with Opal for her first year as a grandma!

(She rarely wants to be in photos, so I was very happy this happened!)

 

I wont go into anything super long,

but I will share some things about my mom and Opal.

 

My mom was on a Skype Hospital computer at the exact moment I first held Opal!

Opal thinks my mom is so freaking funny! She giggles every time that she sees her.

 

My mom will buy almost anything for Opal if it has elephants on it! :-)

 

<3

 

We took my mom out shopping after these photos!

Recap of my 21st birthday.

I AM FINALLY TWENTY-ONE!

I can now say "yes" to wine at restaurants and beer at burger joints! Woo-hoo!

Here are a couple photos from my party.

I didn't get that many photos from that night, mostly

because Opal was superrrrrr crazy and wanted me to hold her all night.

 

 

The lanterns hanging in the tree.

 

My cake table against the side of the house.

 

The letters were hanging with fishing line.

 

 

Definitely not how I planned it, but my family was trying to help, soooo...

 

On the second I turned 21. I had so much fun this past weekend with my party, shopping with my mom and baby sister, and then hanging out with my family at dinner. It was pretty awesome that Opal got to experience this day with me, and I hope I get to share a lifetime more with her. The only thing I would have changed, would be that my husband was here to enjoy the day with us too. But- this week she and I will be hitting the road to LAX to pick that handsome man up.

So, before all of that craziness happens, I wanna share some photos from my birthday party, cake time, and the prep. 

:)

She went down for bedtime, but woke up an hour later!
Partied in her pajamas after that!!

 

My sister offered to hold the baby.......

playing with mama!

my baby sister and opal, my favs!

 

 

~sisters~

cake time! (days later on my ACTUAL birthday)

Opal was so excited for the candle time!

<3

 

Can't wait for Opal's first birthday!!!

Flamingo Party- planning PT 2 - CENTERPIECES

Hey guys! So, I am only days away from my party now, and have so much to do still! 

I decided last night to start putting my centerpieces together and then individually bag 

them so that on the day of the party I can save some time, and only have to take 'em

out of a bag and set them on the table!

I want to share some really easy centerpieces, that literally cost me LESS than $5!!

Also, I will share where you can *hopefully* find the same items, or similar ones.

First off, I'll share the cup and utensils holders that I bought at Target.

The holder itself is designed by Poppytalk in their Poppytalk for Target party line!

This line is currently on clearance, so now is the time to go snag it really cheap!

I also found these cute cups at Target, they're also Poppytalk's.

The picnic napkins were from Michaels Craft Store and the spoons/forks were from Walmart

I really wanted them to have a picnic feeling, so I wrapped the utensils in the

napkins and tied a little piece of thin yarn around them.

Now for my centerpieces!!!!

For these, I really didn't spend a whole lot on them!

I bought the tin chalk bucket at Target, it was found in the $1 bins!

They currently have a cartwheel offer for 20% off this section of the store!

Which would make them .80 cents!

The chalk pen, I bought in April for my sister's car windows after her wedding,

so I didn't spend anything on it. But- they run for around $5 at Joann's.

Obviously you can use regular chalk and not have to spend a lot at the dollar tree.

I only used the pen because I am putting it into the bags and didn't want it to smear.

Next, you'll need the foam. I also already had this, but you don't need a lot 

and can find this really cheap at Walmart for under a couple dollars!

You'll also need flowers! I opted out of the real deal to keep in

 my budget! I found these at the dollar tree, and because my party 

is in the evening, nobody will notice that they're super cheap! 

Especially if you take the not so cute leaves off of them!

These pinwheel picks are from Michael's, they're the brand "Celebrate It!"

I believe they were on clearance for around $1.

If you use wire cutters and trim the flowers to be just high enough to poke

out of the bucket, it'll look great and nobody will see inside!