Aubrey's 1st Birthday

A couple days after Christmas was Aubrey's 1st birthday. Happy Birthday to our new little walker!

Here is Aubrey's cake. I saw this elephant and knew that it was perfect for her cake. I bought the pattern from Cheswick Company on Etsy. You can buy the pattern or the kit. Since I basically own a craft store myself I just had to buy the pattern. And seriously, I had everything I needed already even down to the little jingle bells - ridiculous, I know! : )

I made cupcakes with the left over cake batter. Much more appropriate cake portion for a 1 year old. I used the chocolate chip cupcake with dark chocolate frosting recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcake Cookbook. The chocolate frosting makes for some good messy pictures too.

The 2 finger shove into the mouth. She learned it from her dad. : )

Sydney patiently waiting for her turn to eat a special treat.

My new favorite picture!

A great picture of Grandpa and the girls.

Happy Birthday Aubrey!

Santa Photo

Past photos: 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Sydney's First Snow

Sydney has been asking for snow for years now. I keep telling her that she is a Florida baby and not to expect it anytime soon. Thankfully, this was her year! It started snowing Christmas night and by the next day we had 6 1/2 inches! Let me remind you we were not in Florida but at my parents in North Carolina. I forgot how pretty snow can be...but not pretty enough to permanently live in a place with snow! : )

Snow Angel.

Building a snowman with Grandpa and Grandma.

Tomato eyes and mouth. Carrot nose.

Snowball Fight!!

They all had hot chocolate and marshmallows after coming inside. She's one spoiled little girl! : )

Aubrey's First Christmas

My sweet baby girl!

Merry Christmas!

Wow! Look at that ginormous real tree! This is Christmas morning. Syd can't contain her excitement.

Aubrey with her new hand-sewn stocking. Thanks to Grandma.

Aubrey with one of her many new toys. And me behind the camera using one of my new toys - a new camera lens! Yay!

Mini-Florida Christmas

We went to my parent's house for Christmas. Right before we left we had a mini-Christmas and let the girls open some presents.

Christmas Portraits

Sorry for the delay in blogging but I have been taking a vacation from the computer. I haven't opened up my laptop for a whole week! It's been nice.

I have multiple Christmas blog posts to share. The first one is their little portrait pictures. It's so hard getting Aubrey to cooperate for pictures! Out of the 100 pictures I took, only a few of them are acceptable! Sydney isn't much better. : ) Here are my favorites:

Someone is super excited about Christmas...

Can you guess who?

The little fashionista! Goodness - the pose is killing me. I see more gray hairs in my not-to-far future.

Little Miss Personality!

The many faces of Little...

Hanukkah

We went to go visit our good friends in Montgomery over the weekend. We were able to celebrate a few days of Hanukkah with them. Here are the kids enjoying the present from day one:

It's amazing how Sydney picked up driving. All the kids were good at driving. Scary!

We celebrated days 3 and 4. Debbie was nice enough to buy Sydney some presents to open too. Sydney is now a huge fan of Hanukkah. What's not to like about getting presents every night with your friends!?

Thanks for the fun time Debbie!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Aubrey tries so hard to be nothing like a baby and just like her big sister.

She says the words "mama" and "go" which she tells the dog to do. Cute.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I have no pictures to show for ours. I was sick on the couch all week. Thankully my parents were here to help out! We have been non-stop sick for 2+ weeks (no exaggerations). We keep sharing our germs and then finding new ones to share around again. We've had the stomach flu, high fevers, pink eye, sinus infection, more fevers...you get the point. It's been exhausting! I am hoping December turns out to be a healthier month.

My Girls

I love these girls even though I'd be lying if I didn't say I have found a lot more gray hairs recently. : )

Sydney's Portrait

Just a quick picture I took of her on our way to school the other day.

Happy Birthday

...to me, that is! Another birthday down. This one, though, not so good. I had a nasty case of the stomach flu. I haven't been that sick in a long time. Thankfully it has passed and I can now enjoy my cake.

First off, it's a snickerdoodle cake with cinnamon buttercream frosting. I love cinnamon.

I found this Halloween decorated cake on Flickr. Isn't it cute? So I decided that is what I wanted. I punched little circles, cut them in half, and ran them through the sewing machine. I tied them onto kabob skewers and added a little ribbon to the ends. Simple.

Since then I have found this cute shop on Etsy. She has some super adorable cake buntings and decorated cakes. Exactly the same premise. She has kits too.

My three layer cake! I've always wanted a three layer cake. It's the simple things in life. : )

And so the blog post isn't all about me...

Silly face! She has quite a personality.

Savannah: Part 2

Guess what? More family vacation pictures! Just what everyone loves to see. : )

Back to Savannah...We also went to Fort Pulaski and walked around the grounds.

And quite frankly, we a lot more but it's been 2 weeks and now I can't remember anything else we did! Good thing I have a few pictures to jog the memory. I have trouble remembering yesterday. Ahh... and it's only going to get worse. And what makes matters worse is that I have another birthday coming up too. Add another candle to the cake and another year off my memory brain cells. : )