Merry Christmas!

May the Lord richly bless you and yours this Christmas and throughout the coming year!
Blessings
Erin

The birthday tea party!

Julianna has been asking for a tea party birthday for awhile now, so this year I thought ok-we can do this! I am pretty proud of how it all turned out! The girls were all required to dress in their favorite fancy dresses ( and to bring a change of clothes for going outside).
I have to admit that I searched pinterest for some idea's as I am not that creative when it comes to the finer details! There sure are some elaborate party decor's out there!
We went with a pink/yellow/white theme, the table was set with 7 different mini tea sets, I made mini cupcakes, mini sugar cookies ( I had lots of help decorating them!) little jam heart sandwiches and jelly pinwheels. They had apple cinnamon tea, and were able to serve themselves cream and sugar. I explained to them how high tea started in England, and why people still enjoy it today. Then Julianna served all her guests, and they chatted away! It was quite cute! My girls also bought Olivia a little plastic tea set so she could participate in the tea party! She was sooo cute!
Once they were done tea, they played downstairs (by the way this is all taking place at my parents house across the yard from us as we don''t have room in this little cottage!)
Then after awhile they all went outside to join the boys and men for a sleigh ride. Les and my dad had hooked up both teams and so they had two sleighs going, which always makes for lots of fun as they chase eachother, play catch up and try pushing eachother off lol! After everyone came in and warmed up, we served an early supper, and a bunch more appetizers and junk food!
All in all I think it was a very successful party, and the girls were so thrilled with how it worked out-which of course makes me happy!
So here are a few party pics-not as many as I would like, because my sd card was full!!! Gahhh!

These first two are the morning before the party-Olivia with her new tea set!

The girls were pretty happy with the decor, Les and I were up till midnight the night before to finish decorating!

With one of the cute cousins!

All gone mama! Where`s more!

Happy Birthday to the sweetest 1 year old!

My baby turns one today...trying really hard not to cry about that! This little girl has stolen all our hearts! She is doted on by everyone in our family and her dimpled grins and cute little character have endeared her to pretty much anyone she meets!

At one you are pulling yourself up on all the furniture-but not letting go yet! You are a little chatter box (how could you not be with two older chatterbox sisters!) You can say eight words already! Hi, hot, owieee (in a high pitch whiny voice lol) mommy, daddy, papa and kitty!

You love to snuggle! And give kisses-wide open mouth ones ( and sometimes you try to give me tongue!) You wave hi and bye, and you can blow kisses (sooo cute). You have such a little personality! You are always making us laugh with all your funny faces and goofy antics!

Olivia I am so thankful for you, you have filled our family with so much joy, and brought us all closer together. You have even managed to wrap your daddy around your baby finger! He has never been so willing to change a diaper, and he even insists on me leaving you with him when I have to run to town-this is highly unusual!

Baby girl I can't wait to see who you grow up to be, but please don't grow so fast!
We love you!
Happy 1st Birthday!

Some random fall photos

A few weeks ago a really good friend and I did our annual fall photo shoot. When we first started we each only had one child, now there are seven between us! This of course made for a very interesting attempt at photos lol! I love taking fall pics of the kids, however my new camera and I were not agreeing on things *smile* in other words I spent much of the time fighting with learning how to use it in manual mode and having many photos not turn out. In the end I got a few really good ones, and thats what counts! So here is a fall photo buffet!