The First Snow Day of the Season

On December 9th, we got our first snow of the season and in addition to the snow we also had no school!!! Not having a snow day for the last few years, if not more, made this day super fun. Although it was no more than 2 inches worth, the girls were still able to go out in it and throw some snowballs, make snow angels and have some fun first thing in the morning.

The deck all covered in snow

Snow angels

I needed to get in at least one picture 

Snow babies!

Brielle in the snow

Love these 3!!

Coda

Keela

Cammy showing Brielle a snowball

Here's hoping that this is a snowy year because we are ready to play!!

Brielle is ONE!!!

On December 6th our last baby, Brielle, turned ONE YEAR OLD!!! It's hard to believe that literally in a blink of an eye her first year is already in the books. It's definitely true that the more kids you have the faster each year seems to go (mostly probably because you barely have time to breathe and sadly aren't as focused on them like you were when you had your first baby).

At one year old, Brielle...

WALKS! (this has never happened by a year with any of our other girls)

Says "yeah" to just about anything you ask her

Calls her sippy cup a "Bop Bop"

Got 2 more teeth making for a grand total of 8!

Says "momma" and "dadda" and a few other noticeable words

Is the best snuggler

Loves to give hugs and open mouth kisses

Tries just about any food that she is given

Obsessed with her sisters and follows them everywhere

Loves babies

Is super ticklish

Has constant diaper rash

Sleeps through the night most nights

Not a consistent napper (anywhere from 40 mins-3 hrs)

Still climbs on EVERYTHING!

Still sucks on a burp rag when going to sleep

Finally starting to like books at a year old!!

Is the BEST finale to completing our family of 5!

To celebrate Brielle's first birthday, we took a trip in the freezing cold to the zoo while daddy was at work and big sister Cammy was at school. Grams and Gramps came along for the adventure with myself, Hailey and the birthday girl. After everyone was home in the afternoon we opened presents and had our usual birthday dinner at Red Robin to end the day. 

The girls with Brielle before Cammy went off to school

A cold day at the zoo

Grams and Gramps at the zoo with us

Present time!

Opening a present from G-ma and Grandpa

Dinner at Red Robin with the birthday girl

Getting sung to...she loved it!

Family photo before the ice cream sundae

This girl LOVES whipped cream!

I think she is finally full of whipped cream

Happy 1st birthday Brielle!  

We all love you so much!!!

Bring on the toddler years...

She's a Wild ONE!

Our last baby celebrated her first birthday with a super cute and perfectly fitting theme for her personality...WILD ONE on Sunday, December 4th.

We had a small party with family and some close friends. I made most some of the decorations and I made the cupcakes this year, with my first time making homemade frosting! Kids got to decorate little feather head dresses for an activity. It was a perfect party and not too over the top like some of our parties have been in previous years.

Table decorations

Vanilla cupcakes with homemade raspberry frosting

Food table and decorations

The spread

Wild One mantel decoration

12 month photo banner

Feather head dress making table

(thanks Angela for helping out all the kiddos!)

The morning of the party it even started to snow and stick! It didn't really keep up more than just to cover the ground, so we had to take a picture in it so we could always remember.

A dusting of snow on party day!

When it was time for Brielle's smash cake, we thought for sure that this was going to be our kid to dive into it and not look back. She eats just about anything and doesn't mind getting messy. But of course she followed in both of her sisters' footsteps and wanted pretty much nothing to do with her cake. It must be a combination of the pressure from everyone staring at them and not sure what to do with a giant cake set in front of them. So we are officially 3 for 3 in the disappointing smash cake performance.

The smash cake made by Johanna Knapp

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Testing out the cake with the one finger test

The birthday girl!

Clearly even someone helping her wasn't going to work!

Moving onto presents

Grams and Gramps with the birthday girl

After everyone left the party we decided to see if Brielle would be more interested in her cake with less people staring at her. Still no luck, but the big sisters sure didn't want to see the cake go to waste!!

A second attempt at the smash cake

Being silly, but not eating the cake like we hoped

Sisters with the birthday girl

The big sisters will eat the cake!

This birthday felt like a huge celebration not only for Brielle turning one, but also for us making it through that first year with all the hurdles and challenges that we were given (i.e. my surgery when she was only 4 months old).

Happy 1st birthday sweet girl!!!

Brielle's One Year Pictures

Hard to believe that the time has finally come to take pictures of Brielle at ONE YEAR OLD!!! This was definitely a tough photo session since we had just gotten back from vacation and it was quite cold and cloudy out (but no rain so we had to do it!).

The always amazing Kristin Harris did it again and despite a very cold and cranky one year old and two freezing but crazy sisters, she still managed to give us some amazing family photos, pictures of the girls and individuals of each of them. It never matters how disappointed I am in how I think the session went, we always come back with something that makes me smile!! Thank you Kristin Harris!

Here are a few of our all time favorites from our photo session on December 3rd...

Cammy- 5, Brielle- 1, Hailey- 3

"It's my birthday...I'll cry if I want to"