Elise's 1st Birthday

I know, I know. It's been forever. But Elise turned one on March 20th. We had some family and friends over and just did simple cake and ice cream. I wanted lots of pink so I made a delicious strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting. (Paula Deen's recipe). I made a large 3 layer cake, and small cake just for Elise and then a bunch of cupcakes with the leftover batter. I doubled the recipe so that I would have enough. I went with pink and yellow for colors because that is what they had at the dollar store ;) I didn't go to crazy, but even keeping it simple was stressful. But everything turned out great and I had a lot of fun.

A few days before the birthday party, I hosted a dress party, where this woman came to my house with hundreds of girls' dresses and turned my garage into a boutique. The turnout was great and I earned two "free" dresses for Elise. She wore one of them at her party. I say "free" because I put time and money into advertising, so I definitely earned those dresses. Anyway, she looked adorable and it was a fun time.

Here are some photos ... enjoy!


"Really Mom, can I?"


"Well, if you say so."



"Squishy"

"She's learning to share"

"Now she's overwhelmed"

"Ok. The fun is over"

Elise's little cake, the big cake, and pink lemonade with real strawberries. Pink Pink Pink!!!

I made a pinwheel bouquet and let kids take one home. I know... I'm just so creative... and humble.

New fun pics

Just cute.

First beach day in Huntington.
Taking a walk on the wild side in Venice Beach.

Elise's Blessing Day - May 24th.

Boss... de plane de plane

Elise on her first plane ride. 4 hours each way. She was a dream.

Help...she's addicted

So we are on day three of going binky free and things are not going well. I have talked to so many people that were like "My baby cried the first couple of times without the binky and then went down no problem on the second or third day." She absolutely will not go down quietly. I'm told that she is still too young "cry it out" so I don't let her do that. I can rock her to sleep without the binky but as soon as I put her down, she screams. I'm not sure what to do from here. ???

To Binky or not to Binky...

That is the question. Elise is eight weeks old and likes to play the binky game. Where she needs it to fall asleep, but doesn't know how to keep it in her mouth. So I'm up numerous times throughout the night to plug in the binky when she spits it out and starts to fuss. I've been reading online about this and people say that they were going through the same thing so they just took the binky away altogether. We tried that a couple of times but gave in after 20 minutes of screaming. I guess the alternative is to wait until she either can put in in herself, or finds a finger as adequate replacement.

Here are more pics.

Her hair after the bath.

This is a cute face she makes often

Look at her reaching for the toy. She's so smart.

With Nanny and Grandpa.

Smiley pics!

So I realized that our camera does this multi picture thing if you hold down the button. It's good for capturing quick baby faces and movements. Here's the result. I can't decide which is more cute :)

"Awwww shucks"

"Seriously Mom!"

"Go Cleveland!"