Our Easter Sunday

Happy Tuesday everyone! I am late to the update about Easter bandwagon, but let's get real...I still haven't posted about Christmas. I'll get to it!!!

So here's the down low. I'm not big on the Easter bunny so I had no intention of taking Emma to see the Easter bunny.....then I thought to myself "Self, are you going to regret it if you don't take her to the Easter bunny on her first Easter?" So the hubby and I loaded her up and stood in the 45 minute line to see the Easter bunny. Friends.....why do we torture our poor children this way? Not a single child, mine included, wanted to sit with this creature. They all cried or screamed and made a hullabaloo all so we can spend $22 for two 4x6 photos. Never again! But hey.....we have the photo!

Next up on our agenda was dying eggs. In the 13 years the hubby and I have been together we have never dyed eggs. I know we are lame. So I bought a tie dye kit and with full intention to let Emma solid dye some of them. While intentions are always good, they don't always work out. She was NOT having it Saturday night so daddy held her and she watched as I squirted dye and each of us soaked out eggs until they were the desired color. Ya'll I have never dyed eggs with vinegar only and was thoroughly impress with the color payoff! Definitely going to do it that way from now on!

Easter morning Emma got her basket.....lots of snacks and some bubbles. I am SO creative! ;-) Then she napped and we went to the Easter service at our church. Afterward we went to my grandmothers house and had our Easter meal and then everyone played with Emma until she was so exhausted that she crashed the second we put her in the carseat. She got lots of fun things from her grandmothers and godmother but I got a great bench pillow from my mom! I am so excited and requested all the seasons already!

Of course I had to do a styled shoot for the holiday so I took her out to the park area behind our apartment and let her play with some plastic eggs. She was more interested in pulling on the grass and stuffing those eggs in her mouth to care about smiling for a photo.....priorities. So it wasn't until daddy whipped out the cell phone and put on music that she even cared to look up....then it was way up. But hey, we got that super cute photo above!

Happy Easter Friends!

Emma Visits The Magic Kingdom

Have I been a little vacant this month? I am so sorry. We were preparing to go on a week long trip, we just got back on Sunday, and then we were gone on vacation and I didn't have time to schedule posts. So sorry! Also, I wrote Emma's 8 month update on the airplane and blogger didn't save it!!! :-( So here we are. March and I am posting about our trip to Disneyland that we took in December! Ahhh! I still need to write about Christmas and New Years also.

We of course needed to take Emma to Disneyland, and it of course needed to happen during the Christmas holiday because that's the most magical time of the year for me. We decided that we were going to make the hour long travel during her naptime, but about halfway there we stopped to buy a bike lock because we forgot ours....which proceeded to wake her up. Sigh. Then the new bike lock broke before we even got into the park. Thanks Target!

Anyways, we made it there parked, fed and diaper changed lil miss and we made our way into California Adventure. We proceeded to immediately get in line for The Little Mermaid ride. Once off her very first ride, grandma had purchased her a baby Ariel and baby Flounder souvenir.

We tooled around in California Adventure for a bit, but then made our way into Disneyland for some shopping and of course a photo in front of Walt, Mickey, and the snow covered castle. We had some lunch and then went and watched the Christmas Fantasy parade, which I once stared in! Emma wasn't super impressed, probably because it was naptime and fell asleep in daddies arms.

While she napped we hit Big Thunder Railroad and did some shopping and snacking. We also went on It's A Small World, once she was awake and she thoroughly enjoyed that! Because it was Christmastime the park was super busy. We spent most of our time waiting in lines or walking through people, but we managed. Once it was dark we made our way back over to CA and used our fast pass to ride the new Cars ride. It was fun and I had a lot of fun taking photos in the new land!

We tried our trusty front pack and she was happy as a clam and eventually fell asleep on daddies chest. We moseyed back over to DL and attempted to go on Winnie the Pooh, but it was closed. So we shopped some more and then went to ride Haunted Mansion, but miss Emma had other plans. She was officially done and told us so. Even though we didn't do everything we wanted, it was still so much fun to bring her to Disneyland and to have that wonderful first experience!

Thanksgiving 2014 (with Halloween thrown in also!)

Hi all! Oy vey! November was a whirlwind month. So sorry I didn't post more, but our external hard drive with ALL of our photos on it decided to die.....insert mommy panic attack. It's still being repaired but I hope to get back all of the photos, especially the ones from the hospital and our baby's first moments. Although my photo Christmas ideas now have to be rethought since we wont be getting our data back until after the new year.....SOBS!

Anyways, I thought that I would do a little recapping of Emma's first Thanksgiving and a teeny recap of her Halloween as well....since I missed it! Oopsies! Let's start with TG since it was the most recent. It was a very low key holiday at my parent's house. We arrived Tuesday evening late and grandma played with Emma while we unloaded the car. The crazies dogs decided that 10pm was bark and playtime since they hadn't seen each other in so long.

Wednesday morning, Emma had playtime with her G.G. and daddy, then I helped my grandmother make pies, six in total for 13 people.....a bit excessive. We made cranberry sauce, sweet potato's, and various other things. I helped my mom hang artwork, and clean as well. Thanksgiving day Emma woke we all awoke at 730 to finish prepping, cleaning and cooking. Lil miss protested her naps like usual and we entertained her on her jumper, bouncer, with toys....just to keep her happy. She managed to get an hour in before the commotion started but that was pretty much it. She didn't want to miss any excitement. My aunts and cousins arrived in the midst of the craziness and were put to work setting the table, which I had to finish! I guess I can do a cornucopia like nobody's business. Emma was entertained by all her aunties and had a marvelous time laughing and munching on anything she could get in her mouth, that tooth coming in is really bugging her.

The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxing, my grandfather taught Darin and I how to play cribbage....and now D is obsessed. We ate leftover turkey sandwiches, pie and turkey soup. We also managed to get my mom's Christmas decor up before she was struck with the stomach flu. Poor thing. We headed home early Sunday and just chilled out on our couch catching up on some snoozing. It was a warm and fun filled weekend. And now a photo dump:

Halloween was just as fun, but I have far less photo's to share. If you remember my mom and I made Emma's Halloween costume. I was so excited to parade her around in it too! We realized that afternoon that it was going to be a wet Halloween, a first in California in many years. D brought little miss into my work for our office party dressed in her Sleeping Beauty costume from Grandma L and everyone oohed and ahhed her cuteness. We even won some prizes! Pup got a bath at the groomer next door also. Once I got home from work we tried to get her to nap, but she wasn't having it.

We dressed her up, got pup ready and loaded in the car to T.O.T. in D's parents neighborhood. We hit up about 5 houses, but most were still getting ready. Grandma had a grab bag with teething goodies for Emma and full sized candies for mommy and daddy! SCORE! We hung around for a little bit before heading off to our little party.

Our good friend lives in a neighborhood that goes all out for Halloween. It was the perfect place to take Emma for her first Halloween. We took her around to about 6 houses, just to hear people say how cute she is, I mean she was! Then went and relaxed by the firepit and passed out candy.....we went through 10+ bags of candy, just at our house alone! That's how many kids were around. We had great conversations and Emma enjoyed just people watching....her favorite thing. Around 9pm we headed home, just as the rain started coming down. It was a great holiday!

Me as the Cheshire Cat

Getting ready to T.O.T.

Doesn't she look thrilled?!

Stay tuned I have a lot to update you on with regards to moving and getting our own place, a sneak peek into Emma's nursery and much more!

Welcoming Fall at Lombardi Ranch

We decided to take Emma to the pumpkin patch. I had never been to this specific pumpkin patch and I thought that it would be a fun outing. I say that we welcomed Fall loosely. This day when we decided to visit the pumpkin patch was still in the triple digits here in SoCal. We wanted to enjoy ourselves and wander the property but we made it a quick trip.

We found some cute locations and took our obligatory family photos with lil miss. It was so bright in the afternoon and she was sleepy so we tried to no overwhelm her with a million photos....there was also the fact that we didn't have any paparazzi with us so we used the stroller as a makeshift tri-pod to get the shot of the three of us.

After our little family photo shoot, we decided to pick out our pumpkins. They were surprisingly inexpensive and we got three pumpkins (a daddy, mommy and baby pumpkin) for around 11 bucks! We of course had to take a shot of Emma sitting with the pumpkins (see photo above) because she's too cute not to. I love that it looks like she's saying "Mom, there's hay on my foot....EW!" She loved looking around and watching the people, but because it was so hot, we didn't stay long at all.

If your ever in the Southern California area and want to visit a great pumpkin patch, Lombardi Ranch is the place to go! Lots of things to do for littles as well as fun for the biggies too!

DIY Halloween Costume - Lil Birdie Emma

Since this is Emma's first Halloween, you know I couldn't stand idly by and get a store bought generic costume did you? Did I peruse the newborn and infant section in the party stores online? Of course I did, but mostly was fairly unimpressed by the selection and really wanted her first costume to be special. My mom made almost all of my costumes and I had some really cute ones as a child. My favorite was a Maleficent costume that was the Best! I was also a playing card and a pumpkin....she did not make the devil costumes, but my cousin and I are just too adorable not to post!

So in true form I had to follow in my mom's footsteps and make my baby girls first costume. I know I know, it's one of those things that I just needed to do. I didn't really make her anything while I was pregnant so I am making up for it now!

Since my nickname for Emma is Lil Birdie, I knew I wanted her to go as a bird. I google searched for

bird infant costumes and found a ton of owls, some peacocks and various other birds, but nothing made me jump up and say yes, until I saw a photo of an adorable little boy dressed in a blue bird costume.

Little Starling Photography made a Martha Stewart pattern blue bird for her son's Halloween costume. I instantly fell in love with the look and how adorable her son looked in the costume. I knew that between my mom and I we could totally pull off this look and do it on the cheap because it is made with felt! Of course when I went to buy the materials, lovely Martha's pattern was so vague that I just guessed how much I would need. Little did I know that I would buy YARDS too much felt and now have so much left over.....oh well. I have my sights on another project for Emma's nursery to make with the leftovers.....more on that later!


On a girls trip to my parents; Emma, my mom and I sat down to make this adorable costume. I knew I didn't want it to be blues, because of the people that would comment and ask about "him" so I picked girly colors and she is going to be dressed in pink. Instead of sketching the wings out, I printed them in a large format and cut out the templates, pinned to the felt and cut them out. I pressed all the seams, and that was all I did. Emma decided to protest her naps that day, making it impossible for me to do any sewing. My mom completed the rest of the costume and it turned out better than I could have imagined!

 

We can't wait to take her trick or treating, yes you heard me. My hubby is more than excited to parade her around in her outfit to a couple of houses and reap the candy.....I guess I can eat Skittles. (since I am still off dairy) Hope to get photo's and to do a follow up post with her in her costume tonight!

Happy Halloween!