20 weeks and 5 days

Oh man I've been so terrible about blogging. A lot has changed since my last post. We had our big sonogram. You know, the one where they tell you how the baby measures, if the organs all look up to par, and whether you're having a boy or a girl. And... we stuck to our plan and did NOT find out. The baby measures right on track and everything looks normal. We ate at Olive Garden right before the appointment, and I think the ultrasound tech was frustrated that Fisher was moving around so much. At the end of the sonogram, I asked her if she saw what it is and she said yes. She said she wasn't going to write it in my chart, so there will be no chance of a slip up. :) Then she said that she would go home that night and sleep and forget all about it the next day. So... there we go. There's no turning back now unless we go pay to have a sonogram done somewhere, and that isn't happening.
I definitely look pregnant now with no mistaking it, and I feel Fisher all the time. The very first time I felt him/her was the night after Thanksgiving, and I wasn't sure if it was Fisher, or just all of the food I had eaten. :) Turns out it was Fisher, alright. And he/she hasn't slowed down since. I would say I have steadily felt movements all throughout each day since week 18, with a few movements here and there before that. I finally figured out how I want to do the nursery, so that is a HUGE step for me. I have been so stumped on the nursery because I want to make sure that it isn't too girly if this is a boy. I'm not really that worried about it being too masculine if it's a girl, because there are always girly touches I can throw in after Fisher is born to girlify it a little bit. But once you go too girly, you can't really throw in masculine touches to make it boyish again. My plan is to celebrate Christmas , then focus on Finley's 2nd birthday party, and then start the nursery and Fin's big girl room. One. Thing. At. A. Time. I have to keep telling myself that or else my mind races all night long. Two nights ago I had really bad indigestion for the first time in this pregnancy, and it hasn't stopped. I was REALLY hoping that I'd skip that part this time. With Finley, I had it badly in the first trimester, and then so bad in the third trimester that I'd wake up choking and think I was going to die. So yes, I was REALLY hoping that I'd skip this part this time. My What to Expect book  reminded me that something I had forgotten to dread could start happening at any given time also. LEG CRAMPS! I forgot how dreadful the pregnancy leg cramps can be, and I am absolutely dreading them. I remember my friend, Lissa, telling me when I was pregnant with Fin that the pregnancy leg cramps were pretty much equal to labor contractions, but in your legs. One time I had one so bad that lasted for what felt like an hour but was probably more like 5 minutes. It was the worst pain I had ever felt (up to that point) in my life. I'd rather deal with indigestion than those any day. I've started to feel my stomach harden and get a little painful after I eat lately. Almost like there isn't enough room for that much food and a baby in that space. But it goes away about an hour after I eat. Oh! Other big news! Hooper felt the baby last week. He/she was really moving a lot while we were laying down to go to sleep and I had Hooper feel and sure enough, Fisher jabbed him probably 8 times or so. That's always a fun moment for a proud daddy. :) His face lit up with excitement. I'd like to end this post with confidence that I'll write again next week, but let's be honest, I'm failing in the blogging department with this pregnancy. So, I'll blog again when I blog again.

Fisher, if you're reading this someday, I'm sorry I wasn't very good about keeping this up to date.

15 Weeks & 1 Day

I've started feeling much better for the most part. I have some bad days, but they are much fewer and farther between than they have been. I've listened to the baby's heartbeat on our little at home doppler (Angel Sounds) twice now and found it with no problem. I even put my phone up to the earphones and made a voice memo of it to send out to people I thought might enjoy hearing it i.e. family and other pregnant friends. The baby's heartbeat is still in the 170s.

The other morning I woke up and I could actually feel where the baby was. It was crazy. My stomach was all mushy (something only we chubbier women can understand) except for in one area about 2-3 inches below my belly button towards the left side. There was a solid mass there. It was bizarre feeling. I had Hooper feel it, too. I don't recall feeling that with Finley this early.

A friend of ours just had her second baby last week, and they didn't know what they were having until they actually had her. I loved the anticipation I felt when I knew she had had the baby, but she hadn't said if it was a boy or a girl yet. For the first time EVER, it made me question if we should find out the sex of this baby. This is TOTALLY out of character for me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've said the words, "I would NEVER do that" before. And here we are... we have decided not to find out the sex of Baby Fisher. I think I may feel different about it if we didn't have a unisex name, or if we had NO baby items at all. I'm just going to do a unisex nursery, get a few onesies with the letter F monogrammed on them, and fly by the seat of my pants for the next 6 months. The question is, will we be able to sit through the big sonogram December 6th and really not find out? I guess we'll see. :)

13 Weeks and 5 days

Okay, so I haven't been that good about blogging this round. Forgive me. I still haven't been feeling very well, and I've been SUPER busy with photography and editing. Finley will absolutely NOT let me have my laptop out while she is awake, and when she naps, I try my best to nap as well. So that only leaves a small window of time after she goes to sleep for the night, and I'm usually editing photos during that time. But enough excuses...

I got another sonogram on Friday, October 26th. The baby was so wiggly during the sonogram. He/she moved his/her little arm as if saying, "Hey! I was asleep in here and then you come at me with that loud thing! Why I oughtta!" The doctor confirmed to me that the due date is officially May 7th, and the baby measures right on track. I go back again at the end of the month, and then get my big sonogram on December 6th! I can't wait!  Boy or girl, I have no idea how I'm going to decorate the nursery. And I have no clue what to do about Finley's room. I need to go ahead and change her room to a big girl room, but I'm really struggling with that.

I'm still feeling pretty lousy, but looking forward to the next days as I've now crossed into the second trimester. What is so strange is that so many foods make me feel sick, but gas station fried burritos and Taco Bell are my current favorites that don't make me feel sick at all! French fries and American fried foods make me sick for hours and hours. Even cereal makes me feel sick a little while after I've eaten it. As you can probably assume (based on my current favorite foods), I've gained a little weight. I am still in that in between stage where I just look like I'm heavier than usual as opposed to pregnant. I do have a little bit of a bump now, but you can't see that unless I'm wearing tight clothes. And, I hate to break it to you, but this gal doesn't wear many tight clothes.

Oh, I guess I can go ahead and tell you all that this baby DOES have a name. Boy or girl, we've decided that his or her name will be Fisher. :) Fin can't quite pronounce it yet, but we've got several months to practice.

Halloween was last week, and Finley was so adorable, if I do say so myself. I fell in love with this costume from Pottery Barn, and then found some Baby Legs that went with it perfectly. We taught her what a chicken says and does, and she got her "bock bock" and wing flapping down pretty good! 

As I've said in the other posts, I hope to start blogging more regularly again. I don't want to gip this baby or myself out of all of the details of this pregnancy when time has passed and I don't remember them as well.

10 weeks (or maybe 9.5?)

I'm really not very clear on whether or not my due date is May 7th or May 12th. I wish she'd go with May 7th, but I suppose I'll find out more October 22nd at my next sonogram. I'm still not feeling very well. The same symptoms are occurring, and I haven't really had much relief. I feel pretty good after I eat breakfast in the mornings, but by 8:30 I'm starving for a snack. Then again by lunch I'm starving, and when I return to work I feel lousy the rest of the day. My back hurts, I'm sleepy, I'm emotional, I'm starving, my stomach feels uneasy, and I just flat out don't feel well. This pregnancy is nothing like my pregnancy with Finley.
I had already almost completely booked up for the rest of the year with photography before I knew I got pregnant, and now I look at my schedule and almost burst into tears. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it while working a full time job also and growing a baby, but I'm sure it will all be okay. I need to take a picture, but I just look fat and not pregnant. I can definitely tell a difference in my body, but nobody would be able to tell yet if you didn't already know. Like I said, I just look like I've gained weight. Which I have. I think I've gained around 4 pounds. I didn't gain one pound in the entire first trimester with Finley, so that scares me a little bit. I need to start walking and eating better, but very few things sound good to eat, and by the time I get home from work, all I want to do is lay in bed.
Finley still has no idea what's going on, but I'm 100% positive that she will be very excited as soon as she understands. I wish I had more to post in this blog, and that it wasn't such a downer. Maybe next week I'll feel better. *Sigh. Oh, and the baby is the size of a prune this week. :)

Plans Schmlans!

Everybody has "plans" for their future and for their children's future. And as much as we like to think that we have control over whether or not those "plans" come true or not, ultimately, God might have different plans for us.

My original plan for how many children I want and how far apart in age I'd like them to be was to have two children 3 years apart. I think I liked that idea because my brother and I are 3 years apart, and it's just the two of us. Now fast forward to giving birth to Finley. That plan immediately changed to "I'll start thinking about more children as soon as I forget the pain I just went through, and something tells me that wont be for about ten years!" Then as more time passed, Hooper and I started thinking that maybe we'd start trying for another when Finley turns 2 in January. Surely it'd take us several months to try and then they'd be close to 3 years apart. THEN, I started thinking that maybe that's too soon. Maybe at the beginning of the summer when she's 2 1/2 we can start trying. And then in August, Hooper had a GREAT IDEA! He said that if we got pregnant right now, we could have the baby at the beginning of the summer, and then he'd be home for those months with me! I told him what a great idea that was, but let's shoot for that plan NEXT August.

But remember how God is really the one in control? And how our "plans" aren't always His plan? Well, forgive me for grossing you out, but on a certain August day, I knew in my heart that I had just gotten pregnant. I can't explain why I knew, but I just did. I told Hooper that I knew it, and for the next couple of weeks, I had feelings and emotions that furthered my suspicion. I took a pregnancy test from the Dollar General a few days before my period should have come, and it was negative. Even with a negative test, I still knew. I realized it was just too early to test, especially with a dollar store cheapy. So a few days later, I took another test during my lunch break from work. I told myself that I'd pee on the stick, then go let the dogs out, then return when it had been 3 minutes. When I returned to the test, it was positive. I knew it.

I told Hooper via text message because he was at work and I HAD to tell him right then. He was really excited, and we immediately started thinking of how we could tell our families. Since we wanted to tell them ASAP, there wasn't a whole lot of time to plan out something cute. So I got on Old Navy's website and ordered a $5 tshirt and had it overnighted for $18! When the shirt came in two days later, we put Finley in the shirt and showed Hooper's dad who was visiting us. Of course he was super excited! Then we took her to my mom and dad's. It took my mom FOREVER to finally read her shirt, and when she did, she screamed so loud that Finley started crying. (Sidenote: I had been talking to my mom about how I didn't even think I wanted another kid lately. It was a total lie, but I didn't want her to suspect anything during my pregnancy suspicions I was having! She and I are a lot like twins, and I figured if I didn't throw her off, she might suspect also.) So she was over the moon with joy to know that we were indeed having another baby, and having one soon! My dad was excited also, but we had to tell him to read her shirt, too. Next we took her to Anna and Eddie's and Anna finally read her shirt on her own. They were all really excited. I think it took Elliott and Beckett a good 24 hours for it to fully sink in. Hooper FaceTimed his mom and his brother and sister and everyone is super pumped.

So here I am... I'm 8 1/2 weeks pregnant. I went to the doctor Friday and everything is good. On a really "yay me" note, I'm 45 pounds lighter than I was at my last visit to her office which was when Fin was 6 weeks old. Annnnd, I'm 25 pounds lighter than I was when I got pregnant with Fin. I begged my doctor for a sonogram since her office is in Ft. Worth and it is really hard for me to get up there with my work schedule. :) They let me have one, and the little baby just looks like a tiny alien connected to a big cheerio (the yolk sak). The baby's heartbeat was 170 at the visit. My due date is May 7th, but the baby is measuring with a due date of May 12. I never was quite sure if Dr. Deem is changing the date to the 12th or not.

How am I feeling? I feel like I'm hungover constantly. I'm always sleepy, always hungry. Nothing sounds good to eat, and when I finally find something that does sound good, I regret it an hour later. I have a stomach ache on a daily basis. I constantly have a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm not sleeping well already. This is very different from my pregnancy with Finley. I am very excited, but also very nervous. I'm looking forward to growing this little bitty baby in my belly, and then meeting the little guy or girl in May. But I'm also still getting used to the whole thing. For a walk down memory lane, here is my blog from when I was 9 weeks along with Fin. I'm hoping that I will keep up with this blog as well as I did with the last pregnancy!

Oh yeah, remember how Hooper had that great idea about getting pregnant in August so that he could be home all summer? Well, it's gonna work out that way!  Oh, and I'm also starting to think that maybe this wont be the last kid after all. :)

Fare Thee Well, Old Friend

About a week ago, my husband told me that I really should get a car with better gas mileage. We have had this discussion (aka argument) before, and I always disagree, stating that my car is very safe, and that I hardly even drive it very far (it's a 10 minute drive to work). But every time it comes time for us to go out of town, I want to take mine for safety reasons, and he wants to take his for gas reasons (that's a whole other argument). I absolutely adore my car, and I really didn't even know if I could find anything that could even compare. 4 years ago I stumbled upon my car and the dealership practically handed it to me. I signed a 4 year note on it, and had we not refinanced it to pay for our house being painted last year, it would be paid off today. I never thought I'd drive a Lincoln, but I got the BEST deal on it. I got such a good deal on it, in fact, that I looked up the exact same vehicle on cars.com and found that dealerships are selling the exact same car for MORE than what I paid for it FOUR YEARS AGO, and the ones online have way more miles on them than mine had when I got it. It was a crazy good deal, I tell ya. So anyway, I knew that there would be no way that I'd find that great of a deal again, so I sort of brushed off what Hooper said about needing a new car.
But then we went out of town to his dad's house... in his car... with 2 dogs and a toddler in tow. It was NOT a comfortable ride. So I started looking up vehicles. I found a few that fit the criteria that both Hooper and I wanted. He had a list of musts, and I had a list of musts. Combining both of our lists created a very small group of possibilities. Included in that very small group were a few minivans. Yes, that's right. Minivans. My cousin drives a minivan and so does one of my best friends, and they both told me that it is the best vehicle they've ever had. I almost had myself talked into one, but the next day I was headed to work and passed the EXACT replica of the one we had added to our favorites list. I stared at it as it passed by and realized that I am just not there yet. I just couldn't see myself going minivan mama YET. (A minivan will probably be my NEXT car.) So that made the small group even smaller.

Hooper's "musts" were:
Better gas mileage
Not too expensive
Less than 35K miles
(seriously, that's it.)

My "musts" were:
Has to be extremely safe
Have to like it as much, if not MORE than my Navigator (this one was the really hard one)
Third row seating (this was a hard one, too)
Leather interior (Once you go leather, you can never go cloth again)
Exterior color of: silver, white, cream, gray, black, gold, or beige.
Not too old
Preferred backup camera, dvd player, mp3 hookup, heated seats (but those were not deal breakers)
My list kind of makes me sound like a diva, but if those things weren't possible, then I'd be just as happy keeping the Navigator.

Well... my husband (God love him) found me the perfect vehicle. He's been telling me for months how much he loves the new Dodge Durangos, and wouldn't you know, that's what he found me. We did some research on them, and the safety ratings were outstanding. The gas mileage is 16 city/23 hwy mpg, which isn't outstanding, but my Navigator gets 11 city/16 hwy mpg (and I don't think I ever saw it get 16). So it is a major improvement in that area. It's a 2011 with 21K miles on it, has third row seating, leather interior, mp3 hookup, it's silver, with a backup camera, and I like it A LOT. SO... it met all of our "musts". It doesn't have dvd players or heated seats, but remember, those weren't deal breakers. :) As far as pricing goes, we knew it would give us a higher payment than we currently have, but we set a certain "top of the line" amount that we would not go over on our monthly payments. Without going into too much detail, I'll just say that we got an INCREDIBLE deal, and we owe a lot of thanks to Joel at Mike Brown Ford.

But all of that aside, I was still very sad. I get extremely attached to my vehicles, and really sad when it's time to tell them goodbye. My Navigator was my third vehicle, but I had a little bit more of a sentimental attachment to it than any of my others. For one, I was IN LOVE with it. I really think that if it wasn't creeping up on 80K miles, I still wouldn't have really paid much attention to finding a new car. And secondly, I drove that car when Hooper and I were just dating, I drove it when we were engaged, I drove it after we were married, and most importantly, I brought my baby home from the hospital in it. There are a lot of memories in that car. When Hooper brought it up to my work for me to say goodbye to it, I patted it on the side and said aloud, "Goodbye, Old Friend." I felt like I was sending a family horse off to the glue factory. Seriously. It was hard.

Below is a photo of Hooper and I pulling up to our house with newborn Finley in tow.

And here is the new one.

I just have to put all of my sad feelings aside and remember that we will make new memories in the new car. And every time I actually sit in my new car, my happiness outweighs the sadness by a long shot. :)

Less Than 2 Months

This isn't going to be a long post, but I mentioned in the previous blog that we needed to take more updated "after" photos since starting AdvoCare. So here they are. The first photographs (on the left) are from March 18th, the day before we started The 24 Day Challenge. The second photos are the day that we finished our challenge, which was April 11th. The final photographs are from May 1st. We still have a long way to go, and I will continue to update our "after" photos as our journey continues. If you are interested in AdvoCare, email me at advocarehooper@gmail.com, and visit www.advocarehooper.com .

24 Day Challenge

It's no secret that I've gained a lot of weight over the past few years. I've always struggled with my weight, but I really consider a huge turning point of weight gain my honeymoon. I had dieted before my wedding, and right after, we were in the Bahamas and we were on cloud nine. Not to mention there was food everywhere around us. We ate about 5 or 6 times a day because we could. It was the best vacation ever. Buuuuuuuut, I never really slowed down on the eating after that. I think we had expanded our stomachs the week that we were there, and we just kept filling them when we got home. Our honeymoon was in October 2009, and in April 2010 I got pregnant. So long story short, I basically never slowed down or changed my eating habits over the past 2 1/2 years. Until March 18, 2012.

My cousin had been trying to get us to try Advocare for a while, and we had just sort of ignored her (Sorry, Whit!), because we didn't really have the time to look into it. She sent us a few emails about the 24 Day Challenge and we just glanced over them, and paid little attention (Again, sorry Whit!). Finally, my mom said that we should all try it together. So... as a group, we did. My mom, aunt, aunt's sister in law, my husband, and my sister in law all did the 24 day challenge together. The day before we started the challenge, my husband and I hesitantly took our before photos and our measurements. My before picture made me sick, and it still makes me cringe to look at it. My neck and face are so big and my belly button looks like a freaking bagel under my shirt.

The next day we followed all of the rules perfectly. It wasn't bad at all. In fact, it kind of made me feel giddy, like I had something great to look forward to.

Now, fast forward 24 days later. We took our measurements and weighed again. My husband lost 17 pounds and 8 & 1/2 inches, and I lost 11 & 1/2 pounds and 7 inches. I won't give details on the others in our group because their story is not mine to tell, but I will tell you that everyone in the group lost pounds and inches. (And my sister in law looks like a swimsuit model after the challenge! And she's gonna kill me for saying that!) But the best part is that everyone in our group feels better and more energetic than we have in a long time. Our before and after photos speak for themselves. I mean, look at Hooper's belly!! My bagel is still there, but it's more like a bagel bite now.

Here are the reasons why I was hesitant:
1. I am a hungry, hungry person. No diet has ever worked for me because I am hungry, and I love food.
2. I was very reluctant because sometimes products can be money driven instead of the real deal.
3. I'm not the best at taking pills. My prenatal vitamins would get stuck in my throat and I'd taste fish oil all day long.
4. Everyone kept saying it's a "lifestyle change", and I liked my lifestyle just fine. We eat out a lot, and I didn't want that to change.
5. I was scared that I'd be the one person that wouldn't lose weight, and then I would feel like there was absolutely no future hope for me to EVER lose it.

And here are the reasons why I'm so happy I gave in:
1. I feel well. Really well.
2. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Meal Replacement Shake. I never, in a million years, would have thought that I could get by with just a drink as my meal and feel satisfied. But, this is amazing! And I definitely feel satisfied after drinking it.
3. My husband and I sit down and have breakfast together every morning now. Before, we only saw each other for a split second in passing in the mornings.
4. I am in love with the Fruit Punch Spark. It has totally taken place of any caffeine that I had going on in my life. (I wasn't huge on caffeine in the first place, but I did enjoy a cup of coffee every morning at work.)
5. I have learned a lot about what I was doing wrong with my eating habits, and I have become a lot healthier in the choices that I make.
6. My husband and I take Finley on a 1.5 mile walk almost every evening. He has to tell me to slow down sometimes! It's all of this energy I guess! (Nobody has EVER had to tell me to slow down, unless it was regarding me talking!)

I really enjoyed doing the challenge as a group because it kept us all accountable. Tomorrow is day 37 since this all started and our group is going to check in again to see how much more we've progressed since the challenge ended. I know that Hooper and I have lost even more since the challenge ended, so I'm anxious to hear from everyone else.

**Little note about the difference in me on day 1 of the challenge, and now. Scrambled eggs are a great breakfast choice for the challenge, and my cousin had let us know that. I love eggs, so we scrambled up 6 eggs total. 3 for my husband, and 3 for me. I thought, "Hey, I'm not gonna go hungry on day 1, and besides, this is allowed." As the challenge went on, we were scrambling fewer and fewer eggs. Now we scramble TWO eggs, one for each of us. I cannot believe that I can be satisfied by eating one egg for breakfast. I'm telling you, if I can do this, anyone can.

If you would like to know more about the challenge, email me at advocarehooper@gmail.com . If you'd like to start the challenge, go to www.advocarehooper.com and what we did was the 24 Day Challenge with MNS Max C and also a bottle of Catalyst. I know that seeing is believing, so here are our before and afters. (We hope to have updated afters to post soon.)

One Year Old in a Flash

One Year Old
I cannot believe how quickly the year flew by! It's so hard to believe that I have a one year old! She's walking 100%. She says "mama", "dada", "gigi", "diaper", "baby", "bye bye", "papa", "poppy", and more that I can't think of. She knows where her nose is and will point to it when asked. She throws her arms wide open when you ask how big is Finley. She's extremely happy. She smiles at strangers. She loves her doggies and kitty cat. She loves dancing to the Fraggle Rock theme song. Her bed time is 8:30 and if it's a weekend, she'll sleep until 7:30-8:30ish. She's got a great sense of humor for someone so young, and I'm just so excited to watch her grow even more. (Even though it's bittersweet.) It seriously feels like just yesterday I wrote this blog. And re-watching this video that Anna made me last year makes me so sad at how much has changed in what feels like no time. I'm happy that my little baby is growing up and turning into such a fun little friend, but I miss that tiny little baby, too. I think what makes me the most sad about it all is that it went SO FAST, and I know that means that the rest of the years will go by just as fast. :( Anna made me another video for her birthday that is just as much a tear jerker as the last one. I am crazy about the songs in this video!

The Party
When I first starting thinking about Finley's birthday party, I originally didn't want a theme. I just wanted it to be pink and yellow and aqua. Then Anna said she had seen the greatest theme and thought we definitely needed to use it for Fin. She was definitely right! "One Year Old in a Flash" is perfect for Fin because Anna and I have a photography business. It just makes sense! Not to mention, the year did go by in a flash. I knew from the beginning that I needed Anna's help with the planning, and that was the best decision I made during all of this. She is much more organized than I am, and she's extremely creative. We are already partners in business, so bouncing ideas off of each other comes naturally to us and that is kind of how we planned this whole thing. We were constantly texting each other about different things we found online, or words we came up with for the food. The downside to Finley's birthday is that it comes a few weeks after Christmas. I knew that we needed to really get the major ideas planned before Christmas or else her birthday party would get lost in the mix of the holidays. The invitation was the first thing that needed to be done, so I went on Pinterest for ideas. I only found two birthday parties that used this same theme, and I took ideas from their invitations and made it my own. I created the invitation in Photoshop, saved it as a pdf, and went to Staples to have them printed off. Little did I know, it was not that easy. For some odd reason, Staples could not get my blue color printed correctly. (Oh yeah, we didn't go with yellow, pink, and aqua. We saw a birthday party that was aqua and red and fell in love with the boldness and contrast of the two colors.) The guy at Staples called 5 surrounding staples and none of them could get my colors right. So he called other print shops in Granbury. No luck. Finally, DAYS later, a local print shop employee recreated my entire invite to a T with a blue color that was almost right. I was so thrilled, I even looked past the fact the the "Y" in Finley was kind of cut off. :) Once the invites were out, we made sure that we had everything that needed to be ordered, ordered. Finleys onesie came from Etsy, her suspenders came from Etsy, the props for the photo booth came from Etsy, and the fabric for the backdrop for the photo booth came from etsy. The plates and cups came from Shop Sweet Lulu and her hat came from Baby Once. She had a pretty expensive little getup going, but we wanted her to look like a little press baby. We originally planned on having the party at Anna and Eddie's house, but about two weeks ahead of party time, the weather for January 14th said the low was in the 20s!! We had been planning on having the party kind of inside and outside, and that weather forecast squashed everything. We immediately changed the plan to the country club where I live, and that ended up being a great decision. They made the food and gave us a very large space for a very reasonable price. We probably would have spent more having it Anna's house anyway. Now fast forward to the actual day of the party. The weather was NOT in the 20s. It was a beautiful day, and we had a really great turn out. Anna took candids, the photo booth photos, and the pictures of the whole set up. I'm so thankful that she did all of that, because there is no way I could have done that and visited with people. The kiddos loved the photo booth, and their goodie bags. I ordered the little disguise glasses from Oriental Trading Company, and Hooper and I made the little mustache and lips suckers. (Just cut out foam paper and made a hole in the middle for the sucker.) There ended up being 20 kids at the party! And half of them were Finley's age or younger! It really was so much fun. I know that Finley had a great time, if you can't tell in the photos below! By the time the party planning and the party itself was over, it felt like we had planned a wedding. Seriously. I'm aware that Fin won't remember her first birthday party, but I sure will. And I've got the photos to show her just how much fun it was.


































, her suspenders came from Etsy