Happy 1st Birthday to My Sweet Abbie Girl!!

Can today really be the day? One year from the first moment I laid eyes on you. One year from the first time I held you, touched you, nursed you, kissed your sweet cheeks....

This next one is my most cherished picture of us. It was our first family picture. I had dreamed about "the first family picture" for months before you were born. I had it all planned out in my mind. It would be of you on my chest with your daddy trying to squeeze in next to us as best as he could. I wanted that moment captured on film to treasure for forever as our first moments with you. So this....this photo is my most treasured because I didn't get "that moment," the one I dreamed about. You came out blue, not moving, not breathing, but I won't get into your birth story. No, today is about celebrating, and for your mama....I at least deserve a few moments to mourn.

To mourn what? To mourn the fact that you my sweet girl, are more girl than you are baby anymore, but at the same time to celebrate your sweet personality that is developing. I love hearing your sweet voice say the words you know. That squeal of laughter you have...oh how it melts my heart!

To mourn all the lost moments that I spent worrying too much about housework and selfish things, and knowing that never again will you sit as still in my arms as you did as a newborn. No, you are all about "going" now. Crawling at record speeds, trying to walk, walking around furniture as fast as you possibly can, exploring and getting into everything you possibly could and shouldn't be into, but yet again celebrating. Celebrating your excitement for life. Celebrating the joy that you bring to so many of those around you. It doesn't matter where we go, but you always make a friend. You befriend people in the grocery store, on walks, at the library, at restaurants....your smile is captivating and contagious. Don't lose that sweet girl. People in this world need to be loved on, not judged. I pray that that personality trait just blossoms in you more and more. I think you might even teach your mom a thing or two from the way you already love others.

I mourn the fact that I can't control this, and again its just one more way God is teaching me to trust Him. I like controlling things. I like overseeing them. It's scary to think how fast this year flew by. I know the rest won't be any slower and someday, if God allows we will have more children, your brothers and sisters, and time will get even faster. Yet I celebrate how precious of a gift you are. I pray that I cherish each moment that God gives me.

We named you after Abigail (King David's wife) in the bible. The name Abigail means joy, and that you are baby girl. You truly are a joy!

This year has been one of sweat, tears, and sacrifice, but always over flowing within all of that was the joy of you! Though our lives right now don't look at all like I thought they would 5 years ago, I wouldn't have changed what God asked us to do in the last 12 months for anything. He's grown us in so many ways through everything He has asked us in the last year.

So without further ado sweet girl, here it is...your last year in pictures. My goodness how you've changed!!!

Dear Abigail,

Thank you so much for letting me be your mama. You overflow my heart again and again every time you look at me with your beautiful smile! We pushed through so much together this first year, and we still came out on the other side unscathed. Thank you for being such an incredible daughter. You bring both your daddy and I so much joy, and I have to admit, I love seeing the softness that comes out in him when you melt him with one of your smiles or your overly ecstatic greetings when he arrives home. I keep praying that God will show me how to raise you, that he'll change my heart to be better at this parenting thing. That he'll strengthen our marriage that you'll be able to see a growing example of Christ's love for you. I pray for your own heart that you would see how amazing Jesus is from your daddy and I's example. After you arrived my heart became so much fuller....I didn't even know I had more room to love until you arrived. It made me wonder why we waited so long to start a family. Thank you for being our first born. Thank you for making me laugh and smile endlessly at you. Thanks for being one of my best friends at a time when life sometimes feels so incredibly lonely. Your night time snuggles sometimes were all that helped keep the smile on my face. We love you so much Love Bug and can't wait to see what the next year of each of our lives brings!!!

Love you forever and ever,

Mommy

DIY Birthday Banner Tutorial

So here it is, as promised....a DIY Birthday Banner Tutorial. After searching on Pinterest and Etsy and staring at birthday banners for awhile, I knew I could tackle making one myself, and quite honestly there is something about the love that goes into homemade things that is important to me. I know that this Birthday Banner will be important to Abbie one day. It will represent so much joy of "Her Day" during the year! I wanted to make sure the Banner I made was durable enough to last for years to come so I couldn't just make it out of tissue paper.

My neighbor has sewn each of her kids a birthday banner that they hang up every year. I loved that idea....but dangit....I just really don't like sewing. I like it to a certain extent but its the machine that gets me and honestly the competitive and perfectionist side of me hates that I am mediocre at something. Sewing itself isn't that hard but every time I sew the machine does something stupid and I have convinced myself its because of user error :) I think I might take a class someday when Dave is out of school.

Anyways....on to the tutorial....I hope that you enjoy!!!

First you will need some posterboard (as many pieces as you'll need for the size letters you want)- I needed (20) 6in X 8.5in cards for this project (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL...one letter per card). I bought the packet of 14in by 22in poster board and could make 4 cards out of one sheet...thus using 5 out of the 8 sheets in this packet (Cost about $2.50)

Next you'll need scrapbook paper in coordinating colors (I wanted mine to look girly but also very versatile to go with the many different themes Abbie may have for birthdays in years to come.

(Quantities you'll need for poster board and scrapbook paper vary...I wanted one letter on each card...I needed 20 letters: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL and mine ended up being 6inches X 8.5 inches. So you do need to do a little bit of math to figure it out but its not hard...I seriously just eyeballed it in the store. Scrapbook sheets are 12 inches square so I could fit two of my cards on them and I did buy a few extra sheets for the coordinating colors we will discuss later)- Cost 30cents each...on sale for 50% off at Hobby Lobby- I purchased 16 sheets total (Cost $4.80)

Next take two of your 6in X 8.5in poster board cards (you can make them any size you want to, I just knew I wanted them to be this big for what I wanted the end result to look like), and glue them to the backside of a piece of scrapbook paper. (I used rubber cement so I didn't get lines from the glue...you could probably use things like modge podge but I don't know much about that stuff. (Cost of Glue: $2)

Make sure all sides of the poster board are glued down really well to the scrapbook paper. Allow to dry for 5-10 minutes then cut them out. I rounded the edges of each of my poster board cards with scissors. To save time I glued all of mine at once and set each aside to allow it to dry. By the time I was done gluing the others I could start cutting apart the ones I had glued together first.

When you are done with all of your cards they should look like this. I laid mine out as a template for the order they would be in when I glued the letters onto them. Top row will eventually say HAPPY, 2nd row BIRTHDAY, and 3rd row ABIGAIL.

Next I took the extra sheets of scrapbook paper I purchased in solid colors that coordinated with my patterned sheets and cut the shapes I wanted out of them. I just cut out circles, triangles, and squares cause I don't own a fancy cricut machine and I can cut each of those out freehand :)

Then I selected a font I liked from Word and printed off HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL. I think the font size was 250 or 300 in order to make it large enough to look good on the size of cards that I made.

Now glue your shape on the bottom 2/3 of your card. Glue the letter on top of that. Leave enough room at the bottom to make it look pretty or keep in mind if you wanted to add any extras to hang from the bottom of yours, that you will need room for those. I wanted to leave plenty of room at the top for mine because I wanted to lace ribbon through the cards to hang them.

Once I was finished applying all the shapes and letters, I punched holes in the top 1/3 of the cards, about an inch from the sides, and laced ribbon through them. I had a hard time getting the holes to be big enough for the ribbon to fold over, so I just punched holes out in a big enough circle to make the ribbon lay flat. They probably make some handy stamper that cuts this out automatically but I don't own one so that is what I did.

(Cost of Ribbon $1.99)

Tada! My birthday banner!!! It's so sturdy. The cards are very thick and I have no doubt that they will hold up for along time. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

You can modify your own however you'd like. If you have a girl throw on some more frilly ribbons and toule, you could even have borders or put stickers on or decals....its so customizable. This is just a template.

Total Cost was about $11.50)

Time Spent: An evening after Abbie went to bed...about 4 hours

Easy. Frugal. Most off all I'm glad I took the time out of my day even though our lives are crazy right now to make something that will mean a lot to Abbie later.

I'll be posting a DIY on how to make pinwheels soon so don't forget to check back! These will be used for her birthday as well. I was gonna just claim defeat and have someone make her cake but then I remember my mom always made our cakes every year growing up and that meant a lot to me. My cake making experience....well mostly decorating experience is minimal but you can't learn unless you try (probably should apply that thought to sewing as well....) so I am going to be giving a go at fondant in the next few weeks....I'm not doing the whole cake in fondant cause it tastes horrible, butI am going to try and make some figurines out of fondant to decorate with...we're doing a Love Bug theme, cause that's my nickname for her :) Oh and speaking of...

just when you think she can't get any cuter....BAM she does! I just love her to bits! Happy Bannering!!!