Ansley's 2nd Birthday!!

I can't even begin to believe that we're celebrating Ansley's 2nd birthday.  It is absolutely bittersweet.  We feel so blessed to have this amazing little girl that brightens up our lives in ways we couldn't even imagine possible and we love every minute of watching her grow, but yet the past 2 years have just swept by us too quickly...in what feels like seconds.  I know this is so cliche' and I say it so often, but how does life pass us by so fast?  Ugh!  I sometimes think I haven't taken enough pictures, captured enough video of her silly little sayings or mannuerisms, or soaked up enough of her sweet little personality.  I've just decided I can't even think about it anymore...it makes me so emotional! So...onward!
There are so many things to mention about Ansley, but it's almost impossible to wrap her up in a few short paragraphs.  Here's what I can think of right now about her latest goings on....

*"No meeeamm (no maam)!"  This is Ansley's new phrase these days when you know she's serious about "no".

*She loves to talk on her cell phone (she found an old flip phone lying around and loves it).  She walks around jabbering nonstop and every once in awhile I'll make out a few words.  A lot of times I'll hear her say....Oh gosh!  And then she giggles.  So hilarious.

*She is sporting a feather in her hair like her momma.  She got one just for her birthday in a light pink to match her party.  My cousin, Danielle put it in her hair and now she's her new best friend.  Ansley calls her "Donelle" and we all get quite a kick out of it!

*We've learned what an animal/insect lover she is.  She's not afraid of anything!  She even loves bugs and frogs...she's quite the tomboy!  On her birthday she caught some baby frogs in her pink Barbie net.  They were so cute and she was so proud of them!

*She has recently wanted to be involved in the daily shoe picking process.  She loves her shoes, especially the pink ones!

*Another favorite phrase...."No, no Ansley do it! K, K?!"  She is definitely Miss Independent!

*It's confirmed...she's a water baby.  She loves any chance she gets at swimming and she has no fear.  Jumping off the side of the pool is nothing for this little turkey!

*We were finally able to paint her toe nails....thanks to Heather!  She's a fan now and sits so still when I paint them. 

*We've noticed that when she gets really excited about something she shrugs her shoulders up and down and does it several times in a row.  It's like she does a little dance and smiles from ear to ear.  Most of the time she does it when she's excited about food (usually ice cream) or when she knows you're going to sit and play with her (she loves having a playing buddy).
Now, on to the party!

The party invite for her second birthday

The Birthday Girl!

Ansley's birthday party was a blast! We love having people over to the house and what better reason than to celebrate Ansley's birthday. We had lots of food...the amount of sweet stuff was pretty ridiculous, tons of activities for the kiddos (Ansley's new playscape was a hit), and so many friends and family to share it all with! We feel so blessed to have a great group of friends and family surrounding us! Here are a few pictures from the party....

 The sweets table

The number 2 I used scrapbook paper on and the birthday hat I made out of coordinating paper and a feather boa I had. 

The cake I made with one layer of strawberry cake mix, one yellow, and Ansley's strawberry on top was also strawberry.  Every layer had strawberry pie filling in between and buttercream icing with fondant covering them all.  My fondant was a little flimsy so my decorating looks like a Kindergartener did it ;).  

The table centerpieces were a variety of cute strawberry shortcake or strawberry pictures and some of just Ansley.  This is her invitation picture.

Another centerpiece

Jason putting her birthday hat on

Jason praying before we eat....Ansley was peeking just a little

Singing Happy Birthday!  She actually helped us sing the entire song.

Ansley's strawberry cake 

Family pic

Jason being a good daddy and cutting the cake

My sweet girl

GG and Mrs. Cathy talking

The Sides family! 

Little Isaac or "Isick" as Ansley says

Some of my family

Pappaw and Anzie

She had enough of just splashing the water....she wanted in...clothes and all!

This water was FREEZING I might add....

Mimi, Jansen, and Ansley

Ansley opening gifts and finding a dress up outfit in one from the Sides.  She loved the boa!

Jansen helped out too

Ansley hugging BB's leg after getting her gift

Blowing some bubbles outside after all the action

Pamaw and the kiddos

Laura, Brynn, and Whit

Ansley on her new slide with Uncle Kyle

Ansley and Jansen sitting at the lemonade stand ;)

Oh, what a day!  It was definitely a beautiful one.  One we will never forget.

Happy 2nd birthday sweet girl!

Random stuff

The last couple of weekends have been a lot of fun...definitely busy, but fun!  Last Friday was my last week of not working Friday :(....back to my old schedule....shucks!  No more poolside Friday's for Ansley and I, it's back to the grind for me.  We've had weddings, galas, birthday preparations, and everything in between.  I'm just plain tuckered out.  But I found a few pictures that I just had to post. 
A couple Friday evenings ago we had a wedding to attend for a beautiful couple, Aimee and Kendall. Seriously....they are adorable and both in love with the Lord.  It's so amazing to see how Christ has been so evident in their lives over the years.  We were only able to make it to the reception, but I'm so glad we did!  It was a very special evening!  You can't tell from this picture, but Ansley had a pretty fun night too.     

She danced just about the whole evening with her little friends Andrea, Will, Anna, Emma, Andrew...they were a hoot!  I took a video of the dancing, but the picture is really dark.

On Saturday we had choir practice for our 4th of July choir program and then Jason and I went to the Heart Hospital and Cancer Institute Gala at St. Francis.  Jason has put a lot of work into getting this going....his new office will be there and there's been so much to plan for.  The gala was a huge success for the medical center and we really enjoyed the evening.  There was dancing, amazing singing, yummy food, and fireworks.  It was quite an extraordinary evening!  For Jason and I, it means there's an end in sight to the late nights at work and the numerous dinners/work functions he's had to be at.  Yay!!

There's been a lot of stuff go on in between the big events too....like feathers and cake making.  Ansley and I both got feathers in our hair (her feather is for her birthday and mine is just for fun!).  I'm in love with it.  I can hide it, show it off, curl it, you name it...that feather has all kinds of tricks ;)! 

Here's "Donelle"(as Ansley says it) putting Ansley's pink feather in. I love having a stylist in the family!

She loved it! 

There's also been some major cake-making going on too.  Ansley's cake was about a 4 day process and Danielle I. got to get in on some of the action.  Ansley decided she wanted to lick the spatula and knew who to befriend to allow such things.  More, more, more is all we heard from her!

She licked it clean! 

She really got into it as you can tell :). Ha! 

For those of you ate the cake....don't worry...all cake making supplies were thoroughly cleaned after this little one got ahold of them!

                

Memorial Day and Father's Day at the Beel's Cabin

I had a few pictures from Memorial Day to post...I'm SO behind!  We spent the day at my cousin's lake and cabin, which is gorgeous!  I love to spend holidays there!

Ansley, Macke, Jansen, and Dani 

The girls love to play with Ansley and Jansen.  It's so nice to have another set of eyes!

Our Father's Day was low-key...just like we like it!  We spent the day at church, then went to eat with the Bandermann's minus R & W, and then headed for the Beel's cabin.  We had so much fun fishing, playing on the boat, eating lots of fried food, and Jason got his swim practice in!  Woo hoo! It was nice day....I'm so thankful for my dad, Rick, and overjoyed that I have a husband who is an outstanding dad!  I feel so blessed!

Jason and Ansley fishing  

Doesn't this look like a scene from Forest Gump!  I love it! 

So cute! 

Most of my cousins taking a ride in THE BEAST! 

Jansen and Kyle 

Ansley and Laura 

The crew relaxing on the deck 

Tanner and Rob on the boat

Please disregard my fro-like hair in this picture....it was a little steamy out! 

Ansley rocking her new t-shirt dress 

I love lazy, family days!

Ansley has a new BEST friend!!

So come to find out...Ansley loves my friend Heather just as much as I do!  Heather was at the house the other night and Ansley just clung to her the entire evening!  She wanted Heather to play with her ("come ere" she'd say with her little cupped-hand wave), she let her paint her toenails (this was shocking...the girl cries when I try!), AND she even pottied on the potty chair for her!  I'm telling you...she was her best buddy!!  I just sat with my mouth gaping.  That's when I made the executive decision that Ansley was going to go stay with Heather for a few days and come back potty-trained!  It sounded like an excellent idea to me! :) 

I've never seen this child sit so still when there's paint involved....seriously...I'm still shocked! 

She was so proud of them when she was done.  Not only did she sit like a statue during the entire painting, but when Heather told her she needed to walk on her heels afterwards so they would dry...SHE DID!  I was impressed.  I so wish I had a picture of the two of them doing that!  

Ansley and Heather.  Ansley is mid shoulder shrug as you can see. 

Sewing Extravaganza and Craft Night!

Whew!  It's been quite an exciting couple of days!  I started a sewing class last week because I know absolutely NOTHING about the art of sewing and I've been dying to learn!  There's been numerous things over the years that I've thought....oh, I want to be able to make that!....and can't.  I'm a dummy when it comes to anything with a needle and thread (I'm the girl that took shop class instead of home-ec) .  I can't even sew a button on a shirt!  So...as you can see...it was time to learn.  My friend Lilo, grew up with a mom that made everything...she knitted, crocheted, sewed...she did it all.  Linda is a sewing genius. Pam mentioned my interest in sewing to Linda and she offered to show us how to make a few styles of dresses.  The pillowcase and t-shirt dresses were our first attempts.  Wow.  I had no idea what went into the sewing process...lots of detail, but I love it!  Here are the dresses that Pam, Whitney, Linda and I made.....I was shocked!

Most of these pictures were stolen from Whitney's blog, because I had no camera...thanks Whit!

My little blueberry girl...she went through several containers of berries during our sewing.  Thank goodness Linda brought some blueberries from her farm! 

The finished product.  Thanks Linda and Pam! 

Oh, how cute is this! 

We are so proud of these dresses! 

One more taken with my iphone...I couldn't hardly get this dress off of her!

Now for the tshirt dress...this one is probably my favorite!

I can hopefully do many more sewing projects now that I have a little bit more knowledge about the process.  The possibilities are endless!  Woo hoo!!

We had our 2nd craft night with the girls and it was just as fun as the 1st! Ashley hosted and taught us how to make a "lollie wreath"!

Here's Whit with her safety goggles on.  Ha!

        

Most of us did a 4th of July theme like the one above and they all turned out really cute!  I'm not quite done with mine yet, hopefully by the end of the week.  As always, I enjoyed visiting and crafting with the girls!

Summer Fun!

Oh the joys of summer! There's nothing quite like the long summer nights, trips to the cabin, barbecued hot dogs, swimming in the creek, and jeep and 4-wheeler rides on the farm! It's just nice to get away...and do nothing!  To not think about the million things I have to do at home or run, run, run from place to place. Just some good 'ole peace and quiet. 

Ansley driving the jeep with Jason

Ansley was so excited to be at the creek...Alleigh loved it too!

 

Mimi and Ansley walking the shore

 BB and Ansley playing splashing around

 Bathtime in the old clawfoot tub.  She loved it!

  

We are so thankful for our little cabin getaway!

Then last week we went to my Aunt Debbie's pool for a few hours to enjoy the sun.  Ansley loved it!  She had me, Jansen, Macy, Tanner, Mimi, and BB to play with in the water!  Macy was her best buddy though...she payed close attention to Ansley all afternoon and Ansley ate it up!

My mom with Ansley and Jansen (it was nearly impossible to get a picture with no head turning)

Tanner, Macy, and Ansley on the noodle where they spent most of their time 

BB joined in on the action too! 

 I had asked my mom to take a picture of us in the pool and this is what I got...a video of us taking a picture.  Oh well!

 

We will definitely be enjoying more of these beautiful, hot days by the pool!

Mackenzie's Big Graduation!

My cousin, Kenzie graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago and I had the opportunity to make her cake. I've made only 1 other cake and that was Ansley's first birthday cake. I learned then, I knew NOTHING about tall cakes, so since then, I've taken a cake decorating class to just learn the correct techniques. I by no means, am an expert now, but I feel like I have a better handle on what I'm doing. It took me WAY longer to make this cake than I had intended (staying up all night Thursday night was not fun).  Meanwhile, I verified my sneaking suspension that my new oven does not bake properly and that my gumpaste numbers were not going to dry because I made them too large.  After round 2 on the gumpaste "2011" and about 3 cakes ruined because I underbaked them....I realized I'd be pretty happy with ANY outcome at that point! So a couple things I've learned during this time intensive process...it's much more stressful to make a cake for someone else rather than yourself AND multi-leveled cakes are no small feat!  Oh, and have someone clean up the aftermath (thanks mom!).  However, it is really fun to see how it all comes together in the end!
Here are a few pictures....the first one is from the night before the party (the final touches have not been made)

Mackenzie's request:  Zebra and purple

(She has been in love with the color purple since birth...not joking, she was like 2 when she said she wanted to be a nun and drive a purple convertible!)

Kenzie with the finished product!

That thing was heavy!  Can you tell I lost some sleep over that thing?! 

Kenzie was really happy with it and that's all that matters!  However, Jason has requested that he be asked before any more cakes are made for anybody else...I get just a little crazy in the kitchen with the mess and my attitude. HA!