About Me

Hi! I'm Abby. My husband, Carl, and I are happily married since October 2007. Our little family of 2 (well, 3 if you count Chief, the dog) added one more in October 2011 when we welcomed Audrey Elizabeth, our first child into the world. Our life was forever changed. And to add to the joy and excitement, we added another daughter, Clara Marie, in May 2014. I wanted to create this blog originally to document all the milestones throughout my pregnancy with Audrey so we could remember that special time in our lives. And now I get to write all about Audrey and Clara and our life with these amazing "Larson Ladies", which is so much more fun!

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Saturday, November 2, 2013

Audrey's 2nd Birthday Party

On Saturday, October 12th, we celebrated Audrey's 2nd birthday with a wonderful party.  



We chose a One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish party theme because Audrey loves Dr. Seuss books and loves this one in particular.  

Grammy Patton really put a lot of her touches (and time, resources, money, and effort!) into this party.  We keep telling her she needs to be a party planner!  We really appreciate everything she did to make this such a special day for Audrey.  

Beautiful food display.  Decorations (including handmade wreath and banner)
courtesy of Grammy Patton.  We served pizza and salad on the crates.
On the left side of this picture is a Gack where the kids could play "Ring the Gack."
That's right, we have the only Gack in town.  Grammy Patton made that Gack
with her new saw and then hand painted all the details with a little help from
her brother, my Uncle Scott, who was visiting from TN.

Guests could sign the book and leave their wishes for the birthday girl.  Sign reads,
"Stop here you see, and write a very special message to Me!  A Birthday Wish
or just sign your name, So I will never forget you came.  On the front, on the back,
or any of the pages.  It is something I will treasure for all my ages! Love, Audrey 10-12-2013"  

Here is the beautiful dessert table.  Auntie Ashley made the "2" sprinkle cake and all
the delicious cupcakes.  The cake was funfetti and the cupcakes were a mixture
of funfetti with funfetti frosting (minus the sprinkles) and carrot cake with cream
cheese frosting.  So beautiful and, most importantly, so delicious!  The carrot cake
cupcakes were my (and a lot of guests') favorites!  

The dessert table also had fish cookies from Mariano's and
fish bowls of swedish fish, colored goldfish, fish sweet tarts.
 Audrey certainly had a lot of fun celebrating with all her friends and family.  What a great day it was!  Thank you to everyone who came!  (Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of everyone who came.)

And a special thank you to Grammy Patton and Auntie Ashley Patton for everything they did for the party!!  What a special party for a special girl.

Audrey and Maci Whetstone with the Cat in the Hat

Audrey and Maci sitting in Audrey's new chair/bed from Auntie Amber

Auntie Jennifer and cousin Ross Larson

Audrey and Maci playing with baby dolls

Audrey and Derek Carroll (neighbor) playing Ring the Gack.  I'm guessing Audrey won?

Ring the Gack:  Audrey, Colby Marr, Fiona Carroll

Audrey's new car from Grammy and Gramps

I think she likes it!

Audrey and Auntie Ash

Audrey with Grammy and Gramps

Crystal and Maci Whetstone, Abby and Audrey, Colby and Cynda Marr

with Katie and Frank Baio

Audrey and Auntie Amber

Audrey with Grandma and Grandpa Larson




Audrey is 2!

Our sweet Audrey Elizabeth is 2 years old.  Here's the birthday girl!
In a pretty sweater dress, courtesy of the Marr's


Dear Audrey,

You are the sweetest little girl.  You love your daddy, but you're still a momma's girl. Which doesn't bother me a bit.  :)  You are such a good little helper.  You love to have a job to do like putting things away, but only if we make a fun game out of it.  You love to get out your vacuum and vacuum alongside of me.  You love to dump out your basket of hair bows/accessories and then pick them up and put them away.  Over and over.  At "school" (daycare), you get stickers often for being a good helper for your teachers.

You have made so many friends at school:  Karishma, Chloe, Avery, Maureen, Jack... you can name them all when we look at your school picture.  And your teachers just adore you.  Your teacher in the Toddler 2 room, Ms. Abby, just raves about you.  How you love to play with the baby dolls, and you take such good care of them by wrapping them up in blankies and carrying them around.  She told me that if she had to choose 1 child to be a big sister to her kids, it would be you.  For your birthday, Ms. Abby made you a little red cradle with a tiny baby doll for you to play with and remember her by.  She's really going to miss you now that you've moved up to the 2/3's room with your new teacher, Ms. Meghann.

You love reading books, and you certainly have some favorites.  For bedtime, we many nights read the same books over and over.  You love all Dr. Seuss books, especially The Lorax, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hatches the Egg, and Green Eggs and Ham.  You love the books I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words and Snow.  Sometimes you'll let us mix in some other stories, but those are the go-to's.  Your favorite movies are The Lorax and Despicable Me.  We have watched these movies so much, especially The Lorax, that it's not uncommon for Daddy and I to have the songs from The Lorax stuck in our heads all day at work.  (Why do they make the songs so darn catchy??)  You love watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Elmo (not Sesame Street, just Elmo), Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Little Einsteins.  You love to color.  Some days they send home 6 sheets of paper that you colored by yourself.  And you love stickers.  We have sticker books where you can stick them all, but your favorite thing to do is stick them to your face and your clothes, all over your body.  You crack up at yourself doing this.

You love playing at the park, sliding down the slides (even the big ones!), swinging, and just running around.  Our park in our neighborhood has a splashpad, and you loved to visit there over the summer and run through the water.

You are a fun-loving little girl.  You are shy around others, but you're adventurous and ready to try new things.  At school, they tell me that you are usually the first to try something out, even if the other kids are hesitant.  You have no problem sitting down and focusing on one thing for awhile.  Recently it's been a number of things... Playing with a mini-tent with mini-people when you were talking about camping at daycare.  Ms. Abby was so impressed that you sat there and played with the tent and people for so long.  You were focused on figuring out how to zip and unzip the tent, and once you figured it out you were so proud of yourself!  Also, building things with blocks... you love to build and then crash it down.  You are analytical and you like to figure out how things work.

Your favorite restaurant is Train Car Tommy's (formerly known as Choo Choo Johnny's).  We sit around a bar where a train circles around and brings you your food.  You were so excited to eat there for your birthday, and started clapping and hootin and hollerin in the parking lot even as we were pulling up.  They gave you ice cream with a candle in it (delivered by the train, of course), and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to you.  You got so embarrassed and hid your face in my shoulder.

You are a good sleeper in your big girl bed.  You transitioned from the crib to the big girl bed at about 19 months old (back in the early summer) when  you learned how to flip out of your crib.  You still can't open the door to your room by yourself, so you knock on the door when you're ready to get up for the day.  You still sleep with your paci, but it's reserved only for sleeping.  You hand it to me to put "in its safe place" on the dresser as soon as you get up in the morning.

You are quite the talker these days.  You are now putting together 3-4 word sentences.  And you've learned possessives... "Audrey's car", "Chief's leash", "Daddy's coat", etc.  Your expressions and some of the things you say and how you say it just crack us up.  One of my favorites... you scrunch up your nose, shake your head, and say "I don't like it", usually in reference to broccoli or something like that.  That facial expression is so funny.

Grammy Patton planned the most wonderful 2nd birthday party for you.  You kept saying "Audrey's birthday" for a good month before your birthday, just in anticipation of your party and celebrating.  (I think it also helped that other kids at school had birthdays, so you wanted your turn!)  The theme of the birthday was One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.  We had a lot of friends and family who came to celebrate with you.  It was such a good time!

Audrey, we love you so much!  You surprise us everyday with a new thing that you've learned or what you can do.  Even as you get more opinionated and independent, you are such a good girl.  You have such a good, caring heart.  And you are so smart, such a good memory!  You amaze us, and we love you so much.  Happy Birthday, sweet Audrey Elizabeth!

We love you more than you'll ever know!
Mommy

Pictures from your Birthday Dinner:

Watching our food come out on the train

Superman Birthday Ice Cream



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Halloween

Audrey, our little LadyBug, had a fun Halloween.  She went trick-or-treating for the first time!  Grandpa Larson picked her up from daycare and brought her to my office where they let all the kids visit.
 
 

Then we came back to our house and waited for Grandma Larson and Daddy to come home.  
Audrey's Trick-or-Treat bag, a gift from
Kathy Moran when Audrey was born
Grandma Larson came over bearing gifts!
 
 
Mickey blocks!  Better than candy :)
Daddy's little Audrey-bug

Apple of Our Eye: Audrey's 1st Birthday Party

On October 20th, 2012, we invited friends and family over to celebrate Audrey's 1st birthday.


It was a wonderful day!  The weather was perfect, almost 60 degrees and sunny.  Beautiful Autumn day.  And better yet, we got to celebrate our Audrey Elizabeth's 1st year!  

 
Grandma & Gramps Patton
Grandma & Grandpa Larson
Grandma Patton, Aunt Faye, Great-Grandpa Hahn, and Uncle Jim

The party was the BEST birthday party I have ever been to.  My Mom outdid herself again!  We chose an "Apple of Our Eye" theme, but we wanted very girly colors, not the typical Autumn colors that go along with October and apples.  It turned out to be even better than I could have imagined.  Of course my Mom (Grandma Patton) took on the role of ultimate party-planner, and I can't thank her enough for all the work she did to make this party so memorable for us and for Audrey.



We set up tables in the garage and a tent with chairs/tables on the driveway for more seating.  Since it was such a beautiful day, a lot of people spent time outside.  

The food was set up inside in our kitchen/dining area.  Grandma Patton made a really cool frame that hung above the food table.  It was a collage of all of Audrey's monthly pictures through her first year with a 1-year-old birthday picture in the middle.  I don't have a good picture of the food table... best I can do is this blurry picture of the collage with pink and green balloons on the side.  As for the food, we served shredded BBQ chicken, bratwursts, coleslaw, and chips.  We had juice boxes, caramel apple cider, bottled water (with custom labels), and beer to drink. 

The main feature of the party was the dessert table.  Grandma Patton and Aunt Ashley really outdid themselves with this dessert table.  

A friend of mine has a side-business where she made cake pops and oreo balls, Pops n' Balls.  She made the Apple Cake Pops (spice cake and cream cheese frosting) for our dessert table.  Delicious!  We also had lollipops...

Apple Jacks and Caramel Corn (from Del's Popcorn Shop in Decatur)... Homemade Apple Pies baked in mason jars (believe it or not, I made those!)... 

Confetti Cupcakes with hot pink frosting (courtesy of Aunt Ashley)...Audrey's "smash" cake on a beautiful cake platter as the center piece for the dessert table...

Hot pink M&M's... Snickers Caramel Apple Salad with a pretzel and a candy lime for the stem and leaf...

Caramel Apples (from Del's Popcorn Shop in Decatur)...

and baskets of Granny Smith Apples...

The dessert table definitely added a "wow-factor" to the party.  And all the guests really loved the desserts.  I thought we were going to have tons of leftover candy, but there wasn't too much remaining after all guests had left.  

Audrey had 2 outfits for the party.  She wore a pretty pink tutu with this custom onesie that said "Audrey The Apple of Our Eye".  I loved this big pink flower headband, but that didn't last too long.  :)

After we ate dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to Audrey.  We left the candle unlit because I was a bit paranoid.  Next year, she can blow out her birthday candles.  :)  

Then we let her dig into her cake. 

Carl had to help her really dig in.  She wasn't as interested in this cake. 

But it certainly does look like she went crazy, doesn't it?  What a silly girl!  

After the cake, Audrey got a bath and a new outfit... her birthday dress.  I had a pillow case dress made with a hot pink apple decal and Audrey's name.  She had a blast opening all her presents...
 
Rocking horse from Grandma & Grandpa Larson
Handmade carousel horse made by Uncle Ross

We will never forget Audrey's 1st Birthday Party.  What a beautiful event for such a special girl!  Big, big thanks all who came and especially to my Mom for taking this party to the next level and making it so memorable!