Winter ONEderland!

I apologize for my absence here lately, but it's just been insane as we prepared for Christmas and now Emerson's 1st birthday.

Yes, you read that right.

In just 4 short days, our sweet Emmie Mae will be ONE.

I'm having such mixed feelings as this day approaches.  For a 4th time, I just can't wrap my brain around just how fast this past year has flown by.  At the snap of my fingers. At the blink of an eye.  My sweet newborn has turned into a toddler.

This past year has been such a dream.  Emerson is the sweetest baby in the entire world.  Just perfect.  She was so, so easy and Bob and I count our lucky stars every single day with how we ended up with her as our 4th baby.  This year could have been so much more stressful having two little ones only 16 months apart, (andplusalso two additional kids, ha!) but she took it easy on us and cut us some slack.  She was patient as we constantly stopped feeding her to tend to other kiddos (cough:::reid:::cough). She happily played as we cleaned up spills and helped with homework and cut up food and SHOWERED.  She was, and still is, the best baby in the history of ever.

Thank you sweet girl for not breaking us as we wrangled 4 kiddos through this past year.  We all survived and we owe that, in large part, to you!

Here are a few things I wanted to share with you as we prepare for Em's party...

Anyone that follows me on Pinterest can tell that I've been going crazy over there gathering ideas for Em's Winter ONEderland party next weekend. I designed the invites myself and I'm currently gathering RSVP's and making sure there are enough seats for everyone {I'm not kidding.}  The cake has been ordered. The balloon artist/face painter is booked.  The decorations are ready to be put out. The food list is made. The final touches will be done by this weekend. And I took 2 days off next week just to make sure things are in order. Whew.  This is my last 1st birthday party, so I want to go out with a bang, ha!

Here's a glimpse of the theme/style I'm going with... lots of silvers, shimmery whites, soft pinks and touches of blue.

Some of the paper products and party supplies we got are the "Shining Season" theme, and I just love the look!

I can't wait to see everything decorated next weekend!  I also ordered her a special birthday shirt, have her outfit already, and ordered a few special decorations from Etsy, along with some things I plan to make on my own.  We'll see how they turn out, ha! ;)  I'll leave the cake a surprise, but this is the smash cake I ordered.... EEEKKK!  It's ALMOST too pretty to eat.  Almost.

 

And last, but certainly not least, I'm going through Emerson's monthly pics to place in her frame to be displayed at the party.  I swear this year has flown by almost as fast as it's taken me to put these pics together.  This sweet girl is just SO LOVED.  Can't wait to celebrate her!

Just one last picture to capture on Tuesday, January 27th {Emerson's actual birthday} and the year will be complete.  Ahhhhhhh.

You guise, this doesn't get any easier with practice.  It may even get worse.  Prepare yourselves.

More to come...

WW: Thing 1 & Thing 2

This past week my sister and I finally finished Aubrey and Reid's first birthday invitations and I am so excited to share them with you!

Given that they were born on the same exact day, we thought that we'd celebrate them together, of course.  And what better theme for the birthday twins than Dr. Seuss! Oh the things that we can do with this theme... I almost can't stand it. The red! The turquoise! The hats! The cute quotes!  I'm going a little crazy. ;)

Anyway... I'll have an entire post about things we're planning to do for our sweet babies, but, for now, here are the invites I designed for them.  The poem was a combination of Google and me just trying to be Seusstastic {is that a word?  well, it is now.} So, let me know what you think....

Front:

 Back:

Sigh.  I just can't get enough of them.  The kids not the invites.  Well, okay... the invites too.

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WW: It's party time. Again.

I guess that's one disadvantage to having three kids with three birthday's that occur every other month...

There's always a party.

Once one party is over, it's time to start thinking about the next one.

And next up?  Carter.

He'll be five, people.  FIVE.  That's just insane to me.  I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that one.  I mean, I remember turning five.  I woke up on my 5th birthday and went in and asked my mom if I could finally go to school now. Yes, like that day.  {It was August 9th, mind you.} Now, how do I have a five year old myself?? It's just crazy.

So I, of course, let Carter pick out his party location and theme.  And he, of course, picked Bounce U {for the 3rd year in a row!} and Star Wars.  I know nothing about Star Wars {I've never seen any of the movies... :::ducks:::} so I really had to research the perfect invite and wording for him.  Once I was finished with the design itself, I had Bob read over it to make sure it made sense.

And, with that, I showed it to Carter, who immediately fell in love with it and thanked me and hugged me and kissed me and shook his booty with happiness. {I wish I were kidding.}

So, without further ado... Carter's invite.

He looks a little bit like that Luke Skywalker, doesn't he? {Ya see, I learned a character's name beside Darth Vadar! All is right in the world now.}

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Google Reader is going away on July 1st, and I don't want to lose you in the shuffle!

WW: It's a Princess Party!

Like I said before, I let Brynn pick her birthday party location this year.  She picked Build-A-Bear and she's extremely excited about it.

Since then, she's been hugging the iPad at the thought of making one of these...

And honestly? I'd be excited too.

I also let her pick the theme of the party and then designed the invites myself.  When I showed her the finished product, she gasped with joy and it totally made all the work worth it =)

So, without further ado, I present... Princess Brynn Sophia {the First ;}...

I got them from the printer yesterday and they are PERFECT.  I love them so much.  She's handing them out at GG's daycare as we speak.

Now can someone please explain to me how it's possible for my second baby to be turning THREE?? Sigh.

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Happy Wednesday!

Free Chalkboard Fonts

It's time to talk about something near and dear to my heart.

Fonts.

I know I sound like a crazy person talking about just how much I love {and am addicted to} fonts.  But, at the same time, I know I'm not the only font whore out there either, so...

When I see design work, 9 times out of ten, I can name the font.  Sad, right?  I'm obsessed.  And I decided I need to share more of my love of fonts on here.

So today, I decided to post my favorite free chalkboard fonts. Below the image, there is a link to where you can download them.  You can also find a free chalkboard background image here.

handwriting draft * {ank} * kraft nine * skinny jeans * kg makes you stronger * aria penci roman * chalkduster * blockogrophy * marcelle script * jf ringmaster * return to sender * stroke dimension * viagrande stripe *schoolhouse printed * bounty * bergamot ornaments

Happy Designing!

Christmas Cards: WWYD

I need your help.

I designed and ordered our family Christmas cards at the end of November.

I adore them.

And then I lost my dad.

And my cards were delivered to my house the very next day.

I wanted to tear them into tiny pieces and throw them in the street.

I didn't.

Because I like them.

They've been sitting on my kitchen island ever since.

I'm not quite sure what to do with them now.

On one hand, I really do love them. This is {was?} my favorite time of year and I really enjoy exchanging Christmas cards with friends and family.

On the other?  They say "be merry" when all I want to do is crawl up in a ball.

They say "wishing you all the joys of Christmas" when one of the greatest joys of Christmas was just taken from me.

So, my question to you is... what would you do?  Should I mail them or should I just keep one and throw the rest away?

I'm just not sure...

WW: Announced.

I apologize in advance if this post makes your uterus ache for a baby.  You have been warned. ;)

Now that we have our newborn pictures back, I'm so excited to show you the birth announcements that I designed for Reid and {my niece and Reid's birthday twin} Aubrey!  

Let me know what you think... =)  

All announcement photos were taken by Stephanie Glover Photography

And Aubrey's...

 

 I mean... Aubrey's hair.  SO CUTE!  I just adore her sweetness. And that smile??? :::dies:::

In other news, Reid?  He's ONE MONTH OLD!  How is that even possible!?! Here's a picture of my little pumpkin in his 1 month tie ;)

Sigh.  I just adore him.

Overall, things are going so well.  He's a sweet baby and he's a good sleeper, for the most part {however, we've had a few rough nights, as expected.}  Most of our issues stem from breastfeeding, but we both seem to be doing better with it and I'm hoping to make it to my first goal of 6 weeks {1.5 weeks to go!} and that we'll finally be on the other side of this hill. {Please tell me it gets better at 6 weeks.  Pretty please?} My next goal will be 12 weeks and then we'll take it from there.  Hopefully I can make it 6 months, but we'll see.  Baby steps.

In other news, Reid was just diagnosed with reflux {Carter had it too, but we dodged a bullet with Brynn!} and I'm hoping his new meds will help with feedings as well.  Poor baby screams in pain after nursing, even after a change in my diet and some other things we've done to try to avoid medication.  I'm hoping the Zantac helps!

He's really starting to be awake more and I love it!  He's talking and starting to smile when we talk to him.  Carter and Brynn just adore him and are such good little helpers!  Carter is already asking for another baby... a girl.  I told him we could always just steal Aubrey.  He was perfectly fine with that.  Sorry Aunt Kacy!

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Wordless | Brynn's Birthday Invites

So Brynn's 2nd birthday is upon us {!!!} and I've been working hard on designing her invitations and planning her party. Like I said before, I knew it would be hard to top last year's birthday party and Brynn in ONEderland invitations, but ya know what? I don't want too. 1st birthday's should be a little over the top, right? :)

For her 2nd birthday, we decided to have her party at a local orchard. Hayrides, feeding the animals, full park access, pizza, juice boxes, cake & train rides... what more could toddlers want? I'm super excited about it!

So to match her party location, we decided to do a whole "farmer girl" theme. EEEKKK.

Here are the 3 invite designs I came up with and I just need your help deciding which ones to order. I made the general design the same {ahem, these invites will soon be listed in my shop ;} but I'm not sure what to do about a picture!

Invite #1: No picture, just a cartoon farmer girl...

Invite #2: Brynn's little face on the farmer girl body... ha!

Invite #3: Brynn's picture separate and no farmer girl...

So?? What do you think? I hope to send these to the printer by the end of the week since I want to get her invites out ASAP.

Ahhhh, I can't believe my baby will be TWO!

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Thanks for your help! =)

Y3W | Holiday Gift Guide

Happy Friday! I put together a "little" gift guide of what's on everyone's Christmas wish list this year {mama & daddy included ;} However, what this doesn't include are some of the wonderful things that our families are getting for the kiddos. They are so spoiled that I just couldn't fit it all on here!

So here are just a few of our favorite things...

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

{I must add that the wooden kitchen set that I just ADORE? It's ridiculously expensive. Has anyone seen any deals on cute wooden sets like that?}

********

Andplusalso? Because I love you guys so much, here's a free printable that I made. I think any mom of a toddler must say this phrase at least 54,925 times. A day. {I also remember my mom saying this to us when we were kids, hehe.}

You can click here to get it, then just save to your computer and print as an 8x10! =)

And, after all that, don't forget to link up below!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! We're heading out tomorrow morning to chop down our tree and Bob and I are SOOOOOOO excited about it! Carter really knows what's going on this year, so it has been so fun to be apart of his little happy world =) Miss Brynn? Well she just keeps yelling "lights" and "pretty!" and "Chrisfmus" and "allll aboard!" {yeah, we watch Polar Express way too much.}

Oh, and Sunday? We're headed to see Santa. Prepare yourselves for another lovely picture ;) Don't know what I'm talking about? See Carter Hates Santa Part I and Part II. I'm fully expecting a Part III this year, except with 2 screaming kids. It will be twice the fun! =)

Y3W | Holiday Card Giveaway!!

Because Thanksgiving is next week {how did that happen???} I thought I'd kick it off the holiday season with a little card giveaway!

Below are a few of my favorite designs {but you can view all the holiday cards here}...

So, what will you win?

• The winner will receive a holiday card design of their choice from 9 designs.
• It can be something from the shoppe or a completely custom design. {I love custom orders, so if you have an idea, I'd love to create it for you!!}
• The giveaway will end on Thursday, November 24th at 11pm EST and the winner will be selected shortly after. Keep your eye out for a little Black Friday discount shopping code too!!! ;)
  

Here's how to enter the giveaway... Each thing that you do below, counts as a separate entry, therefore each person has up to 5 chances to win!

Mandatory:
1.) Comment on this post and tell me which card is your favorite card from the shop! Don't forget to include your email address {so that I can contact you if you win!}

Optional:
2.)Become a public GFC follower {if you are not already} and add a comment that you are now following the blog. For those that are already a follower, you can add an additional comment stating that you already follow the blog! =)
3.) Like jenni from the blog on Facebook.
4.) Follow @jennifrmtheblog on Twitter.
5.) Tweet about the giveaway: I just entered for a chance to win a free custom holiday card design from @jennifrmtheblog! Enter here http://www.jennifromtheblog.com/

Be sure to leave a separate comment for each thing that you do! Good luck!

Oh, and grab a button and join the Y3W fun...

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Have a great weekend! I'm going to be putting up all my Christmas decorations at my house this weekend. Oh, and I'm also decorating my office with lights today... weeeeeeee. =)