Curious George First Birthday Party

I was looking through my blog and I realized I never did a full recap of Harper's first birthday. It was on September 18, 2011 and we had an absolute blast! We had a Curious George theme. I need to find his invitation and take a picture to show you all! I designed his invite in Illustrator and then I made the envelopes with my Cricut Machine out of old vintage Curious George books. I even found Curious George stamps on Ebay! Cute, Cute, Cute!!!

My sweet friends came in town for the day and they were a HUGE help! Thank you Cissy, Brooke, Marisa, and Bri for all of your help! And Kent and Brice too... they were quite the little helpers!!! 

Here are some photos from the big day:

At the last minute we decided to get a bounce house. I am so glad we decided to go that route. All of the kids loved it and it kept them occupied for hours. Even our dog Fender loved the bounce house! He literally ran up the ramp then started running around inside the bounce house with all of the kids. We decided to buy Harper a swing set for his first Birthday present. It was a hit too!

Harper absolutely loves going on the swing but it seems to put him right asleep. He passed out within a few minutes on the swing. It was so cute.

And then there was cake! We decided to get a chocolate miniature cake for Harper to destroy. He took it out. That cake had NO CHANCE!

Crazy Beautiful Life

How many mom's wonder on a daily basis how other mothers do it? Sometimes I feel like I am a complete train wreck in comparison to the "super-mom's" out there. Then I had an epiphany. Someone asked me, "How are you so well put together all of the time?" HA! But they were not joking. Apparently when some people read my blog and check out my Facebook I trick them into believing that my life is organized and perfect. Man did I fool you guys. It is not. Not even close! I can't complain because I am beyond blessed but we are not living this fairy tale life...

Erik and I both work and work hard! Both of our jobs require extensive traveling. So we are constantly on the GO! If our house is clean and organized it is because it has been a week since we have been home. For the most part, my monkey destroys the house. His favorite activity is standing at the top of the staircase in front of the safety gate and chucking all of his toys over the gate and down the stairs. Crap everywhere.

Yes, I will admit, our jobs are pretty darn cool. But they can still be very stressful like every other profession. When people hear that Erik models they tend to be envious but let me tell you there is a whole lot more to modeling then standing there and looking pretty. Erik constantly watches what he eats. We go out to dinner and I always order a steak and pototo. Erik orders salad and chicken. The food runner always gives me Erik's meal first... yes my husband has to eat like a woman! Not to mention he is on a strict work out regimen. He has to deal with rejection on an every day basis. Can you imagine going to castings where you are up against 20 other highly attractive people? And when you don't get booked they don't give you an explanation. You just have to wonder, "Why didn't they pick me?" I couldn't do it. When Erik lived in NYC and modeled full-time with FORD I would get pissed. In my mind, he should get every job. And when he didn't I would wonder why. He was used to it but it bugged me every time. Not to mention he has a "real job" too and he is taking a full load of classes. His life is insane...far from "perfect."

We all know the saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side." I am convinced it is true. We all struggle in our own lives. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.

Here are a few more photos from Pasha's shoot!  This guy has MAD photo skills!

Oh Christmas Tree!

Last week (yes we are VERY behind) we finally went and got a Christmas tree. We wanted to go up to North Carolina and cut one down but we were pressed for time so we decided to go somewhere local. We found a cute tree farm in Greenville called Elves Christmas Tree Farm.  It was great! We normally buy a Fraser Fir and they had some available that were pre-cut but we decided we wanted to cut our own and go with a local type of tree. We ended up with a Leyland Cypress. It has a beautiful shape! We really love it. I highly recommend checking out Elves Christmas Tree Farm if you live in the Upstate! It is fun to enjoy in the old Christmas tradition of choosing your own Christmas Tree in the field. They always offer FREE Hot Chocolate, Coffee, Candy Canes and free hay rides are on the weekends.

Here are a few photos from our adventure. It was such a gorgeous place, next year I want to do folks family photos at the tree farm!

Canaan Smith's "We Got Us"

I just downloaded in awesome new song off iTunes! It is by an incredibly talented friend of our's, Canaan Smith. Erik and I became friend's with Canaan years ago when we lived in Nashville, TN. He is one of those great guys that you really want to see succeed. He has already had a very successful song writing career. He wrote, "Runaway" by Love and Theft.

He has opened up for several great musicians including Vince Gill, Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, Corey Smith, Gavin DeGraw, and LeAnn Rimes.

Check out Canaan's new single on iTunes HERE!  Buy it, listen to it, love it!

Here is my song review:
It rocks. 

Harper and Canaan. 

Fun Giveaway

Beautie & The Belle is hosting an awesome giveaway. It is hosted by Marley Lilly. Marley Lilly has awesome monogramming and personalization gifts. Here are a few of my favorite things on their website.

Beautie & the Belle is giving away a monogrammed scarf. It is so cute. Check it out here!

Christmas Family Photos

A few months ago, Pasha Belman Photography had a family photo contest. The winner received a free session with Pasha and a disc with all of the images. Our family won! Thanks for all of your help. We really appreciate it. The photos are incredible.

I have followed Pasha on Facebook for quite a while and I absolutely love his work. His lighting is very unique and his beautiful wife helps with the artistic direction of his shoots and she is very talented! Check out his incredible work here! 

Here are a few of the photos from the shoot! You can see the photos better is you click on them.

There are actually a ton of other pictures I love from this shoot. I will try to share more this week. In the meantime I am off to watch some football. I am very disappointed with the Bills performance for the second half of the season. I am personally not a huge fan of Fitzpatrick. And I really hope we go for a solid QB in the next draft but knowing our draft selection we will probably have horrible picks. It is rough being a Bills fan! Ha!

Harper's Little Man Nursery!

I am a delinquent mama. We moved several months ago and I never posted photos of Harper's new nursery. We call this room his "little man room" because we decided to go more classic and less baby. He was already 6 months old when we moved so it didn't make sense to me to do another themed nursery. I wanted something that he could grow with. Harper's sweet Nana gave him a giant giraffe for Christmas and it is the perfect final touch for his room. I still have a few more crafty projects up my sleeve for fun decorative pieces that I want to put on his bookshelf but I think it is pretty much as close to finished as it will ever be. It could be years before I have time to do daily craft projects again!

• The crib is by Baby's Dream and it is the Legendary Safety-gate Crib is espresso.
• The wall decal is by Back-40-Life. It is a wonderful Etsy shop with lots of fun decorative decals. The family that owns the shop is actually local. They are from Greenville, SC! 
• The bedding is "Master Blue" by Hoohobbers. We love the pale green, blue, and beige combo. 
• And we have a sleep sheep on his crib. I recommend this for every expecting mother. Harper still loves it every night. It is a cuddly plush toy that provides soothing sounds to help your baby sleep. We got the travel version because we are always on the road.

• The glider is by a company called, "Four Seasons." The green fabric was a perfect match so I was thrilled! And it is a slipcover. So if Harper decides he hates green one day, I can just change the cover and not have to worry about buying a brand new chair!
• Our sweet friend, "MiMi" made the window treatments for Harper's room. It was such a gracious gift. Thank you, thank you, thank you Mimi! I had a hard time finding pre-made boy valances. All of the cute ones were so girly. These couldn't be more perfect. 
• And I found the cute little owls at West Elm. They reminded me of Jonathan Adler without the huge price tag! 

• I love the blue stripes on the one wall. We decided to do just one wall so it wasn't overwhelming. We used a metallic paint so it has a nice shine to it in the light!
• I found all of my artwork in the nursery on Etsy. It saved me HUNDREDS of dollars! Expecting mom's look here FIRST. Trust me. All of the Etsy artists custom do the colors to match your room perfectly. The "Little Man" print was found here. And the fox and owl print was found here.
• My mom bought the giant giraffe from Imagination Station in downtown Spartanburg. It is the perfect addition to the room and Harper LOVES it!
• I found my piggy bank and frames that are on the book shelf at TJ Maxx Home. They were CHEAP! I think the bank was $12.99 and the frames were all less than $8. 
• I bought the scripture that is above Harper's closet from Back-40-Life too! It was about $12.

• The changing table is the matching dresser from Baby's Dream. 
• I got a matching Hoohobbers hamper and had it monogrammed with "Clothes" & "Towels"
• Bird Ave. did his "Oh Baby" print. It is actually a little paler in real life. He matched the colors PERFECTLY for the nursery! Check him out here. All of his prints are adorable! 
• And the little animal watercolor illustrations were found here. I had them matted with a burlap and pale green matte.

• And this is the last little nook of Harper's room. It is actually right when you walk in his door. 
• I bought the white cube shelving system at Target.
• I bought the prints at this Etsy store! They CRACK me up!
• I bought the plastic container at Pottery Barn Kids outlet and the finger puppets inside at IKEA.
• The giraffe frame was hand painted by an incredible artist! 
• The lion toy on the shelf is made of cordorouy. I LOVE IT! And it is sooo soft. We bought it at Imagination Station too! 
• I found the airplane globe at TJ Maxx Home. 

I hope you all like Harper's room! It is my current favorite room in the house. Next up, the master bedroom!