Abby's Party

Abby's party was a lot of fun.  McDonald's has worked out really well for us.  The kids love it and I love the set up there.
Here's the Birthday Girl on her way!  Grandma Sheri got her the ribbon tights for Christmas pictures.

She was going to wear her white dress with red hearts, but it was too cold, so we went with this dress that Kristi gave us.  We've gotten a lot of use out of it. 

Abby took her shoes off right away and put them in the cubby.

Abby putting Jackson's pacifier in his mouth.  This was so funny.  The poor boy was bobbing and weaving with his tongue out trying to get his binky.

The Birthday Girl with her crown.

Luke, Abby's future husband, from Sunday School sitting next to his cousin Audra, who is also in Abby's Sunday School class.

Waiting patiently for cake.

Ooh!  They are singing to me!

This is fun!!!

With Dee

With Papa.  I didn't get any pictures of Katie Grace, or of Abby opening her gifts.  She got such fun, sweet presents!  Purple shoes and a matching purse and she had to put them on right away!  Bath markers and huge bows.  An Elmo and Abby video from Dee and Papa, a magnetic ballerina with clothes for dressing and a Leapad Story Book.  Everyone seemed to have such a good time celebrating this sweet girl.

After the party with her Daddy.  She was asleep by 6 and slept 14 hours.  That's Big Fun!

Birthday Stuff

I did a red and white heart theme for Abby's party.  It's just way too easy this time of year.

My plan was to have her picture on her cake in a white dress with red hearts, but those pictures didn't come out as well as this picture, so we added navy to the color scheme.  Thus the napkins with the navy hearts above.

Texas Star Bakery did a fantastic job with the cake and it was strawberry to make it pink to go with the pink heart on her cake.

The favors were cookies.  The sign says, "It makes our hearts happy that you shared Abby's day, please take a cookie as you go on your way."

The Happy Birthday Sign.  McDonald's does everything for the kids' parties.  You can choose for them to provide cake or ice cream.  We bring the cake and I bring napkins and plates, too, but you don't have to.  It's a super nice set up with everything done for you when you arrive and all the clean up handled. 

The kids' table.  Each child gets a happy meal of his or her choice. The Birthday Girl got a special plate to keep and a ball. Each child got a favor bag and a crown.

Pictures of the cookies before they were wrapped.  LOVE.

And wrapped with red lacy bows.

 

This is the picture that was on the cake.  Kristi took it.  It's the only one I haven't put on the blog. 

 

Abby's Birthday

Abigail Elizabeth Allen turned two years old today.  It was a sweet day, though I am still in disbelief that my baby is two.

Her first two pictures of the day:  breakfast and morning bath.

So she's obviously upset here, but I am putting this in to show what she was wearing when I put her in her crib for morning rest...

And what she was wearing when I came to get her from rest

Dressed again and looking at her super cool new shoes.  Grandma Sheri (and Grandpa Tom) sent this dress and shoes and some other goodies and we received them last night.  It was so fun to watch her open them.

Grandma Sheri sent Abby her very own Thomas the Train socks and Abby came unglued!  She was jumping up and down and squealing and saying her version of "Thomas!" and trying to put them on all at the same time.

She got the book above from the Sweet Scully family.  We love them!  And she didn't put the book down most of the day. 

Her very first present came almost two weeks ago - a new swim suit from Grandma Beth and Grandpa Mike.  She's already worn it twice!  I need to get a picture of her in it.

We had to pick up her birthday cookies and we were meeting the girl who made them at a Chick-Fil-A.  YAY!  I do cookies instead of treat bags.  I've done that for all my kids' parties and I really like it.

I have a ton of pictures of all the party stuff and the actually part.  I will get those up soon.  It was a fabulous day and a very tired girl is sleeping soundly!

Abby!

Tuesday was Red Day at school.  She wore a long sleeve velvet dress

She wore this heart shirt from Grandma Beth this week.  She loves it because it's silky!

It actually has navy pants that match it, but those were dirty at this moment.

Valentine's Day.

I say all the time that Abby and Aaron are SOOOO different and they are, but lately I've been noticing a couple of things that Abby does at this age that Aaron did.

She LOVES to unload the diswasher.  And load it.  Put in the soap, start it, do the whole routine.  Aaron was so into that.  The thing that she does differently is that Aaron would take the silverware caddy to the silverware drawer and unload it all.  Abby takes one piece at a time from the dishwasher to the drawer and then goes back for the next piece.

Abby loves to get the mail which Aaron was also very into.  What really makes me laugh is that she takes it to the exact same place that Aaron always took it and goes through it the same way.  I really don't think she ever saw him do it, so it intrigues me.

Abby's school Valentine's Party

And Aaron's

 

Old Pictures

We got an iPad for Christmas which has seriously revolutionized our lives (and saved us a pile of money since Jory was going to buy one in January).  BUT, I never take the pictures off of it.  For some reason I can not understand (and if Steve Jobs was around I would ask him) the adapter cord for the iPad is not the same as the one for the iPhone.  So, even though we have more iPhone cords than one could ever need, we only have one cord for the iPad and it stays downstairs for charging.  I never, ever bring it up to the computer to download pictures.  Thus, I still have pictures on the iPad from the day after we got it as a Christmas present.

This was Abby chilling on our bed sometime in January.

And this is her in her fancy, schmancy light up cowboy boots that she picked out her ownself

This was after church one day when it was cold which could have been any time in the past two months.

Oh, Sweet Aaron.  I love this picture of him in a basket.  It is actually the lock screen on the ipad which is something you can do with pictures that you take with a device but never remove from the device. 

Aaron reading his library books in his favorite outfit.

Aaron taking a gymnastics class.  That's him in the bright blue T-shirt.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 These are the last of the pictures that Kristi (Two Pink Boots Photography) took. 

 I thought it would be a fun Valentine's Day post.

Tomorrow will be all about this special girl

 

 Have a sweet, wonderful Valentine's Day!