Thanksgiving

We celebrating Thanksgiving with our family! 

We started out on Wednesday with the Hall side of the fam!  We were in charge of the turkey and Lex was my trusty assistant.  Bry usually does all turkey related things, but he was working so we did our best!  Alexis is smiling in this picture, but she was generally kind of grossed out by the big bird!:)

All wrapped up and ready to get cooked!  It turned out pretty well and we had a relaxing, low-key night.  Just the way we like it!

On Thanksgiving Day, we went over to Mom and Dad's for a late morning brunch!  I made Grandma Drewes' cinnamon rolls!  Somehow I managed to take more photos of food than people during this holiday!:/

Our little turkeys!

These sweet girls loved watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!

After brunch, we played Farkle!

Bry had to work on the day after Thanksgiving so Pat and Linda were sweet to watch the girls so that I could go shopping!  Alexis went with Geepa to get the mail so she had to wear Geema's gloves!  We had a fun holiday together with our family!

Avey’s 1st Birthday Party, Part 2

Here are a few more photos from Avey's birthday party! 

 Avey and her grandma!:)

Mama and Ava Lynn!  This darling outfit was made by a girl who lives in Ossian and has a little boutique company called Tenlee's Closet.  Bry said that Ava will probably look back in 30 years and wonder what on earth I dressed her in.:)  I stand by it now and I will decades from now!  It's CUTE!!!:)
 
Daddy and his girl!
 
And our whole family! 
 
Getting ready to open presents!
 
Alexis was thrilled with all the gifts!  She was very into opening them and got her very excited for Christmas.
 
Such a nice big sister!
 
Cake time!
 
Getting ready to blow out the birthday candle!
 
Lucky for her she had a very willing sister and some very willing cousins to help her out!:)
 
Kisses from her cousins! 

Getting ready to dig in...
 
...so dainty at first!:)
 
She dug in finally!
 
I think our baby girl enjoyed her party!  I know that I had a blast planning it and everyone enjoyed celebrating her life.  She is a complete blessing to our family!

Avey’s 1st Birthday Party, Part 1

We had Miss Ava Lynn's first birthday party at Mom and Dad's house on Saturday! 

We had a "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That's What Little Girls Are Made Of" theme and decorated with vintage-y touches.  I think it turned out so simple and cute...perfect for our baby girl!

We had a brunch so we served milk and juice in mason jars with sweet pink paper straws.
 
Ingrid came through for us again and made this darling three-tier, pink ombre ruffle cake.  It was cute and delicious...you can't beat that!  The top tier was Avey's smash cake.
 
We also served Ingrid's famous mints and punch.  I love punch so I am always looking for a chance to have it!  We decorated with Linda's lace tablecloth with a pink plastic tablecloth underneath and a burlap runner.
 
We also put this cute little printable in a frame on the table.
 
We put Avey's 12 month frame and her baby book out for people to look at.

The other kids got some little goodie bags!
 
 
We bought some cheap pink flowers at the store and put them in mason jars on the tables.
 
We put Avey's newborn, 3 month, 6 month, and 9 month photos on little burlap "canvas" things to dress up the food counter.
 
We served monkey bread, fruit, sausage roll ups, and breakfast casserole!  It was yummy!
 
Michele found this cute chalkboard and burlap banner that we hung in the doorway!  Stay tuned for a few more party pics!:)

Avey's Birthday!

Our Ava Lynn officially turned one year old!  She woke up happy as always!:)

She had to take her new car for a spin first thing, naturally!

And she was really enjoying it until her sister decided to give her some birthday lovin'!

We had a super gourmet breakfast of cinnamon rolls from a can!;)

She was somewhat bewildered by us singing happy birthday to her, but she was thrilled with the cinnamon roll!:)

She also got to open a birthday card at breakfast!

Then we got her all dressed up for a day of birthday fun!  We are so thankful that Bry gets plenty of time off and is able to use days for the girls' birthdays.  We love celebrating all together!

We headed to Fort Wayne and needed to stop at David's Bridal so that I could order my dress for Kate and Ty's wedding.  We thought we'd let Lex try on a flower girl dress and she absolutely insisted on this blue junior bridesmaid dress. 

She looked so precious and cute...until we tried to take it off.  She went berserk!  She kept calling it her Elsa dress and she did NOT want to get out of it.  We ended our shopping trip with a screaming girl...parenting toddlers is not for the easily embarrassed!  Ha!:)

After that we went over to Toys 'R Us and did some browsing around.  We took our time and let the girls play with things that were interesting to them and got some Christmas ideas.  Alexis was pretty thrilled with this princess bed!

And the girls loved this princess convertible!  Something like this is probably going to be on Lex's birthday wish list!

Next, we headed over to the mall for some lunch and a carousel ride!  Just look at our 1 year old...she couldn't be any sweeter if she tried!:)

Avey and her daddy!

And our Lex!  She requests that we not hold on to her on the carousel anymore...wahhhh!!!!

We walked down to where Santa was visiting with kids and we briefly thought about paying the ridiculous price to let the girls sit on his lap.  We changed our minds when they both started freaking out from a distance!:)  We settled for this pic instead!

We grabbed some Chick Fil A and Panda Express for lunch and filled up our bellies.  This is Ava's favorite activity in life so we knew we made our birthday girl happy!

After we came home for a birthday nap, Aunt Michele and the cousins stopped by to say hi to the birthday girl!  I love this picture of all the kids!  It was a pretty low key day, but I think that Ava enjoyed being with her family and doing things that she loves.  We sure love her!