Holy smokes, Jada is 1!

Somehow my daughter has already gone from this...

to this...

a beautiful, determined, full-of-life 1 year old!

Here's how we celebrated with family and friends at our house yesterday:

The celebration started a few days earlier when Leyton and I began making goodies. Leyton was such a good helper making oreo cookie suckers dipped in white chocolate. He was quite the sprinkler!

My sister Lindsey came to my rescue as an excellent helper on Friday evening. We got started shopping and making even more goodies by 9a.m. Saturday morning. We made homemade caramel sauce, caramel corn, white cupcakes and carrote cake cupcakes, and a pennant banner than said "Happy Birthday Jada". After about 16 hours, we were finally finished with as much as we could finish before the party Sunday.

It didn't take long for this quiet, empty backyard...

to be turned into a yard full of fun people like this...

Jada got so many gifts! I think Leyton was more excited about opening them than Jada was, but she quickly figured out how fun it was when she realized what was inside all the wrapping and tissue paper.

Lindsey and I found this cupcake tower at Wal-Mart. It was originally black with a topper that said "Trick-or-Treat". We found the leaves at the Dollar Tree for $1, so Lindsey stapled them on to cover the Halloween decor. It turned out pretty well!

Of course, Jada loved the cupcake!

After everyone demolished a cupcake, we painted pumpkins!

At the end of the day, we were all exhausted.

We are very thankful for a beautiful, healthy little girl. We couldn't have asked for a better day to celebrate the first year of her life!

A lesson

Leyton just got home from preschool. I asked him the usual question...what did you learn at school today? His response?

L: "Well, we went to chapel and learned that some kids had to sit in time out."

Me: "Did you get into trouble in chapel?"

L: "No, I didn't. Adam did."

[I know there's no little one named Adam in his class so I figured out pretty quickly what Adam he was talking about.]

M: "Adam and Eve??"

L: "Yeah. A snake told Eve to eat the apple, so she did and they had to sit in time out!"

Wow. He listens. :)

My favorite time of year!

I absolutely love fall, not to mention the month of October. Granted, my birthday just so happens to be in October, but now we have even more to celebrate...Jada's birthday! Can you believe she's going to be 1 in less than a week?! I can't! We'll have birthday celebrations to come, but for now, here are some pictures of how we've been spending our fall so far.

We went to the Jacobs' Family Orchard a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously hot outside so we didn't spend a lot of time there, but we still had fun playing with friends. Jada is queen of the mountain!

Leyton was so excited to see Brady he could hardly contain himself.

We tried to get a group photo but we all know how difficult it is to get 3 kids age 3 and under to cooperate.

This past weekend we took a short trip to Wabash to visit the pumpkin patch. Jada enjoyed climbing on the huge pumpkins. As you can tell, the weather was a bit more like fall for this trip. :)

Leyton loved the animals. He was able to get up close and personal with donkies and goats. He was trying to coax the donkey to come closer by asking very nicely, "Mr. Goat, can you please come over here?" It didn't work, but it was a nice try.

How are you spending your fall?