my weekend in photos

my apologies for the lateness of this post. blame it on the big game that went way past my bedtime.

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friday lunch. grilled chicken tenders & a perfectly crafted arnold palmer.

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headed out saturday morning for a chilly run.

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ready for the big game!

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looking like a big girl at dinnertime.

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freshly manicured toes.

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after anxiously awaiting game time all day. finally.

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halftime treats.

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food prep for superbowl sunday.
homemade pretzels, greg’s specialty.

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hanging out before kickoff.
17 adults & 7 kiddos, oh how our parties have changed.

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cornhole.

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we all felt like margot after the game was over.

***

we had a great weekend full of great sporting events, which we love.
how was your weekend?

my weekend in photos

Thankful for the proximity of our jobs. They allow us to have daytime dates. #thankful

friday lunch date at one of our favorite places.

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9 miles on saturday morning. still hard to believe i actually ran that far/long.

Happy 1st birthday Ben! @jessicaemeyer @andrewjohnmeyer

we celebrated one year with benjamin. it was a beautiful day for a birthday party.

Thankful for stripes! We love them. #thankful

hi. we’re the gilbertson’s and we like stripes.

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someone likes to help with the laundry.

I am thankful for @summitchurch ... and Jesus. #thankful

a little sunday morning church.

Happy 3rd birthday Charlie!

we had two birthdays in two days and celebrated charlie turning three!
it was another beautiful day for a party.

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i have a feeling we’ll be spending a lot of time at lowe’s here soon,
so far, kenley is unimpressed.

***

we had a fun, but productive weekend.
how was yours??

Kenley’s First Birthday Party

We had an awesome time celebrating Kenley’s first birthday on Saturday.
In the last couple of weeks, I got a lot of questions about the theme of the party.
I didn’t really know how to answer them because there really was no true theme.
I wanted her party to be fun, girly, and dainty, and I also knew I wanted one thing: bunting!
I had a lot of fun fabric laying around thanks to Kenley’s Weekly Photo Project,
so I wanted to put it to good use. Plus, this fabric was an integral part of her first year of life!

We first started with the invitation. The insanely talented Isabel Ibanez with 9th Letter Press
designed our invitation for us. They are now available for others to purchase!
I absolutely love them.

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From there, majority of my ideas came from Pinterest and other blogs,
so I will give credit where credit is due.

First Birthday

For the bunting, I followed a DIY bunting tutorial, which is apparently no longer available,
so I may have to write my own sometime in the near future.
I specifically searched for bunting placecard ideas and came across this tutorial. It worked wonderfully.
I purchased the O – N – E letters at JoAnn’s to take pictures with and my mom stuck them on top of the blinds. I loved it!

First Birthday 2

I spelled Kenley’s name using IKEA TOLSBY frames that I already owned
and I got the idea from this adorable party on Hostess with the Mostess.
I made the pink and white cake stands with some spray paint and a glue gun and they worked great!
The water bottle labels were a free download from Bump Smitten.
For the fabric wreath, I followed this tutorial and for the tiny bunting, I followed this one.

First Birthday 3

The menu consisted of light and dainty foods:
Petite Quiche
Pinwheels
Chicken Salad Croissants
Cucumber Feta Rolls
Individual Fruit Salads in champagne flutes

Beverages included:
Strawberry Lemonade in glass bottles with striped straws
(which I failed to get a picture of, but used recycled Starbucks Frappucino bottles)
Bottled Water
Gin Bucket
Beer

For dessert:
Chocolate & Vanilla Cake Pops
Cupcakes in various flavors:
Strawberry Lemon; Chocolate Peanut Butter;
Cookies & Cream; and Pumpkin Pie
Kenley had her very own smash cake: vanilla with ruffled pink icing.

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Cake pops, cupcakes, and the smash cake were fabulous, and were done by Lindsey Bishop, 
who I highly recommend to anyone in the Central Florida area!

Kenley wasn’t sure what to think about her cake. She was tentative at first but did eat some of the icing.
It was pretty uneventful. I think she was more interested in why everyone was staring at her.

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She did not get as messy as I would have guessed, but that’s ok.

Watching Kenley open her gifts made me even more excited for Christmas morning.
I thought, for sure she’d get overwhelmed very quickly, but you couldn’t tell if she was.
She had one little break to see what the other kids were doing since they were playing with her toys,
but she was right back at it after that. She and daddy had a great time opening all of her new clothes and toys.
On the other hand, I am not ready for Christmas, becuase I’m not sure where we’re going to put all of this stuff!

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I’d like to think that her favorite gift is her new chair, but I may be a tad biased.
She does love to climb all over it and will actually sit still while in it, which is not like her!

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Getting introduced to Mickey and Minnie. They’ll all be best friends before we know it.

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Kenley is one blessed little girl, that’s for sure.

The final piece I had seen floating around Pinterest, but wasn’t completely sold on until
Heather posted about Henry’s Little Man Mustache Bash… a DIY photo booth.
I knew it was going to be the perfect way to get pictures of everyone and not have to hire a photographer,
which I was highly considering doing at one point.
It turned out so well.
We borrowed the pipe and drape from Greg’s work and I added my bunting.

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Ryan wasn’t able to come to the party, so he hung out the night before.

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Grandma & Grandpa

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Family

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GG (Maggi) and Kenley matched on party day!

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So thankful for the all the help of this crew!

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Our little one year old. Kenley’s dress is from Etsy.

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Uncle Michael

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Aunt Ya-Ya, Uncle Papi, Greg and GG

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Jeremy & Stan

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The Jenkinson’s

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Ann, Ron, Cooper, and Jackson

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Lindsey

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Kristen & Carly

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The Burnett’s

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Lindsey, Michael & Karolina

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Jessica & Benjamin

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All the mamas & kiddos

Overall, the day was a complete success. There was minimal crying and a lot of laughing.
It was so great to have family and friends here from all over the country to help celebrate this little girl.
We were even able to video chat with Kenley’s cousins in Colorado so they could see her play with their gift.

We cannot thank everyone enough for all the gifts, calls, texts, and well wishes over the weekend.
We are so incredibly blessed to have such amazing people in our lives!

Happy first birthday Kenley Dee!

my weekend in photos

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rocked my new TOMS that i got for my birthday.
in love.
they are more comfy than my glitters, and i didn’t think that was possible.

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kenley celebrated her birthday at school on friday!

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family was in town, meaning we got to play some euchre.

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saturday was party day! i’ll give you a few sneak peeks.

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the birthday girl in her new chair

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the birthday girl’s adorable cake, just for her.

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kenley got an overwhelming amount of new toys and clothes this weekend,
we’re so thankful for our amazing friends and family

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we laid low today, but i did make some baked zucchini coins.
they were a hit the first time around…but not the second time.

***

we had an absolutely wonderful weekend celebrating our little one year old.
i understand that this post may be a bit of a tease,
but rest assured, there will be many more pictures coming soon.

how was your weekend?

my weekend in photos :: summer vacation

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mani/pedi after work to kick off vacation right

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kyler came to play before we left

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kenley’s second trip to indiana was a success, just a little more difficult than when she was just a 2 month old
more on that later, i’m sure.

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party time at grandma & grandpa’s house

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kenley with her great-grandma lower

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michael & rachel

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reunited with my bestie

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the youngest babes of the lower cousins
jack – 18 months, kenley – 8 months, frankie – 15 months, landon – 10 months

flashback of when they were all together over Christmas

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all the great-grandkiddos

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sweet samantha loving on kenley

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swimming at grandma & grandpa’s for the first time

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fun in the sun before the storms moved in

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a perfect size chair

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bananas! she got a few in her mouth, not bad for the first time

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relaxing and enjoying a beautiful evening

***
how was your weekend?

Sally’s Surprise Shower!

Back when I was pregnant with Kenley, which seems like forever ago,
Sally and Lindsey threw a baby shower and brunch for me here in Florida.

Now that Sally is expecting her second, a girl, baby Margot,
I was honored to be able to return the favor for Sally, with Lindsey’s help, of course!
The best part of it was that Sally had no idea we were doing this until she showed up!
Fun fact: we later learned that Sally found out she was pregnant the morning of my shower! 

Anyway, the surprise had been in the works for a while, Lindsey and I had so much fun planning.
Of course, we searched high and low on Pinterest for ideas,
but it’s hard to find all these great ideas and not be able to pin them!
We didn’t want to give away our secret!

The shower was at 2pm, because, let’s be serious,
I knew I couldn’t pull off getting everything ready in my house a minute earlier than that.
We figured everyone would have already had some sort of lunch
so we thought desserts would be perfect!

The menu included:
Build your own fruit pizzas
Chocolate dipped Oreos
Chocolate dipped marshmallows
Chocolate dipped pretzels
Strawberry fluff dip with graham crackers, strawberries, and Eggo waffle bites
Mini cupcakes from Sweet
Regular and chocolate milk

Since Sally and family didn’t need any big ticket items,
we wanted to help fill Margot’s closet with lots of cute girly clothes!
The adorable clothes doubled as decor, so it was perfect!

I put my diy chalkboard wine bottles to good use.

We wanted to display the invitation we had made from Etsy, too.
One, because they were super cute and two, because she hadn’t seen them!

Just under two weeks in advance, I asked Sally if she wanted to “babysit Kenley”,
of course, she agreed and it was set, she was going to come over around 2-2:15pm.
We had talked about it a couple times since then, but I tried to be as vague as possible,
because I truly felt bad “lying” to her… even though it was for a good reason.

Needless to say, she was very surprised!

We had a wonderful time celebrating baby Margot.

She’s is going to be the best dressed baby on the block!

Lindsey and I had a great time scheming, planning, and making all those sweet treats!

Baby Margot we cannot wait to meet you!

my weekend in photos

kenley successfully tore up the entire roll of paper waiting for the doc,
but the visit was a success all in all, minimal crying.
her six month stats: 16 lbs. 15 oz. – 50th percentile
26 3/4 inches – 80th percentile 

enjoying some peas

friday night was spent making sweet treats for saturday’s festivities

here’s a preview sally’s surprise shower to celebrate baby margot

sunday we celebrated another baby-to-be at brian and kristen’s shower.
kenley and cooper played while we ate walking tacos

holding the toy in one hand and chewing on her toes with the other

we met the jenkinson’s at the park
i promise the girls weren’t this grumpy the entire time

***

we had a busy weekend!
how was yours? 

 

Baby Shower & Brunch

On Saturday I was able to celebrate baby G with my amazing friends in Florida.

We had a delicious brunch with fruit, sausage cheese balls,
chicken salad, and pumpkin craisin muffins! So good!

We then had to draw a baby with an accessory… easy right?
While the paper is on your head!!

Here is my work of art, baby with a bottle and a hat…
Can you not tell?!

All of the masterpieces, notice that I don’t have any stickers!

Then it was cake time!
How amazing does this cake look?
Homemade by Sally & Lindsey!
It tasted just as good as it looked too!

Yes, this little girl has Missoni. How adorable?!

Her first personalized outfit!

Baby Gaga… How cute?!

Everyone got a cupcake in a jar, which was amazing!

It had such a great day celebrating and hanging out with my girlfriends!

Thank you so much to Sally & Lindsey for throwing such a great shower!