Emilynn, Brandon, and Harlow: September 2011

So our sweet baby Harlow is officially a 1-year old! I can't even believe it. Her birthday was on the 29th, but we've had like 3 days of celebrating! Today Brandon took these adorable pictures!

I'm going to warn all readers of this post, it's going to be overLOADED with pictures. Like those balloon pictures, there was probably 50 of them, and it's so hard to choose the cutest ones! At first I was just goint to throw a few party pix up so everyone who wasn't able to celebrate with her could see some pictures, but then I thought it'd be cute to start at her birth . . . then today we took those balloon pictures. So I apologize in advance for the ridiculous amount of photos you're about to see, but she's pretty stinkin' cute, so I'm sure you'll get through it! :)

This past year has been so exciting and fun to watch her grow, it's unreal how fast it's gone by. Seems like just yesterday when this little peanut came into our lives and changed us forever.

I can barely remember her being this small!

Our little pumpkin!

She loves Grandma's pool in AZ!

Cousin Love!

Our early walker!

So that was the past year . . . I can't beleive how many pix we have of her - seriously like over 2000, it's ridiculous and you can tell she's the first baby!

Now onto some fun birthday party pictures!

On the morning of her actual birthday we made her a cute #1 pancake, super cute idea I got from Pinterest!

The beginning of the most awesome birthday cake ever! I saw the cake idea on a friend's blog, she has a how-to HERE http://www.simplysadiejane.com/2011/08/my-how-to-rainbow-cake.html (my hyperlink button won't work for some reason, so sorry, you get the whole address) and decided to try and be a cool crafty mom for a day . . . then I kind of ran with the rainbow theme and did more multicolored stuff just for fun!

Like rainbow JELLO! (super time consuming, but they turned out pretty well!)

Birthday girl sitting under her rainbow balloon arch! That was nana's idea :)

Harlow loved the rainbow jellow!

But she did NOT love the rainbow party hats! Jenna was wearing a party hat and Harlow was just staring at her, so she came over to say hi and she FREAKED right out! Then I took her hat off and put it on the table in front of her . . . yup, another meltdown!

Super cute cousins! Ashton loves her, he says he'll marry her one day! ha, love it!

Cute hoodie nana got her . . . went with the rainbow theme too!

Love this pic of Natalie and Aurora!

THE CAKE!!! it turned out awesome, I was so happy

get it . . . .skittles - taste the rainbow! I just thought of that now that I'm looking through the pictures . . . they shoud put this on one of their ads!

Just realized that you can't see the cute rainbow on her shirt she wore the whole party - Guess we didnt' take a good picture of that, but her and Aurora had matching ones, it was cute!

yay for layers! and yummy cream cheese frosting!

A little timid at first . . .

then she dug right in!

Her favorite part was the licorice, she LOVED it!

Overall it was an AWESOME colorful party full of yummy colorful food, and adorable one year old and lots of friends and family. We were even able to skype with my parents over in Myanmar so they got to share in the celebration! At the end of the day I was happy with everything, during all the prep earlier in the day I was a little scared it was going to turn out okay. I had an hour by hour list of things I needed to do starting at 9am . . and I didn't end up having time for a shower, but thats okay. YAY Harlow, we love you! Can't believe you're one . . . time for another fun year!

Well, it's hard to believe that it's already September . . . it's sad really. Summer came and went way to fast this year. It seems like as I grew up summers weren't quite as exciting anymore because I'd either be working or going to school during summer months. But this summer was a little different . . . I'm not sure if it's because this is the first summer we've had a little one to play with outside, the fact that I wasn't working full time, or the freezing cold 6 months of winter that will rear its icy head in a couple of months, but this summer was pretty awesome!

We spent A LOT of time with family. We went boating, went to fun beaches, parks, played on the trampoline, BBQ'd, had bonfires, went to the state fair . . . the list could go on. It's hard to believe the sunny weather is coming to a close, and also hard to believe that we've been in MN for 5 months. I still get AZ homesick once in a while, but things are going well out here. Brandon just started his 2nd semester of school and is thoroughly enjoying it. Luckily his class schedule hasn't been too heavy, so he's been able to help out with Harlow a lot so I can go into the office and get some work done too! I've been super busy with work the past month, but that will slow waaaay down soon here and life will be a little less hectic with more time to play with my baby (who is getting very hard to keep up with now that she's walking ALL over the place, time to baby proof!)

Anyway, here are a few pictures to describe what we've been up to during this sunny season . . . . of course they're mainly of Harlow, pictures of her are always so much cuter than us!