Father's Day Gifts From Baby Henry

It's Father's Day y'all!! Whoop whoop!!! For some reason I'm in such a great mood! 

Even with this little guy tearing up my craft room. This is what he does... EVERY... DAY... NO... LIE...

But I don't mind 'cuz he lets me work.

And he's super cute. How could you get madd at a face like this??? You just can't. He's a good baby. Baby Henry chillin' like a villin' in summer! What what!!!

Okay back to Father's Day stuff. So Baby Henry decided he wanted to give Daddy and Grandpa something for Father's Day. 

Here's Daddy's gift. (P.S. It's Pinterest-inspired but you already knew that.) I took the "Walk a Little Slower, Daddy" poem and translated it into Spanish since Daddy is fluent in Spanish and is still learning English. While Daddy was asleep I took his sneaker and stamped it in yellow paint then onto the printout. Then I took Baby Henry's foot (while he was awake, not sleeping! that wou;dve been a disaster!) and painted it orange and stamped his footprint over Daddy's. 

For Grandpa, I used Baby Henry's palm print. First I painted the water scene. Then I painted Baby Henry's hand yellow and imprinted it onto the painting. He's a little fishy! And he's hooked on Papa!!

Dad and Granddad loved it!

Marjorie's Bridal Shower Invite

My bestie is gettin' merried ya'll!!! Whoop whoop!! I'm so excited! AND she picked me as her Matron of Honor!! Double whoop whoop! I love me my bestie!!! Of course being the crafter that I am you know I had to do her bridal invites. Enter Pinterest the lifesaver! I found ideas and shot them Marge's way. We settled on one we both liked and 30 invites went her way.

These invites were SOOOOO easy to make!!! I made everything already in my possession (I love my craft room!). I printed out the invite, glittered up the bodice and attached tulle and ribbon and voila! DOOOONE!!!! I love, love, love the way these came out. And once she received them, Marjorie fell in love with them, as well.

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The Beach in Spring and Our 2-Year Wedding Anniversary

Hey there! Welcome back!

Look!

Look below!

Do you see him?!?!?!

It's Baby Henry being funny! Or... well... I guess it's Mommy and Daddy being funny, lol. We love playing with his long hair. I thought this would be a fun pic to share with you all.

Here are a few more. Recently we spent an afternoon at the beach. It was sunny out but still a bit windy. 

This pic below is one of my favorites. It's Daddy skimming rocks along the water and Baby Henry in back in his little cruiser. My two boys. Words can't express how much they mean to me :)

Here's another candid of Daddy and Baby.

So recently Daddy and Mommy celebrated their wedding anniversary. We've been married for two years. I know we JUST did the church thang in September but we did the legal thang in May of 2013 so legally, we have been married for two years. I made a few things for Daddy this year. First, a cake because I love making cakes. I just realized though that I had made him a blue cake last year for his birthday! Blue is my favorite color and it's Henry's favorite color as well, so... who cares! More blue the better! 

In addition to his blue cake, I made him a little frame. I printed our wedding song lyrics ("Sabes" by Reik) onto heavy cardstock, then I cut it out in the form of a tree. I then pasted it onto another white background, cut out red hearts, and hung them on the tree branch. Then I framed the tree. after that I cut out two of the same hearts again and wrote our names on them. Then, using 3D dots I put them on the outside of the frame so they would stand out.

I also put lipstick on and kissed some cardstock and wrote him a little note. Then I laminated it and told him to keep my kiss in his wallet. Then, I cut and laminated another piece of cardstock and put our wedding stats on there, i.e. how many years, months, weeks, days, hours, etc. we've been together. This was another card for his wallet.

A close-up of the tree of love frame.

Anniversaries aren't really big in Ecuador and my parents never really celebrated their anniversaries either. But I've always had a love for celebrating special moments and this is definitely one of them. I love remembering the first time we met, and the first time we went out, and our wedding, our son's birth... everything. It is all special to me and I am happy things happened the way they did. It wasn't easy when I moved to Ecuador, but Henry was a silver lining. I never expected any of this to happen. We met and became friends. I was positive that was it. Then one day... love happened :)

All Aboard! Baby Henry's First Birthday!

Welcome!! Welcome!! Come join us for Baby Henry's First Birthday Bash! He's 1!! He's!! I can't believe it! My little munchkin is one! But he was just born yesterday! How is this possible! I am so overwhelmed! He was so little. This tiny little angel and now he's so big and thankfully still an angel. I know everyone thinks their baby is the best, but I truly believe that my baby is the best... for me. He is exactly the way I pictured him. I knew he wouldn't give me any new gray hairs. He's so calm and laid-back. Fist bump to my Baby Henry for being my sidekick in everything we do. Can't wait for you to start walking. Everyone says things will be crazier when they start walking but I truly don't believe that. I feel that once he starts walking things will be smooth sailing. No more being carried by Mommy! I anxiously await that day!

Anywho, back to his party. So on April 19th we celebrated his 1st birthday, 5 days after the actual day. It was a Sunday and a gorgeous day at that. The weather cooperated for the pinata and everything went according to plan.

I didn't have time to make invites and truthfully I really didn't want to. This was a Thomas the Train themed party through and through. Everything had Thomas on it. Invites were no exception. We went to Party City and bought EVERYTHING we needed there.

These were their invites. 20 in the package.

 I needed one more invite so I had to make it. I was in a rush but I think it came out alright!

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The birthday boy with Daddy

The cake! Unreal right? Yeah!! We didn't go with Luigi's this time, we went with a Brazilian bakery and it proved successful. The cake was delish and everyone asked where it got our cake from. I gave them the Pinterest idea and they recreated it exactly. The track was ours. I looked and I looked for his little Thomas but I couldn't find it. It was the one piece missing, even though we had the Thomas candle. OVerall, this cake was so yummy!

Baby Henry through the year. Pinterest again. My dad made the numeral for me and I decorated it with pictures of Baby Henry from the moment he was born 'til the day before his party. I still have this. It's def. a keepsake and it was a hit at the party.

 

For party favors I made Train Smoke. I printed out the label, bought tiny marshmallows and little sandwich bags and assembled everything. I was so excited to hand them out that I handed them all out and forgot to one for me. 

 

 These were the station cards I made. I forgot to take pix of them but basically they were baggae claim, departures, and so on...

 A few days later we went to Toys 'R' Us for a special birthday greeting for Baby Henry. They announced his birthday through the loud speaker...

They also gave him a little Birthday Crown...

And a Balloon!!!!

Ruth's Baby Shower Decorations

My sister-in-law Gladys asked me to do some decorations for her bestie's baby shower so of course I had to oblige. I've really been into the decorations mood lately and I love a challenge. My challenge if I choose to accept it was: Wilderness theme. I ACCEPT!

Glady sent me all the ideas she had and what she wanted. I was to make a small animals banner, a larger "IT'S A BOY!" banner, and the favor tags.

Here goes:

Exhibit A: The small woodlands banner. I basically printed out little aminals and created a tiny banner. I embellied with some glitter.

I can't remember the dimensions of the banner but I made it a bit longer just in case. I aim to please.

Close-up of the aminals. The monkey is just too cute!

Exhibit B: The bigger "It's A Boy!" banner. I added a few aminals here and there and Glady gave me a bag full of little sprigs and brances and pinecones which I used throughout. She really enjoyed the look. Again, glitter is your friend so I used lots of it. I really wish I had used a better camera but this was the best I could do.
 

 Exhibit C: The thank you tags. I think this was the most time-consuming. Do you know how hard it is to cut little itty bitty aminals???? Wow! I was so done after aminal #5!!! But, duty called and I had to serve! I really spruced this one up until I was happy 'cuz at first I was not happy with my work. After printing the words I added the wittle aminals but something was missing. So, I added glitter swirls!!!! Yeah!!!!!! Then I woved it! Again, I really wish I had gotten a better res image but I had no camera and my bro took the pic for me. I have a feeling he sent me a low res version cuz he has an iPhone.... hmmm....

Adamaris's Quinceanera Invites

Last month, hubby, Baby Henry, and Mommy went to Ecuador to celebrate Henry's little sister's Quinceanera, or Sweet 15. Quinceanera's are very popular in Latin and South American countries. They are the equivalent to our Sweet 16, which is what I had since I was born and raised here in the States. 

As a gift, we told my in-laws that I would make the invites for them. I already had an idea in mind: an explosion box. I had never done one before so this would be a first for me. Also, I knew NO ONE in Ecuador had seen this type of invite before. Starting in September of last year, after our church wedding, I started showing my mother-in-law ideas and color schemes. I showed her the explosion box idea from a few pins on Pinterest (my go-to place for EVERYTHING!) and she loved it!

Below I've shared a few pix of us in Ecuador. Everyone was in love with Baby Henry. He had fans from all over and on a daily basis he was surrounded by women (there are 3 in Henry's immediate family).

Here is Baby Henry with his grandparents friend Yuly, her daughter Ailee, his grandma Lauri, his aunt Adamaris, and his aunt Anabel.

Ailee loved touching his little face.

Here we all are making the 50 invites for the Quinceanera. I brought all materials with me. Most everything was precut or prescored. I brought ribbon, lace, embellies, glue gun, glue sticks, paper, punchers, my Martha Stewart scoring board. I thought of everything!

And yes I have red hair now!

Baby Henry joined us but he watched Thomas while we worked day and night for about three days straight. These had to get done pronto!

He wasn't really interested in us. Thomas had his interest.

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And the finished product. This is the outside.

Completed explosion boxes were lined up against the wall.

I used different colored ribbon according to what was left. For example, once I was out of coral, I went to brown, and so on.

Bam! Did this just blow your mind! It's a mini cake! Whaaaaaaa???? Shyeah!

I... Made... It... Myself...
I won't tell you what I used to decorate the cake but let's just say it added the needed touch.

And here's a pic of Daddy and baby. This is one of my favorite pictures.