We did it!

There is a sense of accomplishment that comes with celebrating your child's first birthday. Kind of like..."Look at us! She is one year old and not messed up yet!" Maybe the better way to say that is, "Look at us! She is happy, healthy, and has a full life ahead of her." Either way, we feel like it is a big deal.

Friday was the day, so I took a half day because I wanted to spend the afternoon with Noelle and Luke. Noelle celebrated her birthday at daycare with her "friends" as they are all called. The ladies even gave her some cake. I took Noelle out to Wes-Del to surprise my mom. Judging by the way she squealed when we walked in, I would say the mission was completed! I had fun taking Noelle around our old school. I also had this pit in my stomach as I saw all the middle and high school kids, thinking to myself that these kids used to be Noelle's size, and somewhere their parents are sad that they aren't little anymore. It made me cling tighter to my seven-toothed wonder.

Luke, Noelle, and I met for lunch at O'Charley's and then took her home before her 1 year doctor's appointment! Noelle had a great check-up with Dr. Woodworth, who we absolutely love as our pediatrician. She is so laid back and always reassures us that Noelle is as perfect as we think she is! Noelle is absolutely healthy, weighing in at just under 23 lbs (around 75th percentile). We do question the measurement of her height, because we measured her last week and got 27 inches, which according to a growth chart we found online, it put her around the 10th percentile (which had us concerned). The nurse measured Noelle at 30", so that had her in the 90th percentile. The way they measure is by putting Noelle on the paper on the table and then marking a line at her head and her feet, then measuring the distance on the paper. When we laid Noelle back down on the paper when it was time for her shots, she was definitely shorter than the distance between the two lines, so we are going to say she is somewhere between 27-30" in length, which is somewhere between the 10th-90th percentiles! Either way, she is great. She even showed off her ability to stand alone and take a few steps by herself, which was great! We will see Dr. Woodworth again in June for Noelle's 15 month check-up.

Later that evening, Elizabeth and Liz came over to help with the assembly of the bird pops for the "bird-day" party. We had a lot of fun putting those things together. 

The next day was spent cleaning and preparing all of the food for the party. At 4:00, we were ready for guests, and we had plenty of them! Our house was FULL of people, ready to celebrate Miss Noelle's first year of life. We had yummy food, and Noelle enjoyed a cupcake from The Flying Cupcake. She REALLY enjoyed it! She almost ate the whole thing! The candle on Noelle's cupcake was the same candle my parents used for my first birthday. Noelle needed a little help blowing it out, though.

Noelle received a lot of great gifts, and surprisingly, she was REALLY into the gifts. She wasn't your typical child, wanting to play with the boxes or just throw the gifts behind her. She was into looking at each one, touching them, holding them, and playing with them. This made it nice for the people who gave her the gift-- I feel like her sincere love of the gift was a great thank you for their generosity.

We had a really good time with family and friends at the party. Noelle wore herself out and was in bed by 7:00. She has been falling asleep well before 8 for about a week now. She is sleeping very well at night. She woke up the next morning with a little first birthday hangover. ;-)

I am working on a video montage of her first year in pictures, but as soon as I start on it, I get emotional and quit. This has been my M.O. lately. If something makes me sad or scared, I shove it to the back of my mind and forget about it for a while. Now that the party is over and we have an official ONE year old, I have to address other issues in my life...first and foremost, Match Day on Thursday and all that comes with it. I am trying so hard to be positive and enjoy this incredible time in our lives, but I have never been one for change. All I can hope is that I am in fact a lot stronger than I think I am, and that I will tackle any challenge ahead of me.

Anyway-- Happy Birthday to our sweet, lovable, wonderful Noelle...our reason for breathing. It's impossible to look at her sweet face and NOT want to be a better person. She will do great things for this world. 

Happy Birthday, Luke!

My wonderful, amazing, charming, caring, sweet, kind, hard-working, dedicated, doting husband turned 25 on Sunday. We celebrated by having his family and mine at our house for some lunch, cake, and ice cream. There's always a lot of laughs, noise, mess, and fun when we all get together.

Noelle got her dad a very special present. She arranged for a very talented photographer to take her picture in a onesie that says "I Love Daddy," and she had it framed. In the frame she also included a hand print and a foot print. She worked really hard on it. For my gift to Luke, I got him the movie Avatar. Needless to say, he was one happy guy!

Here are a few pictures of the day. Happy Birthday again, Luke! I want to be celebrating with you for the next 100 birthdays!

Luke with his girl on his birthday!

Noelle with her God parents, Uncle Abel & Aunt E

Luke's golf cake that I made. "Twenty-Fore No More!"

Happy Birthday, Babe!

Happy Sunday!

Hello, hello, hello! It's a beautiful Sunday morning...and I am sitting on my couch with my laptop on my...lap! I should be outside soaking in the sun, but right now it is pretty enough just to look at.

Two months ago, I was in Kiawah with family. Now I am on the cusp of a new school year. I don't feel as prepared as I wanted to be at this point, but I still have two 1/2 days to work in my room on Monday and Tuesday. I also need to keep reminding myself that I don't HAVE to have the whole school year planned on the first day of school. I am just so nervous about meeting my new set of students and their parents! It is such a crazy day...I only wish the kids knew that the teachers have just as much anxiety as the students. However, I suppose it is a good thing that the kids don't know that... they can already smell fear.

This week, we celebrated Clare's 21st birthday with a family dinner at Bravo. Luke's grandmother, both Aunt Marcias (yep...we have two!), Uncle Hugh, and cousins Melissa and Zach came from New Albany...as well as Liz and her precious boys, Gus & Sol! Cousin Aaron and his wife, Ellen, who live in Indy, and Abe & E, CeCe, and a couple friends also made the dinner. It was a great crowd! Turning 21 is a big deal around here! We finished the night off with a Coldstone cake, this time it was mint chocolate chip. YUM!

I got to spend some valuable time with Gus & Sol. I just love them! They stayed the night with us, so I didn't have to share them with everyone the next day. I had them all to myself! :-)

Last night was the final summer concert, Brad Paisley. It was really fun, great weather, no excess of drunk idiots like the George Strait concert. We had a really awesome time. It was a nice show to end on.

Well, we are off to church and then to Candace & Damon's for an end-of-summer cookout with friends. It is bittersweet to see summer on its way out, but fall is on its way, which means football, sweatshirts, apple cider, and pumpkins. BRING IT ON!

25th Birthday!

Well, I have officially crossed over to the other side of 25, and now you can round my age up to 30. Woohoo! Actually, if you ask me, age doesn't really bother me that much. However, try asking me that when I actually turn 30...then I might have a different opinion. I always looked forward to my "mid-twenties," when I was younger. I always thought it was the perfect age...young enough to go out and do things and professional enough to have money to do them. HA...! At least I am still young enough to go out and do things....

I had a great birthday. I spent the better part of the day working in my classroom and getting it organized and put together for this coming school year. I know that doesn't sound all too exciting, but to me, it felt good to be productive. I got my license renewed, complete with a license that has a picture where I was told not to smile (Indiana has an identity theft software thingy where they do face recognition and a smile would just ruin that). Needless to say, I look like a convict, but at least I have good hair in the picture. :-)

I got some gifts from my parents. They always do too much and make me feel guilty for not being a better daughter to deserve such things. Oh well. My mom always says she doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do. But still. Well, I will just add "be a better daughter" to my 25 year old resolution list. 

I went back home to Indy and got ready for a great dinner at Buca's with my amazing husband who just rocks my world each and every day! Then we came back and he presented me with not only the chocolate chip cookie dough Coldstone ice cream cake that I have been petitioning for since April, but also a Border's gift card! Yessssss! 

Then, the door bell rang, and rang, and rang, as a nice gathering of our family, including my parents who I just saw hours prior but never mentioned coming down to Indy, filled our living room to help wish me a happy birthday. What a sweet surprise! Again...hubby...rocks my world. 

The cake was to-die-for...Lord it was wonderful! Elizabeth got me an amazing shirt from Target that I almost bought myself. What thoughtful people! It was a great night.

So...I'm 25. Abe wrote to me in my card that it would be the best year of my life...and Abe, I know I don't like to say this...but I think you're right! :-) 

Luke's Birthday

I haven't updated in a while. Sometimes I have so much to say and yet so little all at the same time. I don't know how that is possible, but it is. I don't know who all reads this little blog, but I like to update frequently so as to maintain an accurate record of the happenings of 9428 Haddington....and so I begin....

Luke turned 24 on Saturday! It was just an absolutely beautiful day on Saturday, we enjoyed doing some yard work and being in the sun. I made a field trip to Muncie to get CeCe ready for her senior prom. I crack up when I think about how last year, she wouldn't even touch a pink, sparkly dress, but yet, this year, she was like Barbie Princess on Ice. She looked beautiful...hard to believe I have no more girls to help get ready for dances and formals. Tear. 

I came back to Indy just in time to make our reservation at Buca's with Abe & E for Luke's birthday. We enjoyed good food and great conversation. We made a side trip to Kohl's on the way back and then came back to the house to eat some chocolate cake (that I made, which was DELISH!) This recipe was dubbed as "The Best Chocolate Cake in the World," and I do believe it lived up to its name!

Sunday, the whole Ernstberger clan, including Seth, Liz, and boys, as well as my parents, came to our house to celebrate Luke some more. I swear, we feel so unworthy of the love we receive....it makes us start thinking about all the other birthdays in the family that weren't honored with a family get-together. We feel sad when we think about this, but we also feel inspired to be better and orchestrate family gatherings more often. Everyone deserves to feel as blessed as we do :-) 

We played outside, ate good food, shared stories, caught up on life....it was an awesome day. Any opportunity we get to see our precious nephews, we cherish.

I have been working really hard lately on keeping a positive frame of mind...and a pure heart. Thanks to my sweet friend & sister-in-law, E, I have realized some changes that need to be made in that department. It's one day at a time, one foot in front of the other....and I like where this life is heading. 

On the subject of E, and Abe, they unfortunately experienced the loss of their dog, Hunter...so for you animal lovers out there, send a little prayer their way. 

Alright, here's some photos of the weekend!

Look how beautiful (er....handsome, macho...) Gus is!

Playing with CeCe & E

Gus in the sprinkler

Look at that face!

I took 10000 pictures, waiting for a smile....

Gus dirtying Deohgie's water

Luke's Apple-Cranberry Gorgonzola Salad that looked amazing!

He was quite proud of his work!

Miss CeCe in her beautiful dress

Luke's 2 layer birthday cake with chocolate ganache frosting!