Happy Birthday Violet

So here are a crazy amount of pictures from Violet's birthday party. 

The day of Violet's actual birthday was during one of the craziest weeks for me. I was asked to be in charge of a Super Saturday activity for our church. It was a lot of organization and prep time for me. Then throwing Halloween in the mix and Mike having school, it just didn't make sense to try and celebrate that same week. So after a few days of recovery from the church activity I finally got to set up and pull together her party. 

I had been planning and slowly working on things for a few weeks. So luckily it wasn't too bad. I kept thinking, oh maybe we won't really do a party and just keep it simple. I just couldn't do it! I seriously love parties way too much. Since I don't live near family I never really get to throw parties and I haven't done a wedding since December. So I figured for her first birthday I would make it special(and my own selfish reasons). I debated back and forth a lot on if it should be more of all mine and Mike's friends or if it should be more about Vi. We went with Vi. We decided to just invite the babies that she plays with and knows. So we kept it on the smaller side and got to see all these little babies who have been together since they were born. I loved it. We moved our ottoman out and just brought out all the toys for them to play with. I made salted caramel cupcakes. They are so good. They are seriously addicting. I made caramel apples and mini pumpkin donuts with a cinnamon sugar glaze. The theme was " You Are My Sunshine". My mom sang that to us all the time when we were little and we sing it to Violet often. So I made little suns to go in the cupcakes and I made the gold sign with the song lyrics out of gold foil paper. I'm not a super bright color person, so I went for more of a pastel and gold vibe. I made the paper garlands that hung on the wall and just added in some velvet rick rack. I made a little cloud pillow and some goody bags for her friends that said "when skies are grey". Inside was a little apple sauce squeeze pouch and a party hat for everyone. Of course Vi loved getting to attack her cake and we loved getting to celebrate her and her big first year of life.

 I apologize for the bad lighting in a lot of these pictures. Our apartment almost has no overhead lighting in the main living room. This whole daylight savings thing sort of came up on me quickly and I was losing light fast. 

The smash cake was a very very last minute decision and that is why

 the frosting job is super welfare. 

My baby is one

Wow how a year has flown by. Obviously my first baby turning one was a very sentimental time for me. I have been a mother for a whole year and it has been such a privilege . It is crazy to think back to when we didn't have Vi. Our world revolves around her now and I can't imagine going back. Mike and I talk frequently about how lucky we got with her. She has made the transition into parenthood really easy on us. She is a loving baby who is full of joy. She is easy to smile and has just the right amount of sass. She is smart and tender hearted. She loves her family and loves being around people. She has a passion for books and animals. We are so blessed to have her in our family and we love her to the moon and back. Here are the big updates for our one year old.

1- She crawls!! Just a few days after a physical therapist came to check her out Vi decided to start crawling. She loves to chase after dad and it is pretty much impossible for her not to be laughing while she is crawling.

2- She got her first tooth. Vi had a rough night and kept waking up. Mike came in a couldn't figure out what was wrong. The next day we saw the tiniest bit of tooth poking through her gums. It only took her 12 months to get it out haha.

3- Vi knows her animal noises. She can tell you what a dog, cow, horse, monkey and sometimes pig can say.

4-She can now pick her nose. She just sits there with her finger sticking in it. Classy right?

5- She has turned into our little singer. She loves to copy songs she hears.

6- She can say "tar" for guitar. She loves when mike plays and always points and asks for it. She likes to strum and play with the pick and capo. 

7- She is cruising from one furniture piece to the next. She is too afraid to take many steps without holding on to something or someone but she will just walk all over the living room from the ottoman, to her exersaucer, to the couch, to the table and back to the ottoman.

8- She will eat everything. Seriously just about anything we give her to try she will eat.

9- She is standing up in her crib now so we figure we should probably lower it...

10- She is finally in the 50th percentile for weight. 60th for height and 60th for head.

11- Our pediatrician said she is really ahead of the game with communicating with us. I have a feeling she may be a bit of a Chatty Cathy.

12- She still loves her daddy and when she is sad she cries out for him.( breaks your heart it is so cute)

13- Loves patty cake and peekaboo. She loves to play with grandma through FaceTime.

14- She now also says oh wow and uh-oh. Not always at the right time but she does say them a lot.

She is a beautiful girl and she gets told so EVERYWHERE we go. The best part is that she is the sweetest baby. So she has a pretty deadly combination of looks and charm. Watch out dad.

Happy Birthday Vi girl.

We Love you

Eating a leaf

Yea Vi is does taste nasty.

Oh you guys crack me up

Halloween
Thee Reids do "Pig Latin"
This year was Violet's first real Halloween in my opinion. Last year we were waiting to be discharged from the hospital and it was in the middle of hurricane Sandy. Obviously we didn't dress her up last year, so I was really excited for her to have her first costume. 
We knew Vi was going to be a pig since August because she fit into the pig costume my mom got Jayne when she was a year old. Mike and I were trying to think of what we could be. We usually like to be creative and think outside the box with our costumes. Everyone kept saying we should be farmers but I just wanted to do something a little more fun. So the night before our ward party Mike and I were sitting on the couch brainstorming. It had been a really busy time for both of us leading up to this week. Normally we are more on the ball with Halloween but this year was the epitome of last minute costumes. Mike was the one who thought of doing a play on words. As soon as he said pig latin we were both on board. Mike found a picture of the costume he wanted. I spent all day Friday sewing it up. Can I just say it was way harder trying to pull this off with a baby. In the end mike's costume was suppose to have arm bands too but I just ran out of time. I also didn't have time to finish the seams on mine and that meant I was shedding gold all night. 
We had a blast and in true Mike fashion he paraded around the ward party dancing and shaking maracas. Vi was absolutely terrified of him. We have a few pictures of them together but other than that she didn't want to go anywhere near him. It was so weird since usually all she wants is to be held by him. We got a pretty good laugh out of it. 
On Halloween it was a torrential down pour in Ann Arbor all day. I really wanted to dress Vi up again so we took left over candy and went to the Dental school to pass it out to Mike's class. She was loving it and that was probably the closest thing she was going to get to trick or treating. Here are pictures from our ward party and Vi at the dental school.