Valentines from Miss P

Peyton was hard at work spreading her Valentine's cheer last weekend! I wanted to send some special valentines to our family and out of town friends who don't get to see Peyton very often, and as usual Pinterest and the Walgreen's photo department got the best of me. I got a little ambitious this year, which resulted in some Pinterest worthy successes and some equally as worthy fails.

Pinterest success #1...Valentine's photo card. Pinterest success #2...DIY Heart Garland that I used for the backdrop (DIY blog post here!).

If I had unlimited funds, I would send out photo cards to every person I know for every holiday. After being so pleased with how my Valentine's photos of Peyton turned out, I just had to do something with them. Alas, these adorable photo cards which I managed to send out last minute to some of our out of town friends and family.

And now on to my Pinterest fail...footprint Valentine's craft. Red paint and a wiggly 8 month old, this was clearly a recipe for disaster.

I had some pretty grand ambitions for this craft. I was going to make one for myself, as well as all of Peyton's grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncle, and maybe even a few special friends too. However, twelve pieces of cardstock and a big ole' mess of red paint later, I managed to only get 3 of these which were fairly decent enough and didn't look like a slaughtered my child on craft paper. Goodbye grand plans for spreading the love this Valentine's Day. I was defeated, thanks a lot Pinterest. So I packed up my art supplies and my dignity, and sent one to my mom, one to Jared's mom, kept one for myself, and called it a day. While I'm ready to swear off art projects with 8 month olds for good, this craft still came out pretty cute and Peyton's grandmas really did love it.

At least Peyton, and her red feet, had fun attempting this endeavor. I feel like Pinterest is every mom's worst nightmare. It's full of adorable ideas that look so fun and easy, but are always a thousand times more expensive, messy, frustrating and involved than they let on, and nearly impossible to execute. Welcome to my love/hate relationship with Pinterest. 

Valentine's Day with Daddy...as you can see, it's February and football season never ends around here. Daddy in his Bobby Bowden shirt and Peyton practicing her best Heisman pose. 

We hope your family had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

DIY Heart Garland

I decided that I wanted to take some special photos of Peyton for Valentine's Day this year. Rather than just sitting her in her regular chair or outside, I wanted to get a little creative and make my own backdrop. I saw a lot of cute ideas on Pinterest, so I found one that I already had all of the materials for at home and just went for it. I am pleasantly surprised at how well this came out! Plus, it was fun and easy to make. Here is a little DIY on how to make your own heart garland...

Even Peyton enjoyed my little props for her photo shoot!

Step One: Cut out heart shapes using a craft punch and cardstock paper. 

Step Two: Attach heart shapes to some type of string that matches your backdrop. I wanted to create the illusion that the hearts were floating in the background. I used white thread since I was using a white table cloth as my backdrop. You could also use fishing line. I used scrapbook mounting squares to stick the hearts to the string, but you could just use regular tape as well. I used two hearts on top of each other and ran the thread in between them because I didn't want the thread to be visible and since the hearts would be hanging, I knew they would spin around so hiding the thread on the back of the hearts wasn't an option. 

Figure out how many strands you need and how long you want your garland to be. It depends on what you are using it for. I made 6 strands with 7 hearts on each strand. Measure out the string in your desired location ahead of time so that you know how many hearts you will need. You can use all one color of paper or different colors. I used all red, but I wanted a little subtle variety so I used 7 different shades of red paper.

Step Three: Hang the strands in your desired location and then enjoy your adorable garland!

Here is the set for Peyton's little photo shoot! I didn't want my strands to lay flat again my backdrop, so I tied a string between two chairs to suspend them in the air and then tied my strands onto that so that that they appeared to be floating behind her. 

This garland was the perfect accent to some adorable photos for Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day

Peyton wants to wish everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day today! I wanted to take some cute photos of Peyton for the holiday, and of course I got a little carried away. The mamarazzi strikes again. I created my own backdrop using a while table cloth and heart paper garland (DIY blog post here!) that I made myself. I am so excited about how these photos came out. I think Valentine's Day is finally starting to grow on me after all!

I ordered a few prints of these photos to send to our families, and when I went to pick up my prints they informed me that I needed to sign a copyright release form. I was obviously confused by this. They informed me that the photos appeared to be professional so they would need a copyright release in order to give me my prints. I was shocked. I told them that these definitely were not professional photos, that I took them myself on my own camera. So they complimented me on my pictures and said that I had to sign the release as the photographer. I felt pretty special and very flattered. Well, that sure made my day. Can I please make a living off of taking pictures of my own child? 

So please enjoy this overwhelming, unnecessary number of photos of my child to celebrate Valentine's Day this year...

 Peyton's 1st Valentine's Day!

I used to be a Valentine's Day hater, but now that I have this little munchkin, I think I can get on board with this holiday if she is going to make it this adorable.

 I love how you can see her two little teeth in this photo!

I can hardly believe that I actually let her play with (and destroy) my decorations that I worked so hard to create. I pretty surprised with myself. I guess I'm officially a mom now.

Happy Valentine's Day from Peyton!

Peyton's 1st Christmas Eve

Everything at Christmas is more magical when you have a child. If you thought Christmas was fun when you were a kid, just wait until you have your own kids. Christmas as a parent is the greatest joy ever. Nothing can bring you happiness like watching the magic of Christmas unfold through the eyes of your own child.

I've been dreaming of this for years and I finally have the greatest blessing of all. Christmas as a family of three.

Peyton's Christmas outfit is from Southern Tots. If you love smocked baby clothes, then you know how expensive those adorable smocked outfits from specialty boutiques can be. They are my absolute favorite though, especially for special occasions. Southern Tots is amazing, with adorable stuff for unbelievable prices when it comes to smocking.

Peyton loved the Christmas tree. She could have sat there and stared at it, touching the branches and lights forever.

We started off our Christmas Eve with worship service at our church. The kids from our children's ministry performed the nativity story and sang; it was basically the cutest thing I have ever witnessed. I can't wait for Peyton to be old enough to be in the Christmas program at church. Next, we went to the English's home for their annual Christmas Eve party.  

 Peyton and Grandma DeeDee

 Auntie Erika with her favorite little elf on a shelf!

 Opening a present from Aunt Linda

Disney Princess Cinderella of course!

Of course it wouldn't be a family occasion without my brother acting silly. I guess he was jealous that everyone wanted to hold Peyton in front of the Christmas tree, so he wanted to play her part for a minute :)

Aunt Lauren was home for Christmas from New York and we were excited to get to see her! Peyton loves her Aunt LaLa. I can't wait to have all of the English girls home next year. Aunt Lindsay wasn't home for Christmas this year because she is too pregnant to travel, but next year she will be home with Baby Speer!

Is it obvious that my brother has more experience with bass fishing than holding babies? 

 But he can be sweet sometimes too. Peyton is clearly not phased by his antics.

All ready for bed in her Christmas jammies. Jared, Peyton and I all snuggled up in the glider while he read us "The Night Before Christmas". I was so excited to start this family tradition.

 We will see you in the morning Santa!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. 

Everlasting Mistletoe

I saw this idea on Pinterest and just had to try it out for myself. I was looking for a cute handmade gift idea for Peyton to give to her grandmas, and I just thought this was too adorable to pass up. Presenting Peyton's "mistletoes"...

This was such a fun craft project for Peyton and I to do together. Plus, what a sweet little keepsake to remember her first Christmas by. I made one for myself as well and framed it so that I can display it every Christmas as part of my decor. I've decided that I want my kids to make one keepsake Christmas craft every year that I can incorporate into my decorations. So here is the very first one!

*Disclaimer: Getting a 6 month old to make nice looking green footprints is so much harder than they make it look on Pinterest. I used the water-soluble kids poster paint, but I would still recommend wearing something that you don't mind ruining on yourself and on baby because we were covered in green paint by the end of this. Smiling and giggling, having a grand 'ole time together, but still covered in green paint nonetheless. Perhaps doing this while she was asleep would have been a better idea to try, but I didn't want to risk ruining one of her naps for the sake of the project so we did it while she was wide awake. I made a few extra mess up ones in the process, but she had so much fun getting her foot painted that I loved the experience anyways. Also, if you are going to do this, do one foot at a time. So I painted her right foot and then went along my papers that I had laid out and did all the right foot prints first. Then I washed her right foot and repeated with the left. Finally, I did the writing and decorating last. A simple, yet priceless keepsake.  

Peyton with my mom, Jared's grandma, and his mom

This was such a cute, easy and super cheap gift for the special people in your baby's life. And I promise it's guaranteed to get some tears out of those grandmas too :)