Peyton's 1st St. Patrick's Day

Peyton and I had a grand 'ole time celebrating one of my favorite holidays yesterday! I just really love St. Patrick's Day for some reason and I was so excited to get to enjoy it with Peyton this year. Our festivities this year were a little different (don't worry I still got my Reuben sandwich and my Irish beer) than in the past, but I wouldn't change a single thing about it.

It wouldn't be a proper holiday in the Roche household without a themed outfit of course :)  

The main reason that St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays is because it also happens to be the day that Jared and I met for the very first time. This is our first photo together, on that day, NINE years ago! My how times have changed.

Like any other holiday around here, this called for a photo shoot :)

A fun present from mommy for the holiday. This necklace was a bad idea. I never stood a chance at getting her to pay attention to me or look at the camera after this. But she loved it.

Peyton and I spent St. Patrick's Day at our local Irish Pub and she had a blast. This child loves going to restaurants. She is always entertained, sitting up in the high chair checking everyone out, smiling and waving at everybody as they walk by. She was particularly fond of the green table cloth at our table and kept trying to pull it off, almost taking everyone's beers and food with it.

We had a play date at the pub (yes, I just used the words "play date" and "pub" in the same sentence) with some of Peyton's Kappa Sigma baby friends. All of their daddies were fraternity brothers in college, and we are so glad that we got some amazing mommy and baby friends out of that deal too! Basically, this "play date" was more for the mamas than the babies, but hey mamas deserve a little lunch date every now and then too.

Here's something I never thought I would be doing on St. Patrick's Day...sitting on the floor of a restaurant playing with three infants. Luckily, we were sort of in the corner of a back room away from the main dining area, so we didn't look too insane. I'm sure they put us back there on purpose. Sorry I'm not sorry.

Is this the cutest thing you have ever seen or what? 

Adelyn {1 year}, Harrison {6.5 weeks}, Peyton {9 months}

Peyton and I had a wonderful holiday and we hope that you did too! Happy St. Patrick's Day from this lucky little girl and her very blessed mama! 

Peyton's 1st Zoo Trip

We went on our first family outing to the zoo this month! I've been wanting to take Peyton to the zoo for a while now because I knew she would love it; however, Jared didn't want to miss out on her first zoo experience so we had to wait for a time that we could all go. Of course Peyton doesn't travel anywhere without her entourage, so Grandma DeeDee, Grammy and Auntie Erika came along for the fun as well!

We wanted to visit during the morning hours because that's when all of the animals are out so you can see them really well. This kind of stole into Peyton's nap time, but she didn't mind, she was having too much fun!

Admiring the rhinos with Grammy

Not sure who is more excited about the elephants here, Peyton or the grandmas/auntie?

My absolute favorite part...baby lion cubs!!!!

Checking out the lions with daddy

Peyton and I plotting out how we can steal one of the lion cubs and bring it home

Peyton was mesmerized by the giraffes. She loves them and I think that she could have stared at them all day. She was actually a little sad when we left their area. I can't wait to bring her back when she is big enough to actually feed the giraffes herself. 

Watching the giraffes with Grandma DeeDee

Too busy chatting away to smile for a photo with Auntie and Grammy

The new tiger exhibit was pretty cool, except that the tiger kept getting mad and wanting to either spray the visitors or hide away. 

We love the zoo! Peyton really seems to love animals so I have a feeling that there will be many zoo trips in our future. In fact, we already got a membership because it's such a good deal. 

She loved watching the penguins swim around too!

Of course we had to go on the carousel and sit on the giraffe. This kid loves a good carousel. 

We can't wait to go back to the zoo again soon!

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!