Blake's 1st Birthday Photo Session!

Blake's first birthday pictures turned out adorable!  Don't worry it was a nice warm afternoon when the pictures were taken, so he wasn't cold in his birthday outfit.  Blake loved his cupcake as much as he loved his smash cake at his birthday party!!

I wanted to wait and post his one year well visit stats when his pictures where ready to be viewed as well.  On October 9th, Blake saw Dr. Hulsen for his 12 month well visit.  Blake weighed 21lbs 3.5oz, which placed him in the 25th percentile for weight.  He measured 28.75 inches long, which placed him in the 25th percentile for height.  My little peanut is growing steady!!

As of today, Blake has 7 teeth (4 bottom front teeth and 3 top front teeth.)  Blake loves playing with anything that has wheels and imitating their noises.  He isn't walking yet, but took 3 steps all by himself last night!  He can make it to his destination by cruising and crawling.  Blake is slowly weaning himself off of breastmilk and starting to gravitate more towards table foods.  Blake loves to eat waffles, but without syrup of course!!

Blake's airplane quilt is very special because his G.G. made it for him when he was born, so I wanted to incorporate the quilt into his photos.

Blakey and his expressions while eating his cupcake were too cute!!

I want to wish a very happy 1st birthday to my precious Blakey boy.  Your personality and charm are as amazing as your stylish hair!  Blake you make our family of five complete and bring so much happiness to our lives.  I love you so much and I am so happy to see what your future has in store for you.
Love, Mommy

Family Photos 2015

Wow, we went through a lot to have our family pictures taken this year.  A reschedule do to a lovely stye on Nolan's eye and scary weather forecast.  I'm actually kind of glad we had to delay our pictures a couple of weeks because the fall colors were in full bloom the afternoon we had the pictures taken.

Since Sherry is in high demand we ended up having our pictures taken on a Friday evening after Bill came home from work.  The boys did better than expected.  Carter was his shy self at first and then his true personality showed up!!  Nolan was very cooperative and smiling great big!!  Blake was his adorable self sitting where ever he was placed.  Bill behaved very nicely too.  I forgot the cupcake for Blake's birthday cake smash, so in the middle of the shoot Bill had to make a run to The Cup to buy a cupcake.  What a great husband!  Bill even came back with a smile on his face and cooperated for the rest of the family photo session.

There were over 100 amazing pictures to choose from, so for the blog I chose my favorites.  It was very hard to narrow them down to these few!!

I cannot reiterate enough how important it is for pictures to be candid as well as posed.  Sherry does such a great job at allowing our family to be us!!

My 3 little loves

Blake William - 1 year old

Carter Lynn - 3 years old

Nolan Henson - 4.5 years old

      you'll be 

his first kiss,

            his first love,         

& his first friend.    

you're his momma

and he is your whole world.

He is your little boy.

 I love to wear my Daddy's shoes 

 though my feet are small,

For when they're in my Daddy's shoes, 

I feel 10 feet tall. 

Someday I'll grow to fill them, 

I only hope to be, 

as fine a man, 

and great a Dad as my Daddy is to me.

Happy Halloween 2015!

What a fun Halloween we had this year!! I hadn't really been in the mood to decorate the house for Halloween, but for some reason on October 30th I decided it was better late than never.  Nolan and Carter had a lot of fun helping me decorate the outside of the house for the trick-or-treating that was to take place later in the afternoon.

The boys recently became infatuated with the movie Hotel Transylvania.  This year Nolan chose to be a vampire, bleh bleh bleh*, and Carter wanted to be Frankenstein, because he farts really loud in the movie.  Blake needed something comfy and warm.  Luckily, I found an adorable elephant costume at Tot Spot which was both comfy and warm.

Nolan was in full character for the pictures, he kept posing and talking like Drac.  Carter is now in the "no picture" phase and Blake was his usual easy going self.

Nolan and his vampire teeth.  He kept drooling everywhere!! haha

Time for pictures with our boys.  One of our neighbors came over and offered to take a whole family picture for us!!

Frank being his crazy self!!  Carter loved his black "frankenstein boots".  He stomped in them everywhere he went.  The boots were the only way I could convince Carter to put his costume on.  This boy loves his boots.

I can't get enough of Blake in his elephant costume, so precious!!

Scott, Liz, and Emmett joined us for trick-or-treating.   Carter wanted to hold Liz's hand the entire time!! Poor Liz, she is such a good sport.  I think the boys had enough candy, towards the end of the night the boys asked us to carry their buckets because they were too heavy.

On Halloween night, we were in the Edwardsville parade for Nolan and Carter's preschool.  The boys had a lot of fun waving at the crowd and hanging out with their friends.  Blake actually fell asleep halfway through the parade while being pushed in his stroller by Bill.

At the end of the parade it started to pour!!!  Thank goodness I packed an umbrella and extra blankets.  Nolan and Carter stayed under the umbrella on the float and Blake was in the stroller protected by blankets and his visor.  Our float had reached the end of the parade, which was where we parked, so the rain wasn't too much of a hinderance.  We walked straight to our car and headed home.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, BLEH BLEH BLEH*

*quote by Drac in Hotel Transylvania