We got a new playmate for Izzy! Meet ZuZu, the newest member of our family! đ She’s about a year old and we *think* she’s part Chihuahua, part Maltese. Who knows, though.
(just look at that spotted little tummy!)
For quite awhile now, I’ve really been feeling like it was time to adopt another dog. Izzy is such a fun-loving, playful girl, so we didn’t feel it was quite right for her to be an only “dog-child”. As much as Cassidy loves pestering Izzy, we still thought she could benefit from a non-human friend. As sheer luck would have it, out of the blue, a friend of ours announced she had rescued a little dog from the side of the highway and was trying to find a good home for her. Honestly, ZuZu was nothing like what we thought we were looking for in a new dog, but once I met her, I was convinced she was the girl for us!
It all depended on how she interacted with Izzy and Cassidy (no pressure, Zu!). We brought her home and let the dogs run wild together in the yard. At first, Izzy wasn’t sure how to react to all of ZuZu’s energy, but she got the hang of it and eventually, they started playing really well together! Success!
We took ZuZu to the vet and got her all checked out, microchipped, vaccinated, and spayed, then promptly brought her home to STAY! Here it is a month later, and ZuZu and Izzy are best buds- they play SO well together (all the time!). She is so gentle and sweet with Cassidy and has our entire family wrapped around her little paw! We all love her so much already and Joel and I are SO happy we were lucky enough to adopt her! Welcome to the family, ZuZu!
**Warning** This is a VERY picture-heavy post! đ
As you all know, Cassidy turned one last month (still reeling over that one…) and of COURSE, we just had to throw her a big ol’ girly birthday party! Lots of pink, lots of aqua, and lots and lots of yummy treats!
I loved the invitations! Especially since they sort of coordinated with the invitations from our baby shower; I plan to frame them together in Cassidy’s room. I ordered them from tinyprints.com
I got the table cloth, cupcake tower, pink label stickers, and pink stick candy all at Party City
The cute little favor boxes came from Michael’s.
I got lucky one day at Home Goods and found these adorable cupcake liners.
The cupcakes were strawberry with vanilla buttercream and Cassidy’s smash cake was funfetti đ
As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I sort of had a fun little theme going with sprinkles. I used 4 different kinds, which I thought was kinda fun đ
A little baker’s twine can add just the right pop of color! (also found at Michael’s)
I found this adorable frame at Hobby Lobby one day for 7 bucks! I thought some sweet pictures of the birthday girl were the perfect decoration!
Cassidy didn’t exactly dive in head-first like we all expected. She ate one sprinkle at a time and barely made a mess!
…and of course Izzy had a good time! đ
Happy birthday, Cassidy!!!
Menu (all sweets!)
Funfetti smash cake
Strawberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream
Sprinkle sugar cookies (recipe to come!)
Vanilla meringues, from Trader Joe’s
Birthday popcorn (recipe to come!)
Bubble gum stick candy, from Party City
Pink lemonade (not pictured)
Bottled water
Well, folks, my baby is one today. My baby is one today. Let that sink in. My precious, soft, cuddly baby girl…is no longer a baby. We’ve just crossed over into toddler land. A toddler. How. Did. This. Happen?!
How could this be, when, just yesterday we packed our bags and headed to the hospital absolutely terrified?
Just yesterday tears rolled down my cheeks as I heard my baby cry for the first time.
Just yesterday Joel and I brought our sweet bundle home and began the most terrifying/satisfying/tremendous chapter of our lives.
It was JUST YESTERDAY. So how can this be, that suddenly I have a toddler walking around my house babbling sweetly, giving me high-fives, eating grilled cheese sandwiches, and saying, “oh myyyy” constantly (seriously- we have a little George Takei on our hands….)?
However it happened, time somehow sneaked in and stole my baby from me. It didn’t matter how many pictures and videos I took or how hard I squeezed her as I rocked her to sleep every night…it happened. She’s one. Next up, college.
Before I get too caught up in my own emotion, here are a few fun 12 month stats for the birthday girl:
As I mentioned before, yep…we’re walking. Full-on walking. It’s freaking adorable.
Eating solids like a boss. Spaghetti is still the favorite, but animal crackers and green beans run a close second. Meatloaf has also proven successful.
This girl loves shoes. Especially putting on the shoes. If I hold a shoe up, she’ll stick out her right foot every single time and let me put her shoes on her. If I take the shoes off, she’ll bring me said shoes and promptly stick her right foot in the air, just waiting for her shoe to be put on. She doesn’t seem to care much about the left foot. She’s perfectly satisfied with just the right shoe on. Adorable, this kid!
Still an awesome nighttime sleeper. 12 1/2 to 13 hours every single night. Naps, however, are a different story. I’m lucky if I get one hour long nap a day out of her.
She’s started trying to climb everything. And a dish got broken yesterday afternoon. We may need one of those onesies that says, “I’m why we can’t have nice things” on it. đ
You should see the little red curls on the back of this kid’s head! Too much cuteness!
Still only 5 teeth, but she’s currently working on 2 new ones right now (fun times).
And now, here’s a short (hilarious) video of her walking. (turn up your volume; the sound’s the best part):
[FMPÂ autohide=”true”]/wp271/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cass_walks.mp4[/FMP]
Happy birthday, Cassidy Grace. Your Daddy and I love you more than life itself!
P.S. I apologize for not updating sooner- I was literally locked out of my blog. Seriously. Something about a corrupted database…I dunno. Joel fixed it, though, so we’re back in business! So sorry for the absence!
We wish ALL of you a happy, warm, joyful Christmas filled with good food, good friends/family, and good cheer!
Love,
Joel, Amy, Cassidy, and Izzy
We’re so excited about Cassidy’s first Halloween! We’re taking her trick-or-treating dressed as the world’s cutest pumpkin. đ The poor baby had to get 2 shots at her 9 month checkup today, so she deserves lots of goodies (even though she can’t eat candy…). I hope everyone has a fun, fun, FUN Halloween! Be safe!
Love,
Joel, Amy, Cassidy, and Izzy
Bye-bye, old house! We’re movin’ on! In fact, we moved Tuesday! đ Yep, all the drama is over and done, the old house is sold, and we’ve moved into our new house! Now, let the painting, cleaning, unpacking, and decorating begin!
Starting with this monstrosity….
See that? That’s our stuff. It’s a long story, but the short version is, pretty much everything we own is in this one room. Thanks, movers.
So anyway, now you know I’m not purposefully ignoring my blog, but have an honest-to-goodness reason! I’ll be back soon…REALLY soon! Just give me a little bit, and the yummies will continue! đ
After months of keeping everything spotless, having showings on a moment’s notice, and all the other stresses of having your house on the market, it looks like we’ve finally sold our house. We’ll be moving at the end of the month and couldn’t be happier! I can barely sleep at night because I’m so busy decorating the new house in my head. We’ll be all moved in and settled just in time for fall- yay! I can’t wait to bake up lots of pumpkiny treats in my new kitchen!
Our sweet little ray of sunshine, miss Cassidy Grace is 6 MONTHS old! How did this happen?!
She’s crawling, eating solids like a champ (I’ll be posting a whole series on homemade baby food very soon!), sleeping 12 hours every night and keeping us on our toes constantly! đ
Here are just a few shots I took recently for her 6 month pictures:
I can’t even put into words how much we adore this little girl. She brings us so much joy on a daily basis and we are IN LOVE!
With everything that’s going on, things may be a little bit slow around here for the next couple of weeks, so stay with me! I promise things will get back to normal soon! Love you all!
Whether you’re grilling all day, going to parades, watching the fireworks…..
…splashing and swimming all day (like we are!), or just relaxing around the house with your family and friends….
we wish you a fun, happy, safe, and special 4th of July!!
Love,
Joel, Amy, Cassidy, and Izzy đ
Yep, that’s right! After months of grumbling about how everyone’s on Instagram and I’m not going to conform….well, here I am. It’s kinda fun, actually.
All those filters are pretty cool.
And I’m still trying to get it all figured out (yeah, I know…it’s not rocket science, Amy….)
But if you want to follow me, I’m Sing4YourSupper (just like on Twitter). So, YAY, I’m on Instagram! (as if the world didn’t have enough self-centered people taking self portraits and plastering them all over the internet…)
Ok, I know I’ve gone a little overboard with the baby updates lately, but this is the last one, I swear! I really wanted to get the full birth story written down so we’d be sure to always remember every detail. So many of you have emailed and commented wanting to know more about our baby girl’s birth, so I thought I’d share the experience with you. And to make it all worth it, here’s another picture of our little sweetie. đ
Ok, here we go:
I havenât had a hot cup of coffee in days. No matter how many times I re-heat it, by the time I get around to actually drinking it, itâs cold again.
I havenât shaved my legs in 2 weeks. Gross.
Most days, I donât get to brush my teeth until after 1 or 2 oâclock.
Lunch? More like, late afternoon snack.
Just call me Bessy the milk cow.
Iâm not even going to talk about the sleep thing.
Wow. When you sit down and think about it, you can really find a lot to gripe about. And I could probably come up with so much more. But as I sit here watching my little girl sleep, suddenly every single complaint fades away. Becomes tiny. Unimportant. When I cradle her in my arms and softly sing her favorite songs, my heart is so full I literally get tears in my eyes.
Sure, childbirth was hard. Really hard. But so, SO worth it. In fact, Iâm writing it down now so I wonât forget a single second. I want to remember every moment.
I went in to be induced at 7am. My room was big and beautiful with a great view of one of my favorite Dallas areas. Joel helped me into my lovely hospital gown, then the nurse got me all hooked up to everything. Shortly after, the anesthesiologist came in to give me my epidural (thatâs right. Epidural. God bless it). My doctor came in and broke my water (which never would have broken on its own, she says. I guess I was never destined to go into labor on my own), which hurt like the devil. Joel nearly fainted. I like that part of the story. đ I was given the medicine to get things started and all that was left at that point was to wait.
My mom and sister came in the room periodically to check on me and keep my spirits up while Joel texted updates to the rest of the family. More waiting.
Finally, it was time to push. This was so scary to me because I knew Cassidy was a big baby- estimated at over 9 pounds. Yikes. The nurse showed me how to push and before I knew it, it was go-time. This had just become very real.
2 ½ hours. Might as well have been 8âŚor 20. Pushing was hard. Very hard. I held onto Joel for dear life and he helped support my legs and neck while I pushed. There was no screaming, ridiculous breathing exercises or yelling of obscenities at Joel. It was nothing like I had imagined- very calm and quiet, with the chipper encouragements of my nurse. âI can see her head! Youâre making great progress!â  But I knew better. I just knew. Each push left me exhausted, red-faced and more and more discouraged. Those 2 ½ hours of pushing came to an abrupt end when it was clear my baby girl was just too big. I had to have a c-section. Ok, fine. No big deal, I said. But I was devastated and so terrified. This wasnât part of my plan. I had never even considered this option. The horrible recoveryâŚthe scarâŚthe pain. Yeah- I was terrified.
They wheeled me into the operating room and got me situated. The doctors were very upbeat and chatted with me about opera while they got things ready. Joel came in a few minutes later in his scrubs. This was happening. My doctor held my hand and assured me everything was going to be just fine. Then she began. Joel stroked my hair and squeezed my hand. I felt lots of pressure- not exactly pain, just pressure and I just laid there in fear and shock at what was happening. Then the world stopped when we both heard the most beautiful sound in the world. Our baby crying. She was out. She was here. Tears rolled down my face and I could hear Joel sobbing saying, âsweetie, thatâs our baby girl.â Then he disappeared for a few seconds and returned holding my precious Cassidy, cooing to her softly. He handed her to me and for the first time, I looked my baby girl in the eyes. So this is who had been kicking, wiggling and hiccupping inside of me all these months. I now had a face to put with the movements and it was the most beautiful sight Iâd ever seen.
âHi baby girl. Iâm your mommy.â Â Your mommy. Wow. In just a matter of seconds, my life was totally changed. All that pushing, exhaustion and fear melted away. Joel and I were parents. I have never loved him more.
Everything after that was a blur (they had given me nitrous oxide during the procedure, much to my chagrin, and I was pretty loopy, unfortunately), but I remember being wheeled to the recovery room and getting to see my parents, then my sister and her family and in-laws. Everyone was teary-eyed and so, so happy. It was beautiful.
Recovery wasnât bad at all. I had the most amazing, sweet, and patient nurses who took exceptional care of me. Poor Joel had to sleep on an uncomfortable futon with a limited amount of pillows that kept getting stolen from him by the nurses to make me and the baby more comfortable. I ended up with about 9 pillows, while Joel was lucky to have even 1. We had a good laugh at this later.
We spent 4 nights in the hospital (which I really enjoyed, actually!) and had lots of visitors. I will always look back on my time in that little recovery room with such fond memories- working on nursing, visiting with friends and family and cuddling with my sweet baby.
Just as quickly as it had all happened, it was time to go home. Thank goodness for my sweet mother who has stayed with us to help (the BIGGEST blessing in the universe!). It was time for us to join the ranks of moms and dads all over the world. A new chapter. Which brings me back to the long list of gripesâŚremember those? No sleep. Unbrushed teeth. Unshaven legs. Blah, blah, blah. But thereâs another list. A list of all the beautiful, wonderful moments I get to share with my little girl on a daily basis. Things like rocking her to sleep singing Sondheim melodies and Edelweiss from The Sound of Music (her favorite), feeding her a bottle and seeing her sweet face watching me intently, seeing her smile in her sleep (heart-melting!), cuddling with her first thing in the morning, watching Joel hold herâŚI could go on and on and on. My little red headed girl is the greatest blessing in my life. I look into her face and see the miracles of God. Joel and I made that. Childbirth really is a miracle. I see that now.
