Sunday Drive

After our Sunday nap, we went to cousin's Abbey house. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon!

Abbey took her Barbie jeep out for a spin around the neighborhood.

Matthew LOVED it! He was all smiles (although you can't tell from the picture).

Cousin Ling Ling is always SO happy to see Matthew.

We can't wait to move closer to them (hopefully).

(yes, I know Abbey's a little too big for the jeep, but the two little one's were too small for it, so Abbey had to be their chauffeur). 

Looking forward to enjoying this Spring weather all week!

Spring Cleaning

FRIDAY!

Nothing motivates you more to get an early start on Spring cleaning like getting your house ready for sale! (Uh, s-t-r-e-s-s-f-u-l!!)

We are in the process of listing our house.  (Huge shout out to the hubby AND the in-laws for all their hard work).  We I have TONS of decluttering to do (apparently, the bigger the house you have, the more junk  stuff you accumulate!)

Our weekends (and week nights) will be spent decluttering and packing up non-essential things.  It's hard to accomplish a lot when we're both working full-time and taking care of a baby at night. So, the weekend is our only time to do things around the house.  And technically, we really only have Saturday to get as much done as possible (Sunday is the sabbath day - a day to worship and to nap REST).

Happy Friday ya'll!  Enjoy your weekend. (I'm sure it's way more fun than mine!)

P.S., We're looking to move back over the mountain (No.VA). All contingent on selling our house. Pray for us!

Cheap Family Dinner

I told Steve he was in charge of dinner.  Guess where we ended up?

Costc.co!

It's a great bargain for dinner. The Cost.co where we live is hardly ever busy (compared to the one where we use to live which was chaotic every day of the week!).

Notice he's not looking at the camera in the picture above??  He was smiling at the ladies next to us.  And every time I tried to get a picture, he would do everything but look into the camera!

Finally, he's looking at me (the camera phone). Look at those big eyes!

mmm....lemonade!

So that was our fun family night at Cost.co!  It's our go to place for quick, cheap dinner.

Weekend Fun and Free Sock Monkey Stuff

Matthew went to celebrate his friend Justin's 1st birthday party over the weekend.  Justin and Matthew are only a few weeks apart, but Justin is a big boy (compared to my little pumpkin), he wears size 2T!  It was a Dr. Seuss theme and there were lots of yummy food.  It was very similiar to Matthew's party in that it was a Vietnamese 1st birthday so it was kind of a big deal.  Just look at that yummy cake!

Then on Sunday we went to grandma's house and Matthew played with his cousins and ate Vietnamese Pancake (a.k.a banh xeo).  Doesn't look very appetizing in the picture below, because I like mine plain with just cucumbers and fish sauce.  

Matthew also got his second hair cut by daddy.  (So much cheaper than taking him to the barber shop.) Everytime he gets a hair cut, it makes my baby look like such a big boy!  I think I'm in denial that he is growing up, right before my eyes.

Now that Matthew's awesome party is over and I'm finally getting around to putting stuff away, I am giving away everything in the picture below.  If you are local to VA or even W.VA and D.C., and you want it, I can meet you somewhere and give it to you.  If you are not local, I am willing to ship it to you, but YOU will have to pay for shipping.

Balloon wreath (w/out the 'M'), 8-brown party favor bags, 2-red basket/containers, 1-big sock monkey, 3-mini sock monkeys, 6-monkey buckets,1-party hat, and a few yards of sock monkey material/red polka dot material (I used as table cloths and they have been washed.  You just need to iron them.)

And, if anyone wants Matthew's monkey vest and shirt below, let me know and it's yours. (It's a Paul Frank brand, purchased at Target).

Leave me comment if you want it (all of it or some of it).  Make sure to leave your email address so I can contact you back.  GONE!

 

Have a great week!

Matthew's 1st Birthday {Part 3}

I did a smash cake photo shoot with Matthew a week before his birthday party.

Here is the smash cake someone at church made for Matthew.

Cute little monkey on top!

Matthew showing you how old he is...

The whole photoshoot lasted about 5 minutes! 

(That's how long it took for him to get over the whole cake smashing thing).

This is my favorite shot....daddy going in for a piece of cake. 

He wasn't about to let it go to waste!

Okay, back to pictures from the party.  I think we had about 80-90 people (maybe more/less) who came to celebrate Matthew's big day.  But based on the lack of pictures that were taken of guests, you would think no one came to his party! 

Here he is with my mom, Steve parents and some friends.

We love our baby boy! I just love his little face in this picture.

As you can imagine, all that partying wiped us Matthew out! 

He was too tired to open presents so we did it the next day.  Matthew loved all his toys (can't you tell in that first picture below??)  He also got some cute clothes for church and Spring/Summer.


This concludes the final installment of the best 1st birthday party ever for the cutest baby ever!
The first year of raising Matthew has been such a blessing.  Thank you all for joining us on this journey.
(Matthew's next BIG party will be when he turns 16!  I've got some time to plan).

Click here for {Part 1} and {Part 2}

Matthew's 1st Birthday {Part 2}

And the party continues....(click here for Part 1 ).

I saw this sign online a while back and loved the saying.  I think it fits us perfectly.  I had a friend make the vinyl for me and I painted the piece of wood to match the color scheme.  I love it!

These tissue pom poms are the easiest to make and the quickest way to add a splash of color.

(Thank you to our friends Mary and Steve for helping us get ready for the party! They came over and helped us finish last minute cleaning and details.  I showed Mary how to make the pom poms and she finished them for me.  They truly were such a BIG help! I can't thank them enough.)

Here's the monthly picture banner I made for the mantle.  This one showed case the pictueres we took of Matthew and the entire bear.  The other banner had Matthew's face close up (no bear in the picture).

In the Vietnamese culture, for the first birthday, the custom is to place the baby in front of an array of objects and the first object they reach for is thought to predict their future.  

Here is the tray we put in front of Matthew.  It consisted of a comb (meaning he will be well groomed), Money envelope (wealth), Pen/note pad (Writer), Rice Ball (that's the sweet pink rice ball below-represents prosperity), scissors (a tailor?), calculator (business man). 

I was so crazy busy running around and doing stuff that I forgot to add some things to the tray! I wanted to add a book (smart/scholary), a key (traveler), and a computer mouse (techie). Oh well.

So what did Matthew choose??

The Calculator!!

(I hope he inherit's his daddy's math skills because momma is SO bad in math!)

CAKE TIME!! 

We got a smash cake for Matthew to do his smash cake photos (more to come on that later), but decided to just make one BIG cupcake for him at his party. 

(Thanks grandma Whitcomb for making all the cupcakes!)

First things first....gotta strip the birthday boy down to his birthday suit. 

And we couldn't forget the bowtie!

While we sang Happy Birthday, Matthew did NOT want to give up his calculator (see it in the background below?).  I helped him blow out his candle and then let him go at his cupcake. At first he wasn't so sure about it, then he squished it between his hands and started eating.  He didn't even blink when I put on his birthday hat!

My mom ordered a Vietnamese cake for Matthew too.  It's one of my favorites, but Steve's not a fan of it. It's kind of like sponge cake with coconut gel in the middle.  Yummy!  Matthew didn't get any because he was all caked out by this time.

After cake, he had to go in the tub for a quick clean up!

Click here for {Part 3}

or {Part 1}

Matthew's 1st Birthday {Part 1}

I know this is long over due, but our home computer was having major issues.  Anyways, here are pictures from Matthew's big day last Saturday.  The party was perfectly FABULOUS!

I ordered the invitations, cupcake holders/toppers and water bottle labels off of Etsy.  It was a great deal on the whole package (there was way more that came in the package, but I didn't use it).  It was sent to me in pdf format and I printed the invites at Costco and the rest at Officemax. 

Here is the balloon wreath I made. 

Got the idea off pinterest. Super easy to make.

Just a word of advice if you decide to make this lovely wreath...if you make an 18" wreath, it will take at least 300 balloons! (I think I ended up using 350, but I lost count). And, you can get the floral pins for cheap at walmart for $1 (for 100 pins).  The straw wreath can be purchased at Michael's or Hobby Lobby.  I got the 'm' from Hobby Lobby and mod podge scrapbook paper over it (How am I just now discovering mod podge??!! Love it!) 

Here is the dessert table.  Sorry for the glare off the backdrop.  More close up pictures below.  For the back ground, I just used wrapping paper and silly putty to stick it to the wall.

 I loved how the cup cake holders and toppers turned out. We had chocolate, strawberry and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting.  Someone commented and said they looked too pretty to eat!

The monthly pictures were mounted on scrapbook paper and pinned to the ribbon, which was secured with silly putty.  The minature clothes pins can be bought at Michael's in the scrapbooking section.  I got lots of comments from people about his monthly pictures. It's great to see how he's grown each month. 

Now we move on to the candy buffet, which was a great hit with all the kids!

The canvas picture was done at Costco (there was a $10 off coupon).  Great deal!

The best thing about having a birthday party so close to after Valentine's day??...all the candy was on sale for 50% off!!  Can't beat that.  And I bought a TON of candy. 

Can you spot the birthday boy amongst all the candy below??

One of my fears when it comes to throwing parties is not having enough food for everyone!!  Needless to say, we had more than enough and those who stayed until the very end got to pack up some to take home.

I wish I had taken better pictures of the food!  (It's SO hard to try and be the photographer at your own party!)  The menu consisted of Egg rolls, Spring rolls, fried rice, pad thai, Beef panang curry, lotus salad, minced chicken salad, shrimp bean thread salad, papaya salad, pasta salad, little sliders, turkey rolls, chicken wings, chips and fruit kabobs.

A big Thank You to all who helped made food for Matthew's party!!

Matthew's high chair (that we borrowed from grandma's house).  The birthday hat and the high chair banner was part of the Etsy package I bought.  I just glued it to a regular party hat (from the dollar store), made the pompom on top, and hot glued that and the ruffle to the hat and ta-da!  Easy peasy!

Stay tuned for part 2 (and maybe part 3) from the party!

Updated: Click here for {Part 2} and {Part 3}