the littlest one

Just in time for Mother’s Day, my sister had the most adorable baby girl. She is so sweet and the perfect addition to our {growing} family.

 

Welcome sweet Hadley Kate. We are so glad you are here and love you so much already!

she smiles

my baby sister is having a baby

My big sister and I hosted a shower for our little sister last night. She is due with her second little girl in just a few weeks, so it was fun to celebrate with a few of her dearest friends.

While laying in bed fighting off a breast infection a few weeks ago, the theme for the shower came to me:

A P R I L S H O W E R S B R I N G M A Y F L O W E R S

We wanted everything to be really flowery and springy with a yummy salad, crusty bread, special sweets and time to honor the mommy-to-be.

{invitations}

{flower pin favors}

{garland}

{gifts}

{fresh flowers}

{the food}

{me, amy, mom, audrey}

{me, audrey, the guest of honor}

And just because I think they are some of the cutest maternity photos, here are a few that were taken last week of my sissy, her husband and the most darling soon-to-be big sister {hope you don’t mind, Hillary!}

egg hunts, easter finery and great-grandparents

I like Easter. I like celebrating the resurrection of my Savior, but also the spring weather, the blooming flowers, the emergence of color. I have great memories of our family Easter celebrations. My mom {a talented seamstress} made my sisters and me fancy dresses, but never finished until the night before. I remember waking up on Easter morning to find our dresses hanging finished right outside our bedroom door. Very exciting for three little girls who loved dresses. My dad hid our easter baskets and wrote elaborate clues for each of us girls to find them. We ate baked blueberry french toast and listened to Second Chapter of Acts before heading off to church, then to some enormous family gathering where all my cousins would be wearing equally fancy pastel clothes.  We did egg hunts and ate peeps and smiled a lot. Easter is a good day.

This year, we had two egg hunts to go to. The first was at our neighborhood park.

There are A LOT of kids in our neighborhood, so it is a mad dash to grab the not so subtly hidden eggs.

It’s a little sad to see all the kids in their winter coats and hats on Easter weekend … it was so cold!

After our  neighborhood hunt, we were off to the fire department’s annual celebration. Again, lots of kids {still in winter coats} and more candy than we had from trick-or-treating.

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In my mom’s honor, the night before Easter, I made some little embellishments for the kids’ outfits.

I wanted them to all coordinate, so I made some sweet little flowers for boutonnieres, shoes & a headband.

Before I was pregnant, and certainly before I knew I would have a girl, I made this little linen dress.  It was my first attempt at making a dress, and is pretty amaturely sewn, but it really looked sweet on my Audrey-girl and I was so glad she could wear it.

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I love that our kids have lots of grandmas & grandpas. Ryan’s grandparents {otherwise known as Mook & Pop} came up from California for the holiday and we were so happy to introduce Audrey to them. They adore the boys and are just the kindest, wisest, hard-working people you could meet.

              

How special to have the oldest patriarch with the newest little one.

   

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!

It’s a sunny day

My mom taught a song to the boys:

“It’s a sunny day, it’s a sunny day, it’s sunny outside so we can go out a play. All the little children say ‘hip-hip-hooray!’ It’s a sunny, sunny day {boom boom}”

Most days when it is unexpectedly sunny {quite frequently, I’m afraid}, we all break out in song. Today was one of those day.

GORGEOUS.

So we headed outdoors.

 

I realized that since having Audrey, I really haven’t photographed my first three loves. So I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots of our beautiful day.

 

We met up with my mom and her wonderful husband for a lakeside lunch.

Then ventured to another park to meet up with cousins. {Note: it was only 68, which is really a nice spring day, but certainly not warm enough to be shirtless – unless you are 5 and your name is Grant}.

   

My silly six year old found posing for the camera quite entertaining. He had some awesome poses.

 

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend. We loved today.

Unfortunately, I think we’ll be singing the “It’s a rainy day” version of the song tomorrow.