Practice...

 This was me practicing Macey's banana bread cake smash cake for her 1st birthday! I made it out of banana bread because she LOVES it and she had never had anything with sugar before and i didn't want to give her a "sugar coma" so i decided banana bread has sugar but not an 8th of the amount a regular cake does, it's a lot more healthy in my mind. It worked out perfect to make a giraffe!

Pappy

I LOVE the last one, they are holding hands! So cute...Jake's dad (pappy) isn't home very often so we have to get lots photo opportunities when he is here. I hadn't gotten one of him and BOTH grandbabies in a while...This one is now my favorite now i think. Macey wasn't walking very well, but she was taking 10 or more steps at a time, she just fell over often :)

Visits

My grandparents on my mom's side came for Gabby's adoption! It was so neat that they cared enough to come all this way when they would be coming two weeks later anyway! They wanted to BE there i guess to watch it actually take place and that's special. Gabby will look back and feel so important.

Gabriella's Adoption

This is just a taste of all the pictures my parents have of the adoption. They hired Caitlin B. to take pictures for them since she has such a nice camera and so my parents could focus on Gabby. It was amazing the amount of people who came to the adoption! And there were even more who came to her party a couple of days later! We are ALL so happy to have Gabriella as an official part of our family now. My parents have been mom and dad to her since she was 9 months old! Me and her even slept in the same room for a few months before Jake and I got married. I remember she would start fussing in the middle of the night and i would just have to say sh baby girl it's ok i'm right here and she would fall back asleep, i did is so much my mom would hear it in the middle of the night and i was saying it in my sleep because i couldn't remember her waking up at all. I can't believe she is already 5 years old, the time has flown by. I love her so much, she is my sister and now NO ONE can change that <3

Bath time and Gabby's room art

Sweet baby girl in the bath...I love those kissable cheeks! I made this canvas for Gabby to put in her room as an adoption present. My mom suggested it and i thought it was a great idea so i got to work! I painted the canvas purple to match then glued a piece of scrapbook paper on then stamped out letter of her name and glued them on and then last of all spread modge podge all over the top! It's a super easy gift, i've given them to a few of my friends as baby shower gifts, they are easy to customize.

Weekend gettaway

 I have the best parents.
Jake and i were complaining last year in October about life here and thinking of moving and wishing we could leave right then and being frustrated i was venting to my mom about it and the next week told me they were buying us a weekend stay in anchorage so we could get away from everyone here for a while! It was beyond generous. We are still so very thankful for that hotel stay! We had SO much fun just being us three, our little family. The hotel they got was so nice, i've never stayed in a hotel room with a full kitchen in it. It was huge, we could live there! We went shopping all day saturday for christmas gifts, we swam in the pool, and then a giant jacuzzi, it was really nice. The last picture is one of my favorites of our family, i love the colors and we were dressed all nice for church. It was also nice going to Anchorage church of Christ that sunday too, made it feel like we were really on a gettaway :) THANK YOU so much to my parents for sending us away for a weekend, it did us a  world of good!