First Haircut.

Wilson had his first official haircut last night. It was one year, to the day, from when we brought the little man home from the hospital.  I had my regularly scheduled appointment with Michelle at Trendbenders and we packed up lots of snacks and brought Wilson along.

 Michelle has been cutting my hair for 5 years now. I went to her in January of 2007 to whip my head into shape before our wedding and I've trusted her ever since. At my last appointment we discussed Wilson's first haircut and she offered to do it for us free of charge. Such a sweet lady! (This was great, because Michael had been saying I was going to have to attempt to cut Wilson's hair on my own. No Thank You!)

Michelle even gave Wilson his first lollipop as a distraction.

One Year.

All Moms say "They grow up so fast!" And boy are they right. All day long I've been thinking each hour about what we were doing a year ago today. Life changed in an instant when Wilson entered the world at 6:54pm. 

At one year, Wilson is walking and sometimes running every place we'll let him. He still falls down A LOT but that doesn't seem to stop him. He can say Mama and Dada and several other words that all sound a like to most people. Official one year stats will be determined tomorrow at our baby well visit. 

 He is such a happy sweet little boy.

I got a little sappy and put together this slideshow of the last year. Enjoy. 

Another picture slideshow by Smilebox

Our Very Hungry Caterpillar PARTY!

Yesterday many friends and family joined us to celebrate Wilson's first birthday. My sister flew in from TN last week to spend some of her spring break with us and help us with our party prep. Boy, are we ever lucky to have Aunt Katie! She is busy going to grad school to earn her Masters in Elementary education and she can decorate like it's no one's business! 

Here are a few shots from the day.

Welcome, Friends!

The party is right through here.

Aunt Katie posted the entire story on the wall for everyone to enjoy.

 

Yummy snacks.

Cake, courtesy of Wegman's. Fabulous personalized cake flags, courtesy of our pal, Ashley.

Special small cake for the birthday boy!

"Guest book" copy of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Birthday Cake Martinis for the grown ups. Water, Lemonade, and fresh squeezed "Caterpillar Juice" for the not so grown ups.

Seat of honor. Complete with Kentucky bib for game day!

Adorable wrapping paper, colored by Colin.

The shopping cart was a hit with all of the kids. The animals from Noah's Ark got several rides...and bites of cake.

oops. We almost forgot about the balloon caterpillar.

Almost One.

We are busy with plans for Wilson's FIRST birthday party. Along with the house projects, we've been planning for food and friends to celebrate with us in less then two weeks. This past weekend we went over to our dear friend Katie's for a little cake smash photo session. Katie has been building her photography portfolio for the last few years and she is really doing an awesome job. Here is the sneak peek she gave us. I can't wait to check out the rest. The session was so.much.fun!

I also created this canvas for the front door on the big day. I wanted to do something cute and themed for the party and this was really easy. I used dotted tissue paper for the back ground and Modge Podged that, the main part of the sun, and the one. Then I painted the sun's rays and the caterpillar crawling from the hole. I plan to trim the edges with blue ribbon and hang it with a big green bow. I finished this while Wilson took his nap yesterday afternoon and when he saw it he was very excited!

Projects Update.

In 2008, we purchased a bank owned property that was 20 years old. The townhouse needed quite the interior facelift. But the unique floor plan offered so much potential, we knew it was the right house for us. When we closed, the living room and kitchen looked like this.

Isn't that peach kitchen terrible! TERRIBLE.  I changed that super fast. We actually did a first phase of updates right away. It's amazing how much a little paint can change how everything looks and feels.  So for the last couple of years, things have looked like this.

We have talked for a long time about replacing the light colored faux wood floors and the living room carpet with a darker floating floor through out the entire first level. We would love to put down real hard wood, but in a 20+ year old town home, the return on investment just wouldn't exist.  For Christmas, my generous in-laws offered to pay for a portion of the new floating floor. We thought this was great idea and quickly crunched the numbers to make sure we could afford the entire project. We picked out a great faux floor and were excited have it installed.
The night before the installation was to begin, Michael and I decided to pull up the carpet in the living room to have a head start on the day. Imagine our surprise when we found this.

Yep, that's real hardwood under the carpet. We went on to find more of it under the FAUX light wood in the dining room. Then we found this under the faux wood in the kitchen.

This discovery sent us back the the drawing board. How would we even think of being as crazy as the previous owners by covering up perfectly good hard wood floors?

So we didn't. We made the decision to have the hardwoods refinished a darker color. We also selected a 12inch slate looking tile for the kitchen and foyer. The project has been a long one. Much longer then we anticipated. But here is the first glimpse at our new first level.

There are still some finishing touches, including painting all of the banisters white. I hope to complete these in the next week and then I'll take a few more photos. The first floor face lift has been amazing so far. Once complete, we plan to put the floating floor in the basement. Stay tuned for that transformation this summer.