Etsy Update

A lot of cool things are happening right now with our Etsy shop, Grade A Fresh, and we thought we would take a minute to share. Grade A Fresh will be at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe this Saturday, December 10th from 11 to 5. We are participating in the Swamp Rabbit Flea along with several other amazing venders. Please come out, grab a coffee or a bite to eat, and do a little Christmas shopping with us. We are looking forward to meeting new people, letting people know a little more about what we do, and sharing our latest finds and treasures.

Grade A Fresh is also now on twitter @gradeafreshblog and Instagram at gradeafresh. We will be using these tools to share new items before they are posted to our shop. Look out for promos, sales, updates, and what we're up to as well.

Hope to see you guys this weekend!

Lil Man's Birthday Party!

My baby turned one at the end of last month. We celebrated his birthday with family and close friends here at our house.  I decided on a balloon theme after I saw how great the pictures I took of Lil man with balloons turned out. I found a picture of a cake that went perfectly with this theme, and I asked my friend Mikey to make it for me since she had made Lil girl's first birthday cake. As always, I was blown away by how talented she is. Not only do her cakes look good, but they taste amazing as well.

 

The day before the party, I asked my sister Lindsey if she could make a balloon banner for the party. She showed up a few hours before the party with 3 banners (can you say overachiever...ha-ha). One to hang on the mantle over the fireplace, one to hang on the china cabinet, and a cute paper garland cut into individual balloons that said "Happy 1st Birthday" to hang over the highchair. I was so thankful she did this for me as I literally had no time to do it myself. She definitely saved the party from looking boring. The morning of the party, I went and got 16 colorful helium balloons to use around the house for decor. I didn't think about how crazy it would be to try to get to the car with the balloons or how impossible it would be to drive home with that many balloons in the car. Lots of prayers were said on that ride home =)

You can't tell from this picture, but Gerald figured out how to get the pictures I took of Lil man at the park and the monthly pictures I took of him beside the owl to work as a slide show on the TV.

He had a great time making a huge mess and eating tons of sugar. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the inevitable sugar crash. Trust me, it wasn't pretty! Happy 1st birthday, Lil man. We love you so much!

Happy First Birthday!

Little man is one year old now, and it is crazy to believe that an entire year has come and gone since we first met him. We haven't officially celebrated his birthday yet. That post will hopefully come next week. Until then, here are the final few pictures to complete his first year of growth.

2 weeks old

1 month old

2 months old

3 months old

4 months old

5 months old

6 months old

7 months old

8 months old

9 months old

10 months old

11 months old

12 months old

The Birthday Party

Little girl turned 4 back in July and I am just now getting around to posting all the photos from her party. We had a sweet little party with family here at the house. Gerald grilled his famous "GT burgers" and hot dogs. Our awesome neighbors brought over some shrimp kabobs. My mom made the birthday cake, and I broke out the snow cone machine. I was just going to reuse the decorations from the baby shower I threw for my friend a couple weeks before, but little girl was having none of that. She wanted everything to be pink, and so the day of the party I threw together some decorations using dollar store balloons and pink paper I had on hand. She was very happy, and I was proud of myself for not going crazy with decorations as I've been known to do in the past =)

Pretty pink decorations hanging on the fireplace.

Little girl with her best friend and cousin. There are lots of funny pictures of them posing in all kinds of hilarious ways. They are a riot together.

Little girl was very specific about how she wanted her cake to look this year. She saw a picture of this "cake" in a magazine way back in February. She came running down the stairs announcing: "mommy, mommy, this is the cake that I want for my birthday party this year." Well, this little girl doesn't forget a thing and she knows what she wants. So come July, she had me rip out this page from the magazine and send it to my mom with a handwritten "note" asking Grandma to make this cake for her birthday. The only change she wanted was for the bottom layer to be purple instead of blue (big surprise there).

 My mom did an awesome job making the cake look just like the picture...even down to finding tall white candles for the cake.

 I think you can tell from the pictures that she was very pleased with her cake =)

Opening up her presents. She is one blessed little girl!

She received two new pairs of Toms from her Aunt Lindsey...this kid is cooler than me now =)

Me and my little girl. I had fun getting her all ready for the party. We went shopping together at the mall for the outfit she is wearing, and then I curled her hair and did her nails.

Little girl and her cousin blowing out the candles on the cake together. We had to let her do it four times since she is four.

Yep, it tasted as good as it looked! Happy birthday little girl!

Dollhouse

Let me start this post by apologizing for not writing in so long. Instead of letting the last two months disappear forever, I'm just going to pick up where I left off and pretend like this never happened =) Since my last post was written on lil' girl's birthday,  I'll pick back up with lil' girl's birthday present this year. Gerald and I wanted to give her something special, so we decided this was the year she should get a dollhouse. When we couldn't find a dollhouse we liked that seemed durable enough for a four year old, Gerald decided he could easily make one. I thought this was a great idea, and got involved in the more "fun" part of decorating the dollhouse.

Gerald actually designed the entire house and built it with some help from his dad and his table saw skills. He also made all of the furniture for the house (which I think is pretty awesome). We purchased the little figurines for the house off Etsy from goosegreaseundone and they are absolutely perfect for the house. I made all the rugs, mattresses, couch cushion, and pillows.

Here's a closeup of the living room. I love the lamp and Apple computer/TV that Gerald made.

The master bedroom. I was pretty proud of the bed I made for this room. It's harder to sew these little beds and pillows than it looks.

The little kids' room. The carpet is supposed to be yellow..but lil' girl always turns it over to the pink side...oh well =)

Gerald and I had a lot of fun making this house together. The best part of the whole project was watching lil' girl's eyes light up when she came down the stairs on her birthday to find this sitting in the living room. Definitely the best reaction we have ever gotten from her on a present. We have since moved it up to her room and lil' girl plays with it all the time...although, I have to admit that My Little Pony and Princess figurines spend more time in here than the little figurines we bought for it...I don't mind as long as she's having a good time.

Birthday Girl

Little girl turned four today. I've been going down memory lane the past few days revisiting old photos and videos of my little girl. I had forgotten what adorable chubby little cheeks she had, and I had forgotten how sweet her little baby voice sounded, and how cute her first little baby curls were.

I really feel like she grew up a lot this past year. She lost all of her baby fat, she talks like a ten year old, and she is so much more independent than she was a year ago. I know that a lot of that had to do with the fact that she became a big sister this year, which meant she had to learn to do more things on her own. On one hand, I'm kinda sad to watch her grow up so fast, but on the other hand, I'm just really excited I get to watch her grow up. I've enjoyed every stage of her short little life so far, and I'm looking forward to the new stages and the new accomplishments that are still to come. Nothing, not even time, can change the fact that I will always be her mommy and she will always be my girl.

There are so many things I love about my little girl. I love how she hits the ground running in the morning and comes straight into my room announcing "it's time to wake up mommy, mommy the sun is out...it's time to wake up!!!" I love how she helps me make breakfast in the morning by scrambling the eggs and pushing down the coffee in the french press. I love how she likes to put together puzzles, play with her blocks, and color with me. I love watching her catch bugs and run around in our backyard. I love her kisses, morning cuddle time, and how she tells me that she "loves me in the whole best world." I love giggling about silly things with her and painting our nails the same color. I love watching her imagination come to life when she plays with her toys. I love that her favorite store is the Dollar Store and how her favorite thing to do is whatever her mommy and daddy are doing.

I tried to put together some pictures that represent the past four years of little girl's life. There are lots of pictures in this post, but I know family and close friends will enjoy looking at these.

Happy Birthday sweet girl! I love you more than you'll ever know!