Fern's second birthday

This post, is not over the top. It's not something you'll see as inspiration on anyone elses blog. It certainly won't be pinned... This is just a little post about Fern's average birthday party. I didn't spend a lot of money on decorations, to be honest, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off 20 minutes before because I forgot to get plates to eat on. I'm talking.. minimal planning. We didn't even do the watermelon ice cream covers because our printer was out of ink. ha! And actually, we did get a watermelon for eating, and then TOTALLY forgot to cut it up and eat it!

It was the best day. An intimate gathering with our family. Fern opened her presents, and we ate the most delicious angel food cake with fresh strawberries made by my grandma (at my request.. cause it's my favorite).. Then we just hung out for a while. That's it, and I've gotta tell you- it was perfect.  Here are some fun pictures from the day. Thank goodness my best friend, Hillary, was there to take photos. I abandoned the camera pretty early on. ;)

Days like this make you 10x more aware of how awesome your family is. Just the fact that they all took times to come eat cake and give Fern presents and just celebrate her life with us for a couple hours out of the day. Most of them traveled more than 30 minutes just to be with us. Fern's a really lucky little lady to have so many people who care so much, and I know we all missed the couple of family members who weren't able to be with us that day.

get the sillies out : out takes from Fern's 2 year photo shoot

As promised, I've gone through the gallery and put together a little post of some silly photos from the photo shoot with Hibben Photography.

Fern's 2 year photo shoot with Hibben Photography

It's been pretty serious over here for the past couple of days, I REALLY appreciate all of the feedback  and questions from my last post. I was talking to Tesia yesterday and we were both SO encouraged by the number of page views, and great response. Usually it's a pretty heated conversation, and we're so proud of NOBODY for being negative on the subject. You guys are so impressive.
but now- let's lighten the mood a little shall we?

Tom and Sam Hibben are a married team of photographers who make up "Hibben Photography" and never cease to rock my world. You might remember their wonderful photography from Fern's newborn photos, Fern's 1st birthday, our engagement shoot & our wedding. So of course, I didn't expect anything less than amazing. We've already seen it time and time again. Still, nothing could've prepared me for the heart melting images I've been getting sneak peeks of since last week. I finally got a look at the whole shabang- and I seriously had to take a moment to recover. I try not to be over-kill with the photos on my blog posts.. but... I make no promises this time around. How can I possibly choose?

Prepare to be in puddles by the end of the post. Enjoy!

Party Planning : 3 months to go.

I... am in a SLIIIIIIIIGHT panic - because I just realized that my baby is going to be 2 in three short months. and then after calming down from that, I'm thrown into another panic when thinking about her party last year, and prep time, and i haven't even thought about her party this year, and where will we have it, and who should we invite, because we have a million family members who want to come, and last year there were like 50 people there and it was a lot of work and overwhelming, and should there be friends at this party? and does she even have any friends and is my kid an anti-social freak like her mother? and OOOOHMYGOSH!

Party Planning throws me into a straight up frenzy.. anyone else?
I've just decided to start where I usually start.. Pinterest.

Follow Shayla Cornett's board Birthday Party Planning on Pinterest.

If you guys have any pin boards dedicated to toddler party planning, leave them in the comments section! I'm desperate for inspiration!

Insta-birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I've been trying to document via Instagram without overloading it, so some of these may be a bit of a repeat for any of you that follow me there, but I did try to go easy, so some are stolen photos from friends' instagrams. Let me tell you about my day!


Sunday, we went to celebrate my birthday with my family. (Which, if you don't know me, this is my favorite thing to do) Any reason for celebration and we get together for a cookout. Yesterday was the best, just getting to spend it with all the people I love and care about most. We played volleyball, and basketball, and shuffleboard. We ate, we teased, we loved. We ate cake. It was a pretty perfect day.

1. My sweet momma playing volleyball with Fern. <<<>>> 2. An innocent family game of volleyball including Fern.

For those of you who don't know, T's car is seriously jacked up. I don't like for him to drive it ever, at all, but we still have it in case of emergency. We're in the process of finding more reliable transportation, but until then, we stick to sharing my car. Which unfortunately for me, means that Fern and I are stuck at home all week during the day while he's at work. Today was a special treat, because T insisted on risking his life so that I could have the car for my birthday, which was a birthday blessing in itself. I took Fern to panera bread (She's a big fan of the strawberry parfait) and then we spent the rest of the morning at the Library until naptime. This girl was hilariously entertaining all day.

1.I love our Library, so much. It has the neatest kids center. 2. I wish you could see how incredibly crossed her eyes are.

After using our mobile afternoon to run some much needed errands, and a second nap for the day, T came home from work. Earlier last week he had asked if he could take me out to birthday dinner while his mom watched Fern for us. He wanted to take me to a little place in the Paseo called Sauced before dinner, he said, because the weather was so nice. We could sit out on the patio and have a glass of wine before dinner. You don't have to ask me twice. Little did I know that this little sneak had gone behind my back texting and sending messages to all of my friends! As we walked around the corner, they all yelled "SURPRISE!!!" and sang me happy birthday! I never suspected a thing! I still can't believe it.

1.Fern being super cute with gma. 2. Meanwhile, my friends are scaring the pants off of me. Apparently this is my surprised face. I should work on that.

We ended up staying at Sauced to eat and celebrate with all of our friends from every circle. My sisters were even there! Work friends, My oldest friends, my friends I've made through my relationship with Tristan. (They were his friends first, but I claim them too, now.) My maid of honor, Tristan's brother, and his wife. ... I mean.. gosh. I never would've imagined everybody all there at one place together like that. It was so great! We ate pizza, and talked, and had wine (of course) There were PRESENTS! .... man. I'm such a lucky girl.

1. Showing off my fancy earrings that Marek (pictured) and Casey got me. 2. Some of my oldest most dear friends. <3

We ended the beautiful evening by heading to Whiskey Cake, a new restaurant around here that is MY NEW FAVE. It had been where we planned to have dinner, but after the night we had, we just finished up there with a specialty cocktail and [obviously] a piece of the whiskey cake.. mind blowing.My cocktail was called "Tracy's garden". It was made with New amsterdam gin, cucumber, local basil and lime. So tasty.  Unfortunately It was late, and the lighting was poor, so I didn't get many photos. Which is very sad, because this place is charming. I guarantee we'll go back again, though. If you're a local Okie, you've just gotta go check it out. They use all local farmers for their food and drinks. They grow their own herbs, and there's a couch to lounge on around every corner.

ahh. The end to a perfect birthday.

also. In case you didn't notice ( and you probably didn't), but, a sweet sweet friend of mine bought me a legitimate url for my blogsite. I feel so official now. What a great birthday gift! Thank you sweet Tillie!
What a blessing, and huge surprise! Showering me with gifts all the way across the sea.

Celebrations.

I just wanted to document something from Fern's birthday party. I know I've posted a sappy entry about her turning one, and then the last post was one year photos, but I haven't documented the party yet. Terribly sorry if this is a Fern birthday overload, but I just gotta.

The day before her party was a terrible day, weather-wise. (more) Tornadoes, and insane flooding. I just knew her party would be off. Despite the day before, a flooded basement at our party host's house, and my most pessimistic predictions, it was an amazing day. It was so beautiful out! The sun was shining, It was a gorgeous high 70-something degrees outside. It was perfect. 

All of our friends and family came, including grandparents who don't remember our names, grandparents who insist on taking back roads all the way to the city, and sweet friends who traveled all the way from Arkansas. 

We had a splash pad for the little ones, which was a huge hit with little Judah. I made treats and had a fancy little setup and we just entertained each other with good old fashioned mingling. Fern had a mountain of presents, which everyone wanted to see us open. Fern abandoned us for the splash pad and we had to awkwardly open all of her little tikes presents by ourselves in front of our mass crowd of guests..  like I said...awkward. 

It was such a good day. So many memories. I was actually so busy being mom that I didn't take one single picture! Can you believe it??! Mom fail. Last week I contacted everybody and got a pretty great compilation of photos from them to share with you. I'm so lucky to have so many people surrounding us who love her as much as they do. She's one lucky girl. We're one lucky family.

One Fantastic Year.

Do you know what a hard thing to do is? A hard thing to do is to start writing about all the joy and happy moments you've had in the past year; the first year of your baby's life. How do you start to express all the feelings you've felt in the past year in one measly blog post? I have no idea. Just start writing I suppose.

I can remember when we found out we were having a baby. October 2011. We hadn't planned on her, to say the least. In fact, we were at a point in our relationship where we were really looking closely and examining what our future was suppose to look like. I found out in the tiny bathroom of my Edmond apartment I was living in to pursue a degree, which I hadn't actually gone through with. I cried when I saw that it was positive. I may have cursed some too. I wasn't afraid of a baby, and it was never a question of keeping her. I just didn't know what I would do. I was terrified. How would I take care of this baby? How would I afford her? What would people say? What would my mother say? We weren't married yet. I had just dropped out of college. I worked part time. My (now fiance) was still in school, and working part time at starbucks. We had no savings. no future. no plan. I needed a plan. 

I remember Tristan's first reaction, as I told him through blubbery tears. Calm and collected, as he always is, Smiling widely and simply saying "awesome!". ... what? I remember thinking.. "I'm already a terrible mother!" He hugged me as I cried to him "What are we going to do?".. He told me "We're going to have a baby.".. and the rest is history. 

I remember my pregnancy being long. I remember telling people in the beginning, just waiting to hear the shame in their voices, but it never came. I remember this sweet baby being celebrated from the beginning of her very existence. I remember gathering together with our family and friends to find out the gender. I remember baby showers, sooo many baby showers. This sweet baby girl has always been the most loved child I've ever known... 

...and then she was born, and the love poured out ten fold. 

Somehow, I always felt like something was missing before Fern was born. I never knew what I wanted to do, or who I was, completely. I tried finding my identity in so many things. A piece of the puzzle was always missing. Being a mother has taught me everything about myself, and I'm still learning every day. She's truly completed me. 

She has this joy that overflows from her expressive eyes and smile, and she just radiates this love. From a very young age, it seemed that her mission in life was to make people smile. I'm talking, 3 months old, this girl would do anything to get a giggle out of you. Apart from her insane love for food, and dancing, that's still a number one priority for her. She is goofy, and I love that. She is sweet, and I love that. She is ornery like her father, and I LOVE THAT. She takes her time when she's exploring, she's careful and methodical. She's determined, and most of the time, she's on her own agenda. She has these eyes. These eyes that everybody comments on every time we go anywhere. She's beautiful. She's smart. She loves cuddling with her bunny and she gets so excited when any of the dogs pay attention to her. She is crazy about her dad. Those two could play together for hours and if all I ever did was watch them, my life would be so full. 

This past year of her life has been the absolute best year of mine. I ache to see her baby pictures and remember when she was small, but I'm SO excited to watch her grow and discover new things, and become the person God has designed her to be. 

Lord, let her love hard. Guide us in teaching her sympathy, empathy, trust, and honor. Shape her heart, and use her gifts, and personality. Use her stubbornness to never give up. Use her sweet heart and courage to love people, and stand up for people who aren't being loved. Use her determination to take her places, and give her life fullness. Bless her with the ability to reason and feel, and not take people for granted. Give her boldness to communicate. Give her trials in her life that won't break her, but bless her with other perspectives. Give her trials that will shape her into a more loving and gracious person. Give her a heart for mission. If her heart continues to crave exploration, protect her as she travels. Bless the man she marries with a compassionate heart, and a lot of patience. Let her be exactly who you've designed her to be, and teach us how to plant and grow that in her. .... oh, and please be with her as her beauty grows. I pray that she learns not to use it for evil. It'll be easy for her to do. Those eyes. gah.