Here Little Fishy Fishy Fishy!

When I asked Gloria a while back what kind of birthday party she wanted, she said "A fishing party! And a mermaid party!" Haha I loved the idea of a fishing birthday party and thought we could cover that pretty well. We checked in with uncle Frank about using the camp for the party and we got the green light! The mermaid did make the cut but I ended up just making a mermaid cake for her actual birthday.

Gloria had been looking forward to her party for weeks! She couldn't wait to spend the day with her friends and family! We had a fun day planned for the kiddos. There was fishing (of course!) and digging for night crawlers, playtime by the river and lots of eating and cake! I think everyone was wiped by the end of the day.

My favorite part of the day was when Gloria arrived at the party. I had gone to the camp early to set up with my friends Amanda, Sara and Lauren so when G showed up, everything was set up and ready! She ran up to me, gave me a great big hug and said "Thank you mommy for my party!" She was so sweet! Her reaction was so great!



I have lots of pictures in Gloria's 4th Birthday album from the party. Thank you Amanda for being the appointed photographer! You did a great job! :) And big thanks to Lauren for the awesome cake!! It looked so good and Gloria was over the moon excited! I couldn't have pulled the party off without Lauren, Amanda, and Sara's help! They were a big part of setting up and making G's party special. An even bigger thanks to Frank for letting us use the camp!! Gloria loves it at the camp so it was the perfect spot for her to spend the day with her friends! :)

Our 4-year-old!

For weeks Gloria kept telling people she was 4 years old. When I would say to her "almost four" she would reply, "I know mommy, I'm just pretending I'm 4!" She is too cute! :)

Today was Gloria's 4th birthday. She was over the moon excited to tell everyone about it! When she came into our room in the morning, Tom and I said "Happy Birthday Gloria!!" She smiled sweetly and asked us where all the decorations were. haha Little did she know, the living room was all decked out for the birthday girl! :)

Her day started off with M&M pancakes and birthday presents. She was so funny! After opening each present, she kept saying "This is my favorite...!!" Later on we had a special birthday lunch together then it was cake and ice cream time with the rest of the family— grandparents, uncles and Great Grandpa. Gloria loves her family and was very excited to share her special day with them!

After rest time, we were off to the Butterfly Museum. Gloria couldn't believe her eyes when we got into the conservatory! She loved it! The butterflies loved her too! Especially the bright pink hat she was wearing! They kept landing on her.

It was a beautiful day spent together. We love our little girl, she is such a blessing! She lights up our life! Happy 4th Birthday to our baby girl who is growing up so fast!

Before I go, I wanted to share just a few things we love about our G. All of these things help describe our little girl and her personality over this past year.

We love...

1. Gloria's loving nature. She is so loving and sweet and she expresses it often.
2. Her imagination! She is incredibly creative and loves to make up stories and pretend. 
3. Her love of dancing. This girl would dance every minute of every day if she could. 
4. That she is adventurous! She loves an adventure and gets excited about new things. We just wish she got as excited about new foods! ;)
5. The girlie girl in her. She is all about being a little girl! She loves jewelry, painting her finger nails, etc. If it has sparkles and is pink or purple, it is for her!
6. Her fashion sense. Gloria has been dressing herself since she was almost 2! She picks out her own outfits and she is very proud to do so.
7. That she is little miss independence! She loves doing things on her own, she has always been that way. 
8. Her determination. Once she sets her mind to something, she will conquer! The other day she refused to let us help her button some shorts that were a challenge for her. She was determined she could do it and she did!
9. That she is so joyful! Gloria is a very happy girl and she spreads that joy to those around her.
10. Her friendly nature (and gift of gab!)! She will talk to just about anyone or wave to people as we go by. She is always so friendly and sweet to people she meets. beautiful, sweet, adventurous, imaginative, silly,

Thank you to everyone who helped make Gloria's birthday extra special this year. We have pictures and stories coming soon from her party on Sunday. :)

Party Time!!

Leo is six months old! So hard to believe, the time has just flown by. He is doing super well! He is so good natured, a very happy little man. He truly is! This boy is just so sweet! He is developing very quickly. He has found his vocal chords and has been babbling away. He is saying "da da" and "ga ga" and making all sorts of fun screeching sounds! He is sitting up on his own (with an occasional toppling over) and he is starting to scoot ever so slightly while on the floor. He is so good with his hand eye coordination, loves playing with all sorts of objects, materials and, of course, he explores everything with his mouth! He loves to be tickled, just like his sister and he thinks Bridgette is so much fun to watch.

Leo had his six month appointment on Wednesday. He was a super star! He got one shot this time around, more to come with the next appointment. He didn't even flinch! What a trooper. He charmed the nurses and the doctor and was so cooperative. He weighed in at 16 lb 6 oz (you would never know he was a 10 lb baby!) and he measured at 27 1/2 inches tall. He is a healthy boy and we are thrilled! The only thing he has a bit of is eczema but hopefully we'll get rid of that very soon.

We were so excited about Leo turning six months that we decided to throw a half birthday party for him! :) Ever since the day Leo was born, Gloria has been asking when we were going to have a birthday party for him. She was so confused why we didn't do anything when he was born. So...I thought a party was in order. We were planning to start him on solids on his six month mark so it was perfect to celebrate that as well. He has been exclusively fed breast milk up to this point so starting solids was a big deal.

We were all excited to celebrate! I didn't go nuts though with props and such, just used some spare things around the house but Gloria and I did make cupcakes together. :) Gloria was so excited about this party ever since I had mentioned it to her. I said she could wear a party dress, which made her day! I made mini crustless quiches and smoothies for dinner...always love breakfast for dinner! We even sang happy birthday to Leo (at Gloria's request). We had SO much fun together! It was the perfect family night!



To see some photos from Leo's 1/2 birthday party, visit our February 2012 album. I've also posted some pics in Leo's 6 Month album of him.

We are excited to celebrate Valentine's Day coming up. Gloria has a fun week ahead of her at school and we'll do some fun things at home as well. Gloria and I spent this weekend making special Valentine's Day gifts for our loved ones and Gloria can't wait to give them away! :)

Have a fantastic week and much love to you all!

Speedy Season

The Holiday season just zoomed by! December was packed with so much! Gloria's dance recital, family Christmas parties, birthdays, Christmas, we have had an amazing month!

Earlier in the month, Tom and I had a great night out together when we went out to my work Christmas party at the Putney Inn. The food was delicious and I was so excited to get out and dance! :) We had a great time with everyone! We also celebrated my mom's birthday this month as well as mine. We took my mom out for breakfast that morning then Tom took me to The Farm Table for dinner which was really good. We tried Oysters Rockefeller, which was interesting. They were okay, but I wouldn't have them again. :) It was a great birthday!

Then, of course, there was Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at Dave and Irene's and then stopped by Matt and Tricia's for a bit after that. Christmas Day started at 5:00 AM since Tom had to work at 6:30. (boo!) Gloria was not impressed with getting up that early, Santa or no Santa! :) I can't say I blame her. Once she was with it though, she was thrilled to get up and see what was in store for her on Christmas morning. Her hope was that she was going to get a Princess Fishing pole from Santa. Good thing Santa brought her one! ;) She was so excited!! It was the only thing she asked for from Santa. In fact, Santa brought daddy a fishing pole too! Gloria and Tom can't wait to go fishing together this summer! Leo was up and alert too and got into crinkling paper and drooling all over his new goodies. :) We had a lot of fun together before daddy had to head off to work. After he left, we spent some time playing together then it was off to church for a bit then home to prepare for Christmas dinner. The family was all coming over to our house for Christmas. We had a fun evening with everyone—my family and Tom's parents.

Some of my favorite Christmas Day moments included Gloria telling us to "Go away" when we were trying to wake her up so early, sleeping in her new Princess Tent during her nap and her excitement about playing her new game, Candyland. Leo had such a good day too, although he had no clue what all the commotion was about. He was perfectly content hanging out in someone's arms which wasn't a problem with so many people around. :)

We've uploaded many new photos to our December 2011 album as well as our Christmas album. I can't believe another year has flown by! More to come...

Happy Holidays!!

Welcome Baby Leo James!!

He is here!! Our little...uh...I mean BIG boy is here!!! We are so very excited to announce the birth of Leo James born on August 8th, 2011. He was born at 10:27 AM at the hospital (barely) weighing in at a whopping 10 lbs. 6 oz! Like I said, BIG boy! We keep calling him our chunky monkey. :) He is 21 1/2 inches long and a super star baby!

We'll post more about the birth and our family soon but we just wanted to share our big news with everyone. We are doing very well, all four of us. Gloria is especially proud to have her baby brother here at last! We are home, happy and so very much in love with our new little family member! Thank you everyone for all the support, encouragement and the love! xoxo

Here are just a few photos of our big boy! Definitely more to come. :)


Leo James...our big boy with a full head of hair!


Gloria meeting Leo for the first time. :)


Our very happy family!


Leo and his very proud mommy ready to go home. :)

Birthday Pictures!

I finally got a chance to upload all the photos from Gloria's birthday celebrations. It was a busy weekend but so much fun! We kept things simple this year but everyone still had a great time!

Here are some fun photos from the weekend. If you want to see them all, visit Gloria's 3rd Birthday album.

Party Girl

We've had a lot going on this weekend. It has been back to back celebrations for our GEM! It's been so much fun!

On Friday I was able to get to Gloria's school in time for an early birthday celebration for G. I made mini cupcakes for her and her friends. They all sang Happy Birthday to Gloria, it was too cute! Poor Gloria had just woken up from her nap though and was kind of out of it. I'm not sure she was really awake during her party! haha

Saturday was a big day! Gloria woke up to balloons and some presents from mommy and daddy. It was an early wake up call since daddy had to go to work but I have a feeling Gloria didn't mind! :) After daddy went to work, I made Gloria's favorite breakfast, french toast. Then it was off to the Strolling of the Heifers parade in Brattleboro, Vermont. It was a special treat and the weather was perfect! My parents came along too which was wonderful. It was a fun afternoon!

After daddy got home from work, it was time to party! My family and Tom's parents came over to help celebrate. We had a princess castle cake and ice cream and, of course, there were birthday presents. :) It was a gorgeous day outside so we got to spend some time outdoors visiting. We had such a great time with everyone!

Today was Gloria's friend birthday party. This year it was all about simplicity. Well, as simple as I get. ;) We did a picnic party. Each kid had his/her own picnic basket with their lunch and some other goodies. I had so much fun putting these together and knew the kids would love them! Sure enough, they were thrilled! We did the party at the Bernardston Elementary School park where there was plenty of room to run, play and entertain. It worked out perfectly and the kids had a blast!

Thank you to everyone who helped make Gloria's birthday weekend so special! She has a lot of love in her life and we are so very grateful! We have an amazing family and group of friends!! Much love to you all!!

Now we are gearing up for our vacation this week. Lots of fun things planned together as a family! We are really in need of this break and some quality time together.

Here are a few videos from the weekend. The first is of G opening a few presents the morning of her birthday and the second is a video of our family singing Happy Birthday to Gloria. If the videos don't work here, you can visit our Video album to see them. There is also a video of her at school with her friends. I'll have photos in Gloria's Birthday album soon.

Our little girl is 3! We love her to pieces!!

Birthday Girl!

Happy Birthday to our sweet girl!

Gloria turned 3-years-old today! We can't believe how time has flown! We had such a fun day together with her today. She was so excited that it was her birthday!

We love our little girl more than anything! She makes us smile and brings so much joy into our hearts. More than we ever imagined!

I'll post photos and stories soon but until then, I wanted to share this poem that I came across a while back. Although it is more about a grown, adult child, I thought it was still so sweet and wanted to share it on this day, our daughter's birthday.

Beautiful Child

A golden moment pressed in stone
To bring such beauty into this home.

Change forever my life so cold
To give this treasure I can hold.

Sparkling eyes of innocent blue
Purest honest love so true.

Smiles that brighten the darkest day
Curious mind and hands at play.

Growing brighly strong at will
A beautiful child my heart you fill.

Nurture this mind, nurture this soul
Touched forever, my heart behold.

Openly protect her, tucked under wing
A flower she'll blossom, love she'll bring.

Guide her gently through night or day
In mind, in spirit, her love will stay.

This precious young woman, you have become
I know as a mother, my job is done.

© Tammy Earhart

Gloria's Birthday Party

Finally!! Photos from Gloria's birthday party! :) There are some fun pictures here. To see more, visit Gloria's 2nd Birthday Album. This was a party for Gloria but also a celebration of families. We love being a family and we wanted to include our friends and family in the celebration! :) The weather wasn't totally cooperative that day, but the kids had fun and we did too!

Birthday Wishes!

One of Gloria's favorite cousins turned 2 years old today! We are sending big birthday wishes out to Ella from our family! She is one sweet little girl and we are very blessed that she is part of our lives. We love you sweetie and we miss seeing you!! Gloria can't wait to sing happy birthday to you next weekend!! :)


© Lisa Joy Merrill Photography

This photo was taken at Gloria's birthday party back in June. It is one of my favorites! Ella looks so grown up!!

Surprise!!

Surprise parties are always fun! Well, I think so at least. :) I suppose some people don't really like to be surprised. Good thing for my very dear friend Lauren, her husband Mike isn't one of those people!

One of the benefits of being event planners is that we also get to plan fun parties for ourselves! Or, at least parties for those we love around us! :) Lauren and I had both been planning special parties about the same time. I was working on Gloria's birthday party in June (photos coming soon, I promise!) while she was planning Mike's surprise 30th birthday party in July.

Lauren put together a very fun and colorful event! It was a lot of fun! She did a fish-themed party since Mike is an avid fisherman. We had brunch and the plan was to have a fishing derby afterward but the weather didn't cooperate. I suppose people could go fishing in the rain but that isn't as much fun (for some people). :)

The party was a hit and Mike was certainly surprised! Lauren did a fabulous job with everything! It looked amazing and I think everyone had a really good time, despite the weather!

To see photos from the party, you can visit our July 2010 album.


A photo of one of the prizes for the fishing derby. Lauren designed the buckets and filled them with all sorts of fun fishing stuff. Very cute!

Sneak Peek

I received a few photos from the photographer yesterday of Gloria's party. More to come next week! :) Can't wait to see the rest!







This one gives you an overall idea of the look of the party. The colors were orange, pink and green and the theme was strawberries. The kids had a great time! One of Charlotte's kids said to her "Can we come here again for another party some time?" LOL I guess he had a good time! :) Very sweet!

More Birthdays

June was such a busy month for birthdays! Maybe next year we should have one big party! :) I think I'm all caked out. If that is even possible!

I'm just now getting some pics up from my dad's birthday on the 18th of June. We had my parents and my grandfather over the house for cake and ice cream to celebrate. I made a Red Sox cake for my dad seeing that he is a big fan! Of course! :) We had a good time. For my dad's birthday and Dave's birthday (July), Tom and I are taking them to a Red Sox game. We're hoping for good weather and a good game! It will be a good time with our dads. :)



A few photos from my dad's birthday and from Brady's birthday are now up in our June 2010 photo. I can't believe July is this week! Where did the month go? We are looking forward to the long weekend. Well...I have a long weekend. Tom, unfortunately, has to work. We'll still get some nice family time together though.

Birthday Party Weekend

This was such a fun weekend! We are party pooped!! :)

We had Gloria's birthday party on Saturday here at the house. It rained for a little bit but that didn't stop the kids from having a blast outside! :) I think everyone enjoyed themselves and we certainly loved seeing our friends and the kiddos. Gloria had so much fun! I think she was in heaven with all the kids at the house. It was a riot to watch the kids play. Gloria loves her friends! As do we!

For once, I didn't take a single photo. Nope. We hired someone else to do it! :) So...photos will be up in a few weeks. It was something we thought would be worth doing and a great way to get some beautiful photos and not have to worry about doing them myself. The only down side...I have to wait to see the photos!! LOL

Yesterday we actually had two parties to go to but only made it to one unfortunately. I had high hopes I guess. Poor Gloria was so pooped after the first that I didn't have the heart to take her to a second party. We are bummed we didn't get to see the family and congratulate Jessie and Tabitha in person. We hope they had a wonderful party! What a perfect day for it.

The party we did get to was for our little friend Brady. It was his 2nd birthday as well. It was at Look Park in Northampton. It was such a beautiful day! Perfect for playing in the water. Gloria even got brave enough to go through the water fountains. Usually she is too timid to try it. :) I was so proud of her! We had a great time with Brady and his family. It was fun to visit and play!

In other news, big news for us, Gloria pooped on the potty this week for the first time! In fact, she has done it a second time since. We are so proud of her! We've tried a few times to get her excited about going on the potty but it just hadn't impressed her until now. Its a slow process but we are patient. :) She is so darn excited about doing it that we are hoping she will catch on to this whole process pretty quickly.

I have photos to share but Smugmug has some maintenance going on right now so I can't upload any at the moment. I'll get them up soon though.

Have a good week!

Vacation in the Woods

Over a week ago now our little family had a wonderful vacation together. We spent some time catching up on house projects, did some day trips and spent 3 nights at Tom's uncle Frank's camp. We had such a great time! It rained most of the days but we made the most of it. It helped that we had visitors stop by.

Friday night our parents came up for dinner and dessert to celebrate Tom's birthday. We even got to roast some marshmallows! Yum!! On Saturday, even with the rain, our friends stopped by the camp to wish Tom a happy birthday. The kids had a blast splashing in the puddles outside. What fun! It was wet but the kids didn't care. :) It was a great weekend with everyone. I think Tom really enjoyed spending his birthday at the camp. My handsome man is thirty-five years old now!! :)

I managed to get some really fun photos from our vacation. Gloria loved staying up at the "brown house" as she calls it. :) We really enjoyed ourselves. Big thanks to Frank for letting us stay at the camp! It was a perfect place to enjoy our vacation together! :)

To see photos, visit our June 2010 Vacation Album. I didn't take many photos on Saturday. Just a few in the evening. I wish I had taken more. Oh well. Enjoy the ones I did take though! :)

Moo-tastic!!

The Saturday after Gloria's birthday I took her up to Brattleboro for the Strolling of the Heifers. Those Vermonters! I want to know who thought up this concept. A whole weekend devoted to the cows. It doesn't get more country than that!! We loved it though! :)

The parade goes through downtown Brattleboro and then a festival follows immediately afterward. We only did the parade this year, hopefully next year we can stay and participate in the remaining activities. We both had such a good time watching the cows and the many people who were in the parade. There were some very colorful people! So fun!

That same day we had a special birthday party to go to in the afternoon. Miss Olivia's! Gloria loves her cousins and had such a good time at Livy's party. We enjoyed ourselves as well! The weather was perfect for it too!

Photos from both the parade and Livy's party are now in the June 2010 Album. Enjoy! :)

Birthday Boy!!

My very handsome and smart husband had a birthday on Friday this week! We had a special week together and had lots of fun celebrating his special day. Actually, we made it into a whole weekend of celebrating!! :) Tom means the world to Gloria and I! We are two very lucky gals to have him in our lives!! We love you daddy!! :) Happy Birthday again!

I have lots of details to share and lots of photos from this week/weekend. We've been on vacation! Its been a bit busy trying to settle back in at home and prepare for the coming week. Hopefully I'll have a chance to share our stories soon.

Until then, have a great week!!

Two Cute!

I'm still in disbelief that Gloria turned two last week. This past year flew by! We had such a great little party on Friday last week. I finally posted the photos in Gloria's 2nd Birthday Album. I have to give Tom complete credit for this event. He was the official photographer that day. :) Thank you babe!!

Birthday Girl!!

Gloria had such a very nice birthday on Friday. She spent the day with her Gramma and Papa at Look Park (since daddy and I had to work), got to ride the train, see the animals, play at the park, etc. A perfect day for a toddler! :) Later on in the evening we had our families over for cake and ice cream. What a fun time! Gloria was overjoyed!! She loved having everyone there. She is a very loved little girl.

I have a lot of photos to post but for now, a video will have to suffice. This is a video of us singing happy birthday to Gloria. I made a small "smash" cake for her very own. It had a pink monkey on it. :) We thought she was going to dig in more than she did. She was just such a lady about it. Too funny!

Playing Catch Up!!

So I'm still playing catch up with photos and stories and such. I'm getting closer though! :) To say its been a busy few weeks is an understatement! Its all good though.

Last weekend was a really busy weekend but so much fun! Saturday was just G and I. We played at the park and spent some quality time together. We are both still adjusting to my being back at work so it was nice to have a day with her. Saturday night I went out for a night out with the girls. We were celebrating my friend KC's birthday! I had so much fun!! It was especially great to catch up with KC and Renee! While I was out with the gals, Tom and Gloria went to Dave and Irene's for a Memorial Day dinner. I know G had a good time seeing her Grammy and Grampy!

On Sunday, Gloria and I went to the Paradise City Arts Festival. If you haven't been before, you need to go! They have another one in October. I'm planning on going but sans child. :) It really isn't a kid friendly place. Not much to do for the kiddos. But for the adults, especially the creative types like myself, its amazing!! So inspiring, definitely a visual candyland!

Monday was busy with family and friends. Gloria and I took our first trip of the season to the beach. We joined Kerri, the girls and Linda for the morning. Boy did we have a good time! It was nice to chat it up with Kerri and Linda while the girls were playing. I can't wait to go again! :)

In the afternoon, we went to Dawn and Matt's house for a BBQ. We got see all our friends, well, except the Collins family. We missed them! It was a good day with everyone. Its so much fun to see our kids playing so well together. We are very lucky to have such a great group!

We have lots of photos in our Memorial Day Album if you want to take a look.

I've also uploaded pics of my night out for KC's Birthday and the rest of May 2010 photos.


What do you think. Was Gloria having a good time with her auntie Liz? ;)