Happy 1st Birthday Aubrey Rose!

The day finally arrived! Last week we celebrated Aubrey Rose's 1st birthday. Aubrey is our lucky charm and was born on St. Patrick's Day last year, so we thought a crazy GREEN party would be so fun. It turned out to be a perfect evening! I think everyone had a blast. WE SURE DID!!!

Blake's side of the family...his parents, brother and sister

My side of the family...

my parents, my sister (on the right), my brother (on the left)

and their wonderful spouses (next to each of them)

Friends and family...

My wonderful cousin Chelsey with the birthday girl

Amazing cousins...LOVE you all!

A ton of our friends...friends who have been apart of our life in a major way for sooooo many years. I think the shortest amount of time is probably 3 years and the longest is probably 15 years!!! Blake, Aubrey Rose and I are so blessed with such a core group of friends! And this wasn't even everyone at the party. We are missing a couple. Thank you to each one of you for being such an important part of our lives. We truly value your friendship! We would not be the same without YOU!!!

Friends we have probably been having way too much fun with, but then again if it feels right, it just feels right. For some reason, we just can't get enough of our friends!

And on to the reason we all got together and wore green!

Aubrey Rose, Happy 1st Birthday Sunshine!

A letter to my ONE year old...

Aubrey Rose,
I cannot believe it has already been a year since you were born. It truly brings tears to my eyes when I thank God for you, for your life and for the joy you have brought to so many. You are one of a kind. You are unique in your own way and God has made you perfectly the way He wanted you to be. Daddy and I praise the Lord every day that He has entrusted us with YOU. We love you sooooooo much!

When I think about my sweet Aubrey Rose, I think of absolute joy. You have such a joyful personality. Joy describes what I feel when I am with you or when I simply mention anything about you. Joy is when I hear you giggle as I chase you around the house or up the stairs. Joy overflows my heart when I tickle you. You giggle and skirm and laugh no matter where I tickle you. Your feet, your toes, your legs, your sides, your neck…pretty much everywhere is ticklish. It is the cutest thing and it brings me so much joy to hear that sweet giggle of yours.

Aubrey Rose, there are so many things that make you be THE Aubrey Rose we have grown so quickly to love. You are quite the mover. You do not enjoy staying still for too long. You are not a fan of getting dressed because that means you have to stay still for a period of time. The best is when we have a bottle to give you and you can forget for just a second, while you drink, that you are still. Really, really soon we will not have that option. We will cross that bridge when it comes.

One of our favorite times of the day is when Daddy comes home! You and I love to meet Daddy at the door with open arms. It is definitely a highlight when we get that wonderful hug from him. Sometimes Daddy is sneaky and he comes home without either us hearing him. When you hear Daddy’s voice, you drop whatever you are playing with and you run to Daddy. The sweetest thing about this is you do this on your own. I love it!! You run with the biggest glow on your face all the way to Daddy. It takes my breath away every time.

Daddy and I often talk about how you definitely inherited your sleeping ability from your Daddy. I am so very grateful for this. You take great naps (still two a day) and then you usually sleep from about 7:30pm until 8am!! Since Daddy and I love to be busy and since we are such people people, :) you have fallen asleep in your pack and play at many friends’ houses. You are an absolute delight when we wake you up to transfer you home to your own bed. You smile at us almost immediately with the sweetest look, we take you home, place you in bed, you roll on your side and you are out again. Aubrey Rose that is when we know you are your Daddy’s daughter. You and your daddy can sleep anytime, anywhere. Must be nice! I wouldn’t know. :)
A couple of days before your first birthday I decided to take your pacifier away. I felt like the meanest mommy when I left your room that first nap with you screaming crying. It ended up taking an hour for you to fall asleep, but you finally did and you haven’t looked back since. Again, you truly amaze me at how easy you make transitions to be for us. We are so proud of you!

(You were about 3 months old in this picture...sleeping in Oma's crib...so precious!)

You absolutely LOOOOVE bath time! You love to play, splash, giggle, smile, say “OOOOOOOO,” and you love to chew on all of your toys. Bath time is definitely a special Daddy and Aubrey Rose time. Then, Daddy wraps you in your towel and I get you dressed. Daddy and I have become quite the team. It is such joy to raise you together.

You have eight teeth…four on the top and four on the bottom. Daddy and I are already praying for the next set of teeth to be straight because these ones are making us think we should start planning for braces. Straight or not, your big toothy smile is absolutely priceless. All of these things and more combine to make you who God has created you to be. And just so you know, we ABSOLUTELY love who God created!


Another characteristic to describe my little sunshine is you are quite the independent child. You are Miss Independent for sure! This side of you makes me a little nervous. Not nervous of what you will accomplish because I already see that you are quite determined. You know what you want and you are going to do what you have in mind. That leader side of being Miss Independent, and getting the job accomplished does not scare me, it is the part of me having to raise a little one with the independent spirit. I sometimes worry about how to train an independent child. When you do not get your way, do I ignore your tantrums or deal with them head on? When you are arching your back, throwing your arms back, screaming, crying and then you throw yourself to floor, everything inside me says just walk away and do not give her a second of my attention. A minute later you are completely fine (most of the time, no tears by the way). I know there will be days and moments, coming very soon, I am sure, that we are going to have to face the issue head on, those thoughts make me a little nervous. I will continue to pray that the work your Daddy and I do on a daily basis to train you in positive ways, I pray it will be all worth it and we will be able to sit back one day and just thank the Lord for the beautiful lady you have become. Okay, I realize I am looking into the future a little too far. For now, Daddy and I will continue to work and work and pray harder that the Lord will take a hold of your life and an early age. We pray that you will ask Him to be your Savior for that is the only way we can have hope in this world. Trust Him with your life, my little sunshine.

Your 1st birthday came around way too quickly. I have a beautiful one year old. That is weird, yet a wonderful thought. It definitely hit me hard that you are ONE, the moment I handed you your 1st birthday cake. At that moment, I almost wanted to cry, with tears of joy, but also of disbelief at all of the wonderful things you have done for so many people. You have brought so much joy. Joy we didn’t even know we could feel. You truly are a gift from God. I can’t wait to celebrate many more years and watch God unfold his desires for your life. I am anxious to see how you develop and mature into the woman God has created you to be. I just want you to know that I love you sooooooo much and I praise God for choosing ME to be your MOMMY. I pray for you every day. I love you Aubrey Rose!
Love,
Mommy

Above is a picture of you at about 8 weeks old with your cuddly teddy bear. Below are two pictures we just took a couple of days before your 1st birthday! You are taller than your bear now!

Happy 29th Birthday BLAKE!!

We celebrated Blake's 29th birthday last week. It was a SURPRISE and we got him good!! Blake and Christina were so sweet to call me and say that they wanted to throw Blake a surprise party. With Aubrey Rose's 1st birthday 2 days after Blake's we had not planned on anything. They were soooooooo sweet to offer their home and then pull a party together last minute. By the looks of everything they put together you would have thought they had known about this for a month! There was a birthday cake with our picture on it, a picture frame with hilarious photos of Blake over the years, adorable birthday plates and napkins, party hats and all! The house was full of wonderful friends. When we drove home, Blake and I could not stop talking about how blessed we are with such wonderful friends. Blake and Christina, we can not thank you enough! You threw the BEST party! Thank you to everyone who helped put it all together! We are so thankful for such wonderful friends!

This was Blake's shocked look when everyone yelled "SURPRISE!!!!!" He almost dropped Aubrey Rose. And Aubrey started crying after because it scared her too! It was all worth it!

The big 2-9! Cheers to many, many more birthdays to celebrate together. Blake, I love being married to you!

Aubrey watched her daddy teach her how to blow out the candles. It was a crash course since her birthday was 2 days away!

Girl moment with Allie (my wonderful sister-in-law), Aubrey Rose, myself and Christina

Birthday presents too???!! Thank you everyone for loving my favorite man too!

The crew that night. What a wonderful night it was. Thank you again B&C!

The crew being crazy. I love this shot! Hilarious!

LOTS to celebrate!!

This past weekend we celebrated a couple of birthdays and big accomplishments. Saturday afternoon, my sister threw a party at our house for her wonderful husband Aaron. He turned 30 and he passed his SE exam for engineering. HUGE accomplishment! He is so big time now! We had to celebrate! Wonderful friends and family came from near and far to join in on the fun. Happy Birthday and Congrats Aaron! We love you!! Aren't they so cute?!!

Here is a picture of Aaron, his parents, sister, nephew and Grandma...oh and of course my sister too! :-)

A bunch of our cousins! WE are so blessed!

The party was a Lego theme because Aaron loved to play with Lego's when he was little. Who would have known designing buildings would be his career. We love our structural engineer!

This is one thing Aubrey Rose loves to do to my cousin Chelsey. She just loves lovin' on her. It is the cutest thing. You can't even tell it is Chelsey, but it is.


Aaron opening up his gifts with his nephew Michael.

That evening we celebrated some MORE birthdays! Our friends Kim and Aaron turned 30 as well! It was a RockStar theme party. Dressing the part was definitely encouraged. We had a blast! Thanks so much Aaron and Kim for throwing such a GREAT party. We love you guys sooooooooooo much! By the way, please don't judge anyone in these pictures. We are all wonderful people who love Jesus! Just for one night we looked a little crazy. :-)

Here is the birthday couple. Happy 30th Aaron and Kim!

Can anyone guess who this couple is?

My wonderful friend from high school and college. We played softball together at Buchanan and at Point Loma. I love you Julie Shute!!

Oh Blake and Josh, you guys look like girls! HOT girls though! I sure am glad this was only for one night. Great times!


Josh said just be yourself in this picture. I love it! Rock on guys!

Whip it good Aaron!

I do have to admit, both Blake and I taking off our makeup together that night was quite awkward. I had to let him use my makeup remover and teach him how to use it. HILARIOUS!!! I guess I should be thankful he didn't know how. :-) Oh, speaking of makeup....I got mine done at MAC. It turned out pretty fun, so I thought I would share the picture. It was pretty wild!

Rock on...well, for one night at least! :-)

Aubrey Rose opens her first Birthday present!!

Yesterday in the mail we received the sweetest surprise. It was Aubrey Rose's first birthday present!!! So I knew I had to document this special moment. Here is an entertaining video of our little sunshine opening up her first birthday gift for her FIRST BIRTHDAY!!! We can not believe she is going to ONE in a few days. We are so blessed to have her in our life. We love her soooooo much!!

We want to say a BIG, BIG thank you to the whole Woitas family. I don't want to spoil the video, but we loved, loved, loved it all! Below is a picture of our wonderful friends (Ashley, Glenn, Gina, Christina and Blake) who blessed us with such an adorable gift and memory. Thank you sooooooooo much Gina and family!!!

Blake's busy week!

Last Friday we went to Monterey for a Frozen Foods convention with Wawona. Aubrey Rose and I got to tag along too on Daddy's work trip! It is a three-day convention of meeting after meeting with clients and different companies to see how we can better service them and sell more peaches. :-) Blake created a display with an assortment of their products that greeted everyone in the suite. It was a wonderful time away. Blake was quite busy, but it sure was worth joining him and being together as a family for five days!! I just love family time and doing life all together. Aubrey Rose and I are sooooooo proud of you Blake! Thank you for working so hard, so that we can have fun. :-)

Blake and Aubrey Rose in front of daddy's yummy fruit and beautiful display. Good job DADDY!!

Our first AFFI Convention with the whole family. We had to document the moment!