Orange Tour, Fall Leaves, and a Happy Meal

Thursday was that conference at out church I mentioned, Orange. It was a one day thing, not like last time when were in Atlanta for four days. It was a good refresher of what we had learned and definitely reminded me of what it takes to reach the generation behind us. I do find it ironic that companies tweak their products, update their marketing, upgrade their systems, in anticipation of the future generations needs and the changing culture, yet the church is either really far behind, or totally against changing the way they "have always done it." The church is the most important institution, but its the ONE that drags its feet on "upgrading." The message is the same, the core truth will NEVER change, but the way we reach those has to change bc the culture has changed, and we need to do whatever it takes to rescue the next generation. If you are wondering what Im talking about you can visit these websites to see what its all about. Orange Conference or the Re Think website

This is Kennedy and Reggie, who is a HUGE part of the Orange thinking even being in existence. Here is a link to his book. He is friends of the Manny family so it was so nice to finally meet him and his wife since the rest of the fam already knew them.

Miss Kennedy was at home during most of the conference with my friend Jina who was so sweet to come and hang with her so she could nap at home. She later brought her up to church and KP played in the nursery and then we headed home right after it was over to get another nap in. Justin took a while afterwards bc he had to set up the sanctuary. I was SO hungry and really havent felt like cooking anything lately. I took Kennedy to McDonald's for her first Happy Meal =) On the way their I saw some pretty leaves and literally turned on a dime into a parking lot and plopped my baby down in those leaves and had a mini photo session =) She was wearing a very fall colored shirt and I thought it was all working together...im such a nerd!

She loved her happy meal, and dont worry, Im a little health crazed too. She had apples instead of fries (well I gave her a couple of my fries, they are SO good) AND I peeled all the fried part off the chicken and cut it up. I however ate a fried chicken sandwich and all the fries =) not setting a good example I guess...
It was a fun little trip to McD's and she loved her toy. A My Little Pony, I LOVED THESE when I was kid and I thought it was SO fun that that was the toy this time.

whats up

Looks like I haven't blogged in a while. All the stuff with Kennedy's birthday sort of took it out of me I suppose, but I've had time to recharge and Im back! I dont have a whole lot to write since there isnt too much going on right now. I have been doing a lot of cleaning up though since her party. We had a couples baby shower at the house the weekend after her party so I had to get things in order for that. While cleaning up, I was trying to find a place to put all those gift bags guests put her presents in, and all that tissue paper (yes I save tissue paper). I have sooo much gift wrapping supplies and no where to put it all! I decided I wanted to figure out some way to organize it. Of course, I would LOVE one of those little carts Ive seen in catalogs.

The one that is mobile is nice because if you dont want to wrap in the same place its good to have a wrap station that moves. I know at christmas time I wrap in front of the TV or something bc it takes a while to wrap all those gifts.

I also like this one too, that hangs on the wall. It would go fine in a craft room but my craftroom shares its space with the washer and dryer, so im not too sure about hanging it in there.

My current gift wrap area is chaotic. I know, I have real problems huh? (i hope you can sense the sarcasm) I just REALLY like for everything to have a place to go. Those organizers are expensive though, so Im working on fashioning some sort of system to keep it all tidy.

See, I told you I didnt have a lot to talk about. Im thinking about GIFT WRAP! heavens sake


Anyway, Im exited about the next few days. Tomorrow we have the Orange Tour coming to our church and Im SO pumped about learning some stuff about family ministry. Then saturday is HALLOWEEN! and Kennedy is SO cute in her costume. We are going to a costume party so we ALL have a costume and Im hoping everyone call tell what we are. We'll see...

I hope all of you have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN and Ill probably get back to you in November. No worries, thats Sunday. CIAO!

oh, I almost forgot a picture of Kennedy, since you all know you didnt read any of this and are just looking for a new pic of her =) she is a little serious lookin...

Party Fun!

Here are some of the pictures from the party. We were so blessed to have so many wonderful friends come and a lot of our family from so far away. I think about 40 people were in and out of here so my tiny house was quite full, but I welcome the chaos and love the company!

The birthday girl with her daddy and nana. She was ready for her party to get started!

Playing with some of her friends who came to her party. She is so friendly and social


and her boyfriend Gunnar, we love this little guy

Some of the guys hanging around outside, thankfully it wasnt too too cold

What's a good party without some excitement...my friend Amy locked her keys in her car after shutting the door with her 11 month old inside. Poor thing. Liz was so happy though and never even cried but just sat there patiently while everyone tried to break into it.

Eventually the firemen had to come and open it, but no worries, everything was fine!

Eating her big cupcake

Talking to Aunt Afton

She is so loved!

Turning One w/ Polkadot Fun

Kennedy's first birthday has officially come...and gone...It was such a fun week celebrating and remembering how just one short year ago we had just had her and brought her home with us (can you believe they let us bring a kid home)? Yet here we are, a year later, every one is sane and in one piece and those sleepless nights are but a faded memory. I have a TON of pictures to show you but today we will stick with party details because I LOVE throwing parties and its ALL in the details!

I drew inspiration from many party blogs so I'll try and give you as many resources as I can to either purchase it yourself or be a copy cat like me and DIY

You have seen the invitation already. We designed these ourselves with a program Justin has, and then ordered them from a printers. It was really affordable. I wanted to do something fun and colorful for miss Kennedy's first birthday since she isn't "into" anything yet, being that she is too little to know characters or themes and whatnot. So like the invite, I stuck with dots and an orange, pink, and blue theme, with a little green.

First, the party table all done up. I had the party at 1 in the afternoon so expected most people to eat something lunchy before coming and provided some light snacking, some yummy for adults and some kid suitable: fruit, chicken nuggets, cheese ball, spinach artichoke dip, pasta salad, and teeny bbq weenies. I got the hanging lanterns from Ikea for only $5 each!
I made cupcakes instead of doing cake. We had plain white cake with buttercream frosting and sprinkles, and cookies and cream cupcakes with mini oreos on top of buttercream icing. So yummy! I actually got to eat one once everything slowed down...Kennedy's cupcake was made in a jumbo muffin pan to make it bigger and a little extra special since she WAS the birthday girl!
I grew slightly obsessed with finding some drink dispensers that would meet my specifications and found them at Crate and Barrel. I love them! I filled these two with pink lemonade and sweet tea but decided to give them some funky twists with festive names! Momma's Southern Sweet Tea (bc it is MY momma's recipe, and she is southern) and Tickled Pink Lemonade (since we were celebrating my baby girls bday).
I also got some of these little juice bottles for the kids, I remember LOVING these as a kid and thought they would enjoy them too! It made the drink station complete.
Next, the birthday banner. Now I have found a couple different gals who make these fun banners, as well as cupcakes tops and other fun paper goods, but my favorite is probably Jess of PolkaDots and Pirates. I made this one easily and love it so very much, I just might not take it down until November. It went great on the fireplace along with some fun frames I found at Target for really cheap and balloons to add even more fun!
I also had a little sweet shoppe with "1" suckers that I made and bags to fill with other goodies. The one candy molds I found at Candy Mold Central. It was cheap and I got 3 so I could make more at once. (Pop them in the freezer, they harden faster)

The front door sign

Her highchair

My sweet girl eating her cake

I just love this picture of her standing in her new big girl chair. Such a sweet little face...

My two favorite people EVER!
All that work, and the party lasted about 3 1/2 hours, just doesn't seem right huh? Well, I'll post more about the party fun with more pictures tomorrow!

Party Peak

Two days til the big first birthday party. I thought I'd give a little peak at the goods...

ONE

The last picture I took of Kennedy before she went to sleep the night before her FIRST BIRTHDAY!
So weird that I have a one year old, but so completely fabulous. Yesterday was such a fun day and I think Kennedy really enjoyed her very FIRST birthday! I was hoping to be there when she woke up, but was certain she would have woken up by the time I usually get home. I guess she knew it was her birthday and she could sleep in if she wanted to, because she didnt wake up until I got home and woke her up! I was so glad to be there when she did because Justin and I, (and of course Fred who follows us around) went in and were all, "Kennedy, its your birthday..." with creepy smiles on our faces and she was all like, "Why is everyone in my room so early...what's going on..." well, she didnt say that, but that was the glazed over-just woken up look on her face =) The morning was pretty slow because Justin had to go to staff meeting at work so we hung around the house, made a wal mart trip, in pj's, and then took a morning nap. Well, she took a morning nap, I got to working on party stuff and spray painting furniture...(party post sneak peak tomorrow)

When she woke up we got ready and got in the car to go meet Jus for lunch. I got really weird about this time because when I was getting ready to leave I realized it was 113, the exact time I had her...I was sad Justin was not there with me, bc Im an emotional person and very sentimental and was literally reliving that moment right there right then, and I just looked at her and couldnt believe it had already been a year. I remember it so clearly. How crazy fast does a year go by!?!?! So, we met Justin for lunch, at City BBQ of course, we did have that brought to the hospital when she was born, so it was only natural to eat it today =) We then just headed back home to get a good afternoon nap since the AM one was so short. I wanted her to be well rested and ready to PARTY all night long! I laid her down and Justin came home from work and I actually had to leave for about an hour to go to work myself. I came home to my happy girl all ready to go take her one year pictures! We met our friend Andrew, who likes to take pictures and has a really great camera, and took some gorgeous photos of KP. (I havent seen his yet, and Im not quite done looking through all the ones on my camera so those will be up later.)
After we were done we went back home to eat cake and open presents. She was SO cute checking out all her presents. We only gave her a few of the ones from us, I saved a couple for her party on Saturday, but I think I only needed to give her one because she was in LOVE with the cookie jar. She usually goes to bed around 8 815, and at 845 when I was thinking, ok, its getting late and took the cookie jar away, she was hysterical! I was the worst mom ever to do such a thing! I felt bad, but seriously, she has an early doctors appt, and needs rest. She was fine once we got her in bed, no worries, more cookie jar play another day. Next was the cake eating, which she also loved. I just picked one up from the Kroger on the way home from work. I wasnt sure what Id find just walking in and randomly selecting one but it was yummy and cute. We let her sit there for a while eating cake and drinking milk before we cleaned her up. I just love a baby covered in food. It just means baby was obviously having fun!

I of course got emotional at the end of the night and Justin caught me tearing. It was just so fast, this first year, and I have no way of describing how much I love her, or how undeserving I feel of having such an awesome gift as her. I love her like crazy and had such a fun day celebrating her birth bc it really was the best day EVER! Thanks God for baby K, she is awesome...

Fall on the Farm

This past weekend we took Kennedy to Fall on the Farm to play a little and get a pumpkin. It was SO fun and she was super cute in all the pumpkins. I think she had a good time and I had fun taking one and half million pictures with the guys yelling at me to chill out with the camera. do they not know me??? They had SO many gorgeous mums, caramel apples, the best apple cider EVER, a few barn animals, and of course Pumpkins! We walked around for a little while and then took a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. We got a lot of cute pictures so sorry for the massive amount of photos.

Kennedy and ClaireKennedy do you like to slide???the really BIG pumpkinsmy little roosteron the hayrideshe did NOT want to sit down in the wagon, even when we got Claire in there who sat like a little angel, she still wouldnt sit...oh well
arent they so cute hanging out with their pumpkins
So I think we are done with the fall festivals for a while...they are fun though!