Mayci's First Birthday Party!

Well, there are many things to update but first things first! Saturday was Mayci's FIRST birthday party! It's amazing to me that tomorrow my baby girl will be one.

The party "theme" I went with was birds. There has always been reference by Jay and I that she was our little bird and well, they are not your traditional theme and I love them :-) BUT, there were not really any bird oriented items available so I was busy stamping napkins, tablecloth and the like for our party goods. The day was great. She took her morning nap as usual so woke up happy & ready to party! It was a family party, so nice and low key where she got to just play and show off her "cruising" skills. She was funny with her cake and really didn't know what to do with it at first but quickly figured things out and dug in. After that, the kids all played until I noticed that she'd moved over by her presents and was starting to pull one open! So, presents were next.

Her invitation!

The Birthday girl!Cake time!

Of course, there will be more pictures to come. My sister & father in law each took quite a few so I'll be sharing those when I get them!

Favors

She is really into cooking oriented items right now, which she got some of as well as containers and things that she can put things into and take them out of. Today, she sat and put all the pieces into Avery's Candyland game one by one (the new castle one with the plastic pieces). Avery barely has the patience for that!

AND, I'd mentioned before she was cruising a lot and about a week ago she started taking steps independently and is up to 5 by herself! She will stand for a good couple minutes on her own and all day long we will catch her taking 2 steps here and there but she has taken up to 5 at one time! I don't think it will be too much longer before she is toddling around!

The last couple weeks have been busy. One of my February goals that went unaccomplished was to get Mayci's room painted. I had almost all the paint left from painting at our old house, so it was just taking the time to do it. I knew she would not sleep in the pack and play so there was also the moving of the crib, which we moved to the playroom for a few nights while I worked on her room. Finally, I got it done on Thursday night! Jay and I got the touch ups finished on Friday and her crib put back in there. I am so happy to have that checked off! No, it's really something that I wanted done for her since she really didn't get to enjoy it for long before we moved. I did the solid brown on the bottom, an off white stripe in the middle and pink on top, it's so pretty! I have some finishing touches to get done but the hardest part is complete!

These are the in between pictures of Mayci's room...not before, definitely not after, lol. I let the boys take some paint to the walls and have some fun!

Jay also received some great news last week. He had applied for a position at work within the K9 group as a dog handler. He did not expect that he would get it as there were others with more experience and time within the department, but he was selected for the job and started last week! He will no longer be working inside the prison as a Correctional Officer, he is training with the dogs to do searches and other things. He is very excited about it and we are very happy for him! The sad thing is that he has to attend training in Tucson for 8 weeks. He'll be coming home each week but it will still be a long 8 weeks! His schedule will stay the same, thankfully!

We're proud of you, honey!

Last week, Joe was on Spring Break. We didn't do a whole lot so on Sunday, Jay and I took the kids to the Ostrich Festival. It was fun although quite hot. I hadn't been outside at all yet for the day, so I did not realize how hot it was but we still had fun!

Helicopter!

A couple other random pictures...other stuff to post but I've got to get to bed!