The Nuffer Nest

All the hard work and preparations paid off! Big Poppa's 1st birthday was a hit and he had a great time! His party theme was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. SO CUTE! Here are his invitations. I only made them for the children coming, my adult friends don't need a fake caterpillar in a jar. Sorry I couldn't get better pictures. This is the shirt I made for Big Poppa to wear to his party. I forgot to get pictures of him in it though. Oops. Sorry it's blurry, I took it with my phone. This is the food table, some of the decor, the cupcakes, and the smash cake (I can't get the cake picture to be right side up). I made a lot of the decorations myself to save money. I love how everything turned out! The party food came straight from the book. And I had lines from the book about the food on note cards next to the corresponding food. This is Austin's 1st year timeline, month by month. These are the party favors which I completely forgot to send hom...

I know every mother says this, but I can't believe he's a year already. It seems like just a few weeks ago that I was rocking him on my chest and he was so tiny (well as tiny as my babies get). Our journey to bring Austin into our lives started a lot longer than a year ago. Jim and I tried for a year and a half to have another baby. We both felt very strongly that we had another child waiting for us and we were both sure it was another little boy. We were just about to start Intrauterine Insemination when we found out we were pregnant (without any help). I was so excited and surprised! We couldn't believe it! Then just 8 weeks later we lost that little angel and we were both devastated . I wanted to stop trying. I didn't want to do fertility treatments. My heart was broken and I didn't want to hurt anymore. I started praying that Heavenly Father would take away my desire for another child, that He would help me not have this feeling that there was anoth...

I really like to celebrate the holidays by decorating the house and bringing a little of the season indoors. Right now it's spring/Easter in our home, but why must I change the blog along with the seasons as well? I don't know. But here's The Nuffer Nest's tribute to spring.

March 2nd is Dr. Suess' birthday and I wanted to celebrate the day with the boys. We began the day by reading Green Eggs and Ham and then I made green eggs and ham for breakfast. As I've said before, Jackson is a picky eater, but he ate all of his green eggs! With every bite he told me, "I'm just like Sam I am, momma!", it was adorable. And ever since he has been trying new food, telling me how he is just like Sam I am. I wanted to read the boys The Cat in the Hat because I had a cute The Cat in the Hat project for Jackson. Apparently, we do not own a copy of The Cat in the Hat and I did not know it. I have several copies of many Dr. Suess books, but not that one. The boys do have a stuffed Cat in the Hat, so I used that has our inspiration. Jackson made 2 Cat in the Hat hats, one for himself and one for Austin. I wanted a picture of the boys in their hats, but Austin did not appreciate his brother making him a hat and he cried A LOT in every picture....

I didn't forget about this challenge in the month of February. This month's challenge was to "visit the sick and afflicted and inspire in them a desire for faith to be healed". I didn't know where to begin with this challenge or what to do to fulfill it. -and I'm still not sure I did the right thing for this challenge, but it's what I felt was right. I am a member of Babycenter.com and I belong to a March 2011 birth club along with thousands of other moms with babies that are Austin's age. In our birth club there was one special, precious baby boy who was born with cancer. Last December it looked like he had beat it, and it was truly a blessing for his family and for all of us that tried to be supportive and follow Baby Carter's battle with cancer. Then in February Carter's parents took him back to the hospital because he wasn't feeling well. Unfortunately, Carter had developed many more tumors that wrapped around his tiny little spin...