one one one!!

In all the craziness i realized i never wrote my one year post! So here it is...late...but so goes life!

We had our one year check up! As usual the shots killed me, Taylor was in charge and Breanna and I just sat in the chairs holding our ears. The cries get worse the older they get. She was perfectly healthy, 21 lbs ( 75th% ) and 31in (90th%) !! tall girl!
He was impressed with how well she walks, and we all laughed when she started barking at him like a dog (theres dogs on the wallpaper haha) She has 3 teeth all the way through, and the other top 3 are all cutting through her gums at the same time..ouch! He said her bottom back molars are swelling up under the gums and to expect them to push through as soon as her front teeth are done. Oh what fun were in for ;)

Leighton has become the little comedian of the house, and grocery store, and pretty much everywhere we go. You will see her coming and hear us going..you will get waves, blown kisses, and she will point and you and tell you to "GO!" she loves loves loves going to visit aunt erin at the daycare and to boss the big kids...its pretty funny!

She's saying more and more words, and even when its nothing discernible its non-stop chatter! So far I have hear her say " hi, bye-bye, mama, dada, dog, woof woof, duck, moo, bop, all done, oh no, go, she tries to say i love you, and bena ( her aunt breanna ) of course half of these only i understand haha.

She's walking all over the place, and even tries to run...its hilarious! She tries to climb onto things, and would spend all day rolling around on my bed if I let her!

She's still a healthy eater...this girl likes her food! Im still VERY strict about what goes into her little body...but every now and again she gets rice from a restaurant or something along those lines! ;)

Were still taking 2 naps a day and sleeping 7-7-...sometimes bed time is earlier, when naps are off or something. I see us going to one nap around 15/16ish months..shes always been on the early side of dropping naps per Babywise, and were already starting to shorten the morning nap..im looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time ha!

Our schedule right now..

7:00 up
9:00 nap
10:15/30ish she wakes, i don't let her sleep past 10:30
1:15 nap
3:00 ish she wakes
6:45-7:00 bed

Her favorite toys are baby dolls, balls, and anything out of the bathroom cabinet she's not supposed to have ;) She loves music and likes to shake her lil booty..its the cutest thing ever! She loves wearing shoes, when i put mine on she will sit down and try to put hers on..be still my heart..little mini person!

She is the constant joy in my life, she makes the mornings sweeter and the days long and happy. Even when she's crying I wouldn't trade this life for anything different. I sit and wonder what her brother/sister will be like, I can't imagine 2x the love in my home..and i can't wait for that day to be here!

Someone turned ONE...Party Post!

The day arrived..by baby turned ONE! It still doesn't seem real to me, theres no way we've already lived an entire year of life with her. I don't think there will ever truly be enough time.

The party was a success, no rain! Thank goodness! Leighton took a great morning nap, and was sweet for about, oh, 20 minutes, then she was whiny and clingy. No big shocker, its how she's been the past week or so, and then the day after her party ( on her actual birthday I got her up and saw a front tooth! ) every since then she has been a complete JOY...ahhhhh peace! If only it had come a day sooner..HA!

Here's some pictures from her party..

My friend Natalie got L some cat eye glasses, the minute she saw them she put them on and refused to take them off! It was so cute. We ran out of time and forgot to make Leighton a sugar free cupcake, so i reluctantly gave her the regular one, and to my surprise she wanted NOTHING to do with it, she put some fingers in the icing, gave it a taste, then shook her head "no" haha..id be lying if I wasn't crazy excited!!

Its been a wild ride this year! Im glad I've been able to share it with you all, the ups, the downs, and everything in-between! And since time doesn't slow....its on to bigger and better things..in one short year from now this will be a 2 year old post..amazing.

When it rains it pours...no kidding

Im having "one of those days". Blah. Its cloudy out and its supposed to rain, which is perfect for this cold loving girl, but its not doing a whole lot for me today.

L's birthday party is on Saturday, and every day they have increased the rain chance little by little, and this morning the weatherman told me "thunderstorms saturday morning into late afternoon". Ugh. We need the rain, I KNOW we need the rain, but can you pleaaaaase just hold off until 1pm Lord? Please? I really don't know what we will do if it storms...cramming everyone into our house i suppose, and pushing aside the decorations I've spent months....literally months...working on. Im trying to not let the material side of me come out here, remembering the friends and family joining us could really care less about the red and white tent i sewed, or the signs that go on all the food, but "party planning" and "gift giving" really are my gifts and talents, and it makes my heart sad to think only I will see the whole picture come together in my mind...

Only Saturday will show what the outcome will be i suppose...

On another note I hurt my back, I really think i popped a rib out of place or something...it was really bad last night, i barely slept at all, and today I can't take deep breaths and have a really hard time picking L up...

And L..Oh my teething grumpy child. I have been begging the Lord to let her sweet little spirit back through. We are going through some weird one year old separation anxiety, throw a fit the minute i don't get what i want phase and its wearing on my nerves. I still think I'm comparison to most babies her age she's a dream, but for someone who's just not used to dealing with grumpiness its hard to handle. 11 months of a joyful child, I guess i can handle a couple fussy ones, i guess....



On a lighter side of things, I have gotten a lot done around the house decoration wise, I figured it will be a while until we build something and I'm ready for this place to feel a little more homy, ill try and take some pictures soon..

SPEAKING of pictures, I have been crazy busy! Not so much with family shoots but I've been doing a lot of commercial shots for home renovation type things. Its different, and challenging in a totally different way! BUT the most exciting thing is I will be shooting the 2nd annual Fashion Night Out for Betty and June Boutique here in Abilene! SOOOOO excited! Its a non-profit even, and all proceeds go to Abilene Young Life. It will be catered by Abi Haus ( A new restaurant downtown ) and Enchanted Rock Vodka. Ill post more details as I receive them...its Sept 1st so mark your calendars !!

Well I better put some clothes on, I've got some grocery shopping to do for the party...and L wakes up in 30 mins...

Her one year pictures will be done tomorrow...so keep an eye out for those :)

11 months has come and gone!

My sweet sweet baby is 11 months old today.
Do you know what that means? In one month she will be one year old {your welcome for doing the math there for you..math is hard i know }
That also means she will no longer be a "baby"....she will officially become a "pre-toddler" .......sad and happy just don't belong together...but thats exactly what i am!

I need another baby asap...only babies don't really come together asap...dang.


Anyways at 11 months old Leighton acts more like a 1 1/2 year old. Every day I'm amazed at how well she moves around, how she does things like throw a ball, and her food, and everything else...fun stuff going on in this house!

Were walking of course...if your a friend on FB you've seen the videos, she still crawls places she needs to get to fast, but she's really really good at walking! It totally weirds my sister out when she walks. My sister has 2 children who have large heads...and in this case the ration large heads=large brains is VERY True. I swear Shayne was counting to me in spanish at age 2 and reading me books, but was barely crawling at a year old..its hard to balance that large brain on such a small body :) and her littlest is the exact same way. Its funny how different our girls are, hers a super smart and mine is going to be an olympian. Of course I think my daughter is smart to, but not "shayne" smart...shes on her own level ha!

So were walking, crawling, throwing, laughing like a crazy person ALL day long...everyone comments on her dorky laugh, its so funny! If you laugh, or someone on tv laughs, she will fake laugh right along. She also claps for pretty much everything. She waves HI to everyone we see all day long, and most of the time thats followed by a "air kiss" she loves to blow kisses..sweet girl :) She's also into blowing raspberries, she will come up to me in the kitchen and just start blowing them on my legs..goof.

Still not saying very many words, though she blabbers all day long in her own language, and squeals with the best of them. The words she says clearly are mama, dada, bye, and hi. She has attempted to say all done (ahhduh) gigi (giiiii) and her new favorites dog and duck...only for both she just says DUH...so it can be a bit confusing ha! Today she was looking at a book and i asked her where the apple was, she pointed right to it..then i said wheres the teddy bear, she dropped the book and started patting her chest and laughing that goofy laugh. Have i mentioned i love her?

She's also obsessed with belly buttons...but it doesn't matter WHO you ask her has a belly button..she comes straight to me a pushes my shirt up haha! Which leads me to another new fav skill...pulling on mommys clothes! She lifts my shirt up, looks down my shirt, looks up my pant legs, dresses etc, tries to pull my sleeves off, she just doesn't understand why I'm not naked all day long!

She has 3 teeth, two on bottown and one canine, i found the other canine pushing through yesterday..so any day now we will have 4 teeth!

I weighed her at my grannys house and she came in at 22 lbs. Still a big girl. Growing out of most of her 12 month clothes, 18 months fits the best. Grew out of all of her shoes.

Still eating really well, she will try anything i give her, but that doesn't mean she will eat it all. She's not a big breakfast person...neither am i. There are far to many foods to list that she's tried..pretty much everything other than any kind of nut/honey, red meat, and berries.

For breakfast she usually eats bananas, oatmeal, yogurt..and not very much of any of it.
Lunch she has mango/kiwi/peaches/pears, steamed zucchini or squash chunks, some turkey and cheese, then she has a snack of yogurt before nap.
Dinner she has either steamed eggplant/avocadoes some veggie pasta, cherries/blueberries, and maybe mushrooms.

Sleep is hit of miss nap wise, she's in that wierd 11-14 month nap funk most baby wise babies fall into. She's still a total ham and happy even when her naps are off..if she doesn't nap well we do early bed times of 6:15-6:30...and yes she falls straight to sleep and sleeps till morning.

6:30 wake stay in crib
7:00 up breakfast, go on walk
9:00 nap
10:30 up
11:00 lunch
12:30 snack
1:30 nap
3:00 up
6:45-7:00 bed

thats what it should look like..and some days it does...some days were off...o well :)

Im going to take her pics tomorrow! SO keep an eye out for those :)

New favorite!

While browsing the motherload of all things ill never make, or eat, or visit...yes Pinterest..I ran across this site..and it IS something I will put to use! The tag said "great place to find cheap dresses" What it DIDNT say is "Great place to find dresses, skirts, tops, jackets, and accessories for under $50" Seriously 80% of the stuff is under $50..my kinda store, seeing as at some point some baby food or what not will be smattered all over it by the end of the day!



I could have gone into serious collage overload here..there are SO many cute things! But i shook myself out of it and narrowed it down to my favorites, and only numbered my top 6, I know none wants to hear my go on and on... ;)

{1} Leopard. Cardigan. Enough? I love that its not LEOPARD leopard? Does that even make sense? I want it, I need it...

{2} I searched everywhereeeeee for fold over zipper wedge boots JUST like this last year and couldn't find any that #1 Didn't look cheap, #2 Weren't $200...these look great and are under $50...winner winner!

{3} This chevron dress has always dreamed of living in my closet...traveling to weddings, showers of all sorts, church....it would be a wonderful life.

{4} OMG. Do these not look exactly like Frye boots? Only they won't cost me my right leg..these too are $50!! Kinda freakin out...

{5} I want to put on the wrap cardi, some leggings and those ^ awesome frye-esque boots and drink some hot chocolate and wrap Christmas gifts...who's with me? Anyone?

{6} Love love love love love this maxi skirt. It is so stinking cute! White tank, some earings, sandals. Done. Please make your way into my arms!!


Y'all...go check out this site! I know your going to love it as much as me!! (PS they cary bags to! eek! )

oh and if someone can shoot me a message and tell me how in the WORLD to make my pics bigger id greatly appreciate it...ive tried everything!

Leightons room!

SO i realized yesterday that I have never put up any pictures of our home. People keep asking me to put up pictures of L's room, and to be honest I've never gotten around to it is because its not finished. Yes..she will be one year old next month and still has an unfinished nursery :/ haha!

Why is it unfinished? Well I had a long list of plans for my handy-man husband to do, and several things i needed to buy, and THEN we decided that we wanted to build a home. It may be next month, it may be 3 months from now, who knows...were waiting on there perfect lot to come open! :) SOOO that completely stopped my decorating plans. I just don't see the point in it all when the whole room will change when we move somewhere in the near future ( Lord willing ) In our new home I will be packing all of the blue decor away for the next kiddo, and starting over with Leightons room, vintage..shabby-chic, lace, pastels...ooo i can't wait! The blue decor is perfect and I love it, and we chose it specifically for the purpose that it will work for boys and girls, and be reusable! Same reason I bought a black stroller and car seat.

Ok so anyway here are some pictures of her unfinished room!!! Hope you can see where I was heading with it haha!

The is the view from the front door..in the left corner I wanted to get a big squishy chair/love seat we could cuddle up in to read..

The dresser we had re-finished. It will work well for any room in the future. We just added the changing pad on the top.

I bought the crystal lamp base at Target, and made the lampshade by punching out paper and curling the edges. The bird cages are just for a little somethin' girly!

The picture above her bed is a picture of Taylor and I on our wedding day, I think its kind of her own version of a prince and princess... Taylor is going to make me a ornate frame for this soon! Her bedding and crib are from Kids Village.

These framed pieces are so precious to me! A friend of mine from high school designed them and printed them up for me..you can check out her work here, she's amazing, she's also doing Leightons first b-day invites! "You are my Sunshine" is what I sing to L before every nap and bedtime. I literally cried when Taylor hung these up, I pray she always knows how much i love her. She can keep these forever, just switch out the frames! love love love them!!

The other art piece was a mirror I turned chalkboard, It has one of my favorite quotes written on it.

Even though its unfinished its still her room, and we all love it. Cant wait to get started on the next one :)

I wish I may, I wish I might!

I apologize for how sloppy this post is...i literally threw this together in like 10 minutes, trying to finish before the girl wakes from her morning nap! you know how it is!

I have had so many friends and family ask me what Leighton wants for her birthday and I hadn't even begun to think about it! SO I told them I would throw a list together and put it in my blog! So here ya go!

{1} SHOES! My child has NO shoes! Seriously...im not kidding. She's walking now, so we are in desperate need! These are the training shoes, they squeak ( so annoying i know ) BUT the sqeeks are removable, so when she's up and running I promise I will take them out! HA! You can find them here OR for all my Abilene peeps you can get them at Buckethead kids! She's a size 5! They are really fun, the bows are removable, and you can buy all kinds so they can match outfits, holidays etc! I really want the close toed ones, but those brown sandals are so cute to!

{2} These are both TOMS. The little burlap cordones are so stinkin cute! And every girl needs a silver glitter pair! These will be great for fall to!!!

{3} Whoever buys me Leighton this new bag wins the prize of best present ever and gets a kiss from the b-day girl, and me to, if you want one..which might be weird? I have been staring at this bag for FOREVER and we need need need it! We would love it in the cream leather with orange straps and monogram. I think those colors work best for all seasons! In case you didn't know L's full name is Leighton Erin Gibbs ( for monogramming purposes ;)

{4} STILL loving this mini back pack! This is an ETSY find, but you can pretty much get them anywhere! It would be really fun in turquoise with pink lettering...just an idea!


ALL THE TOYS BELOW ARE FROM TARGET....

{5} Little girls=baby dolls. Unless your me and then you want some new soccer t-shirts and a baseball bat? But Leighton is normal, and loves baby dolls! So this will always be a safe bet!

{6} This drum set is our #1 toy want! She has an empty coffee container she bangs on like a drum and she lovvvvves music so all the goodies inside will be great! We will have so much fun with this toy i just know it! Daddy, I'm sure will want to throw it out the door. :)

{7} This shape sorter is to cute. AND its an elephant, I think I could probably stop there. But in all seriousness we need a shape sorter, and this one is the one we want!

{8} I know I'm not alone here in saying i had one of these as a kid! Nostalgia alone should be a good enough reason don't you think? Well this one has been modernized at least, theres a push or pull option, and many more sounds that come with this new age version!!

{9} I love this little music player, and for my dancing machine baby its a perfect match! I can just see her bee-bopping through the mall listening to it. So cute!

{10} Leighton loves the picture magnets on our fridge, butt since she's little miss distructo, she can't play with them anymore. Her cousins had one like this when they were little and they loved it. It will be a good way to learn the letters, and sounds they make, and will keep her off of my legs while I'm cooking.

CLOTHES!

In the Gibbs household, clothes, are always accepted!! We love some retail therapy, and nothing makes me more excited than sweet clothes on my little girl! I will say we are NOT the fur-fru type girls you all thought we were. We like soft, easy things! L is in size 12-18 months! To be on the safe side I would lean towards the 18 month pieces, and fall clothes would be amazing! We are on dress OVERLOAD in this house!! We also like small bows and flowers for our headbands, L's forehead is very small ( a blessing later in life! ) so the big bows just look crazy!

{11} & {12} Both of these pieces are from Nordstroms. They are really just a example of what I like! Although if someone snags that Splendid pink stripe outfit you can have a kiss to! ha!

Hope this helps all of you who have been asking! Of course gifts are NEVER necessary! We just hope you can all join us in celebrating her precious little life in August! LOVE!