Two special birthdays

Early Friday morning at 4:42 (after a very long labor) my longtime friend Brittany gave birth to her daughter!

Introducing.... 

Sophia Paige Rodriguez

 She was a big girl weighing in at 9 lbs 3 oz!!! 

I love me a big baby :)

so much hair

mother + daughter

she was so happy to see me ;)

She is so so so cute and has a TON of hair.

Can't wait to watch this precious little girl grow.

Congratulations Brittany and Ricky!!

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On Saturday Kyle celebrated his 25th birthday!

We hung around the house in the morning getting ready for our trip and opening presents. 

I got him running shorts and a trip up to North Carolina next weekend for a cabin stay. 

Later that morning we headed off to Florida for the Daytona 500 (kids stayed behind with the grandmas).

We hung around Jacksonville for the day.

Cambria was an eager helper

You tweeps know whats up.

We stopped at Target to get some new shades.

Then Kyle got some minimalist running shoes he's been wanting FOREVER.  He got these ones.

birthday boy trying out his new shoes

Kyle was excited about visiting the beach.

We didn't stay long because it was chilly.

running from the coooooooold water

 We ate at an amazing Thai and sushi place that night. Excellent food!

 Then early Sunday morning we headed to Daytona only to have the race canceled.  

Kyle won tickets through work so they didn't actually cost us any $$$, but it was still a bummer.

We got special passes to enter a different area and we were able to walk on the track!

Everyone was signing the finish line.

One of the cars being inspected before the race....that never happened.

Lots of people.

 Kyle is planning on making the trip again today with his dad for the rescheduled race.
Yay for births and for birthdays! 

 I love you, Kyle!

Ezra's First Party

On Saturday we had Ezra's very first birthday party. 

Here are some scenes.

Ezra sandwich.

Love my cutie niece!!!!

Kisses for Ray Ray

A deep conversation with Grandpa.

Trying to escape his own party.

Present time!

This was the most delicious chocolate cake and frosting I've ever made.

Cousin <3

My birthday boy.

{Bow tie tutorial here}

Birthday Boy

You rockin' on your birthday.

Ezra Amos Finnegan! 

Today you turned 1.

Happy Birthday!

The things I will remember most from the past year:

:: Your birth.  It was much easier and different than Cambria's. 

:: Your strong attachment to me.  You prefer me over anyone and quite honestly, I love it. 

:: You sleeping in our bed.  There have been very few nights during the past year that you haven't made your way into our bed.  

:: Your "bad" sleeping habits.  In the past 365 days you've slept through the night once.  As you can imagine, there have been many stressful nights and sleepy mornings this past year.

:: Your bald little head.  You were born with hardly any hair and still have very little of it.  I think it's pretty cute. 

:: Watching you learn from and play with Cambria.  You two really have a genuine love for one another.  Having a sibling is so very special. 

:: Breastfeeding.  We've had many successful months with it and I feel very fortunate for that.

:: Watching you grow. You already weigh over 20 pounds.  Crazy to think you were only 7 lbs 14 oz when you were born! 

:: Your sensitive skin.  Since day 1 your skin has been very sensitive and I'm hoping you outgrow it. 

:: Your eating habits.  If you love something you will devour it and want more and more and more, but if you don't like something you'll hardly touch it.  

:: Your blue eyes. You get lots of compliments on them. 

:: My deep love for you.  It's true that you love your children equally, but for me, I love you two differently.  I love you in such a special and one-and-only kinda way.  You're my little prince. 

Happy Birthday my sweet son. 

Handmade Love

It's Valentine's Day and I love these three people. 

{in addition to many others, and I hope all of you know who you are}

But what I really wanted share with you guys is the gift I made for Kyle. 

It's a verse that we both love from a Mumford and Sons song.  Loooooove that verse. 

I was originally just going to find a scrap piece of wood to write a quote on but was inspired via Pinterest by this and this.  So I then decided I wanted to make the project a little bigger by putting pieces of wood together for a longer quote.  I first headed to Lowes to scope out what they had.  I ended up finding a 12 ft piece of pine for a little over 6 bucks.  I had an extremely nice employee at Lowes help me cut the 12 ft piece into four 3 ft pieces.  I also picked up a long skinny piece and had him cut that into 3 smaller pieces to hold everything together (I'll show you what I mean in a second). 

Can you see the long piece of pine he was cutting?

I got a cheap brush and some stain while at Lowes.  I just picked a random sorta dark color.  I painted the stain on the wood pretty thick, let it sit for about 15 minutes, and then rubbed it off with a rag.  I did this 3 or 4 times on each piece until I achieved the color I wanted. 

The top piece has had 2 coats, the middle piece needs to be whipped with a rag and the last piece is in it's bare form.

Brush it on.

Then rub it off.

The top piece was finished and the last three needed rubbing.

 I forgot to get a picture of the wood before I added letters, but here you can see the color pretty well.  After lots of trial and error, I decided the best way to write the letters was by cutting them out using my Cricut machine and then gluing them on.

I poured glue onto a plate and just dipped the letters in the glue.  I used looooots of glue.

My messy workspace. (a.k.a. our dining room table) 

I then took two of the smaller pieces and glued them to the back of the boards using Gorilla glue.  The pieces on the back serve to hold everything together but also for hanging purposes.

I arranged the larger pieces, turned them over and then glued the thin pieces to the back.  {I plan to add nails for extra reinforcement} 

Strong stuff.

I put books on top of the glued pieces to help it hold while drying.

And when I flipped it back over it looked like this! I am so very pleased with how this project turned out.  I really think it may be my favorite thing I've ever made.  Kyle really likes it too, so that's good. Much better than chocolate or something. :)

I hope you felt love today, whether it was Valentines related or not.