Such a big girl!

I had the opportunity to shoot a 1 year birthday party over Memorial Day weekend and it was a blast! Little Miss Paige had an awesome party with tons of friends, yummy treats and a truckload of presents! Her mom did a great job with the flower theme and everything looked perfect!

Is this little guy not the cutest thing ever? :o)

In a sugar coma...

Happy Birthday Paige! You're such a big girl now :o)

Build-A-Bear

Let me preface this post by saying "Why didn't I think of this???". Such a simple idea with such immense monetary rewards. For those of you who have never been to Build-A-Bear, it's pretty cool; you pick out an animal "skin" of your choice (and they have many, many choices!), get it stuffed then pay for it. If you want to you can even pick out a little outfit for him! Something that costs Build-A-Bear about $2 to buy ends up costing you $25 and up to own! And that's without the $20 team-of-your-choice outfit! BRILLIANT!


Anyway, so we took Jake to this gold mine- I mean toy experience for his 1st birthday, not that he really cared. We stuck with our monkey theme and got him a...you guessed it- a monkey! His daddy helped him pick it out.

For an extra $3-$5 you can pick a sound to put inside your animal. We chose a monkey sound.

Then we took it over to the nice lady at the stuffing station to get it stuffed. This is my favorite part; you get to watch your animal get stuffed- while that's being done you pick up a little heart cut out and warm it in your hands. Then you kiss it and place it in the stuffed animal right before they sew it up! So cute. Jake was totally enthralled in the stuffing machine.

Daddy hugs!

Jake was amazed watching his monkey be "born".

"It's almost done!! Here he comes....!!"

"Huh. Ok. Well, I guess you'll do for now- I suppose we can be buds."

After he was all done and sewn up we took him over to make a birth certificate for him. We had to pick a name to give him so we went with the most obvious name. Monkey. I'm glad Jake and Monkey can share a birth date! Pretty cool, huh? Jake wasn't so sure...

"Look dude, I'm cool being buds or whatever but I am NOT cool with you riding in the stroller with me."

"Get.Out.NOW."

So I guess he wasn't as excited about Monkey as I was. I hope he gets used to him being around for a while! I'm growing quite attached myself!

How can you not love this face?

While we were waiting in line the little girl in front of had made a birthday bear too, so they took her to the center of the room and let her ring a bell really loud. We all clapped and said Happy Birthday to her. I was so choked up about it I couldn't even talk, I just clapped. I knew there was no way I could do that for Jake without turning into a puddle on the floor so we didn't mention that it was his birthday. I hope he can forgive me.

Reid's Birthday Party

My nephew Reid recently had his 5th birthday at Emerald City. It was a really fun day and the kids all had a blast! This place is pretty cool, I wish they had Adult Day so I could go and play!

The Birthday Boy!

Birthday

A couple weekends ago my nephew, Cade, celebrated his 8th birthday at the Lakeside Nature Center in KC. Before the festivities began, all the kids got to walk (ok, run) around the place and see different animals and reptiles living in their natural habitats. There were rabbits and turtles and birds- oh my!! Then the kids were corralled into a large open room where they created "nature art", color pictures of animals and chilled out for a bit. After a while it was time for the animal show! We saw a rabbit,an owl, and a snake (some of the kids were brave enough to touch it!). Then we moved on to cake & ice cream and presents. I had fun so I know my nephew did too!

The birthday boy.

My sister with her two boys, Cade & Reid

Cade loves Jacob! He wants to hold him and carry him all the time :o)

The Lakeside Nature Center is located conveniently near the Kansas City Zoo. There is an actual building (a pretty cool one!) where they have lots of different kinds of animal displays, both living and not. There are several critters residing at the nature center including fish, snakes, lizards, rabbits, a HUGE turtle in a big tank and a couple friendly squirrels in an enclosed habitat. There are several bird species as well- bald eagles and owls to name a few. They also have a nature trail you can walk along that winds through a wooded area where you can observe native animals living in nature.

The center also serves as a rehabilitation place for animals native to Missouri. Animals are brought in with injuries, treated and released back into their natural habitat. If for some reason an animal can not be re-released, it becomes a permanent resident of the nature center, where people can visit and learn more about that species.

You can explore the center on your own or sign up for a wildlife program where you get a more hands-on experience with lots of different kinds of animals.

(Can you tell I liked the squirrels?)