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Clementine

birthday, Blog, Clementine, photoshoot

Our Darling Clementine is One!


Two days ago, on October 4th, Clementine Eloise turned 1 year old! It seems like I should be used to how fast time goes by but this past year has absolutely been the fastest of them all.

Ever since Clementine was tiny, I dreamt of a clementine themed first birthday party. I daydreamed about different decorations and foods. And in my mind, it was all perfect. But as the months went by, and our calendar filled up, I realized how difficult it would be to plan and execute an entire party during this busy season. So I decided that we would just do a little cake smash photo shoot with all her siblings watching and cheering her on.

Party Details: I collaborated with Fancy Free Finery for Clementine’s cake topper and headband. The colors that Katie (owner of FFF) chose were perfect and truly completed my vision!//The romper is a thrift store find from a few years ago. The tag says h&m.//Shoes are from Starry Knight Design.//And the clementine felt garland is something I had custom made by Hooray Everyday before Clementine was born.

Of course my “easy” photoshoot wouldn’t have been complete without last minute driving around to stores to get supplies. But in the end, everything turned out how I pictured. Well, except Clementine’s reaction–which I’ll get to in a minute.

Being the classy baker that I am, I splurged on a box cake mix and icing in a can for her cake. I dressed it up with the finest of faux greenery and rested my masterpiece upon a wooden (I think it’s supposed to be a base for a DIY clock) base. And of course, topped with our beautiful cake topper from Fancy Free Finery.

Oh yeah! The balloons! The balloons were basically the inspiration for the whole thing. After finding inspiration for our gender reveal from the Oh Happy Day instagram feed, I scrolled through their pictures and it gave me the idea to make a clementine with balloons. As far as I know, they have never made a clementine so there were no instructions. But it’s obviously pretty easy and doesn’t require a DIY. The hardest part was just keeping the balloons stuck to the wall because their weight was a bit heavy for the tape. 

This picture of her walking/running away pretty much describes her personality currently. She’s still about 50/50 with walking and crawling but she loves to practice her walk. And she finds that the best time to practice is when I’m trying to get pictures of her. So that’s fun.

It may not show on these first pictures as much, but Clementine was actually sick on her birthday. She was one of the unlucky few in our family that got hit with the stomach bug. I could tell she was not acting like her normal self but it became pretty clear when she threw up later that day. Poor baby girl! I’m glad that we managed to get a few happy pictures of her though!

The picture of Clem with her parents, taken by Kai ^^ It totally cracks me up because she wanted nothing to do with it.

We actually started taking pictures in the high chair but she kept crying. So then we attempted on the floor. Then she kept crawling away. Since she had just woken up from a nap and hadn’t had any real food, I ended up feeding her a bit in hopes of her destroying her cake afterwards.

I did manage to capture a few smiles. But overall, she did not enjoy the experience. The one chance I give her to go crazy and make a mess–and she is not interested at all. She hated being messy.

After a little bit, we gave her a fork and she cheered up for a couple of minutes…

 

Until she finally realized that, nope! She didn’t enjoy this all. Cake smash fail! But I got some adorable pictures…so is it really a fail? You decide!

This past year with Clem in our lives has been the best year! We have loved having her sweet personality in our home, making all of us smile daily. We are all 100% obsessed with her. I have a hard time imagining her being a big sister but I know she will grow into her role beautifully. To the little one year old who wakes me up every morning by saying “mama, mama, mama,” we love you dearly and we’re so blessed to have you in our family!

If you want to read Clementine’s birth story, click HERE.

October 6, 2017
baby, Blog, Clementine, product review

Clem’s Favorite Toys (6 Months Old)


I have been wanting to put this post together since Clem was right around 5 months and just starting to hold on to toys and play. With all the sickness and all of the other things going in our lives, this post got pushed to the back burner. But now she’s 6 months old and loving these things even more. So I guess it worked out.

Before I start, I will tell you that these items were all gifted to me by the companies. However, all I was asked to do in exchange was to post an Instagram picture, which I have already done. I was not asked to write a blog post. The only reason I am even writing it is because Clem truly does love these toys and I wanted to share in case anyone was looking for beautiful, quality, small shop toys for your own baby or for a gift. Sometimes it’s hard to know what kind of toys are ideal for those first toys. So this is not a sales pitch. This is just me sharing some things that have been in constant rotation around here.

I will start with this amazing lovey from Stella and Lu because it was the first toy she ever “played” with (and you can see in this ^^ picture how much she loves it!) I have shared a bit about this small shop on my blog before because we also have a gorgeous blanket from them. But this lovey has been getting more attention lately. She loves to snuggle it and play with the ribbon. They have so many fabric options and I think the pricing is so reasonable. And I’m not even kidding–the girls who run this shop are probably some of the sweetest people I have ever “met.” They truly care about their customers and their products.

I can honestly see this lovey sticking with Clem for many years, as all my other kids have had lengthy attachments to their blankies. This just happens to be way cuter than what any of my other kids had 😉

Another favorite is Willow the Deer. I had been admiring all of the Cuddle + Kind dolls for months when they reached out to me to ask me to spread the word about their company. I jumped right on it! First of all, yes, the dolls are SO adorable and so, so soft. But more importantly, they are helping out so many people with the sales of their dolls. Each doll is handcrafted by women artisans in Peru, which provides them with a fair income. And with each doll sold, Cuddle + Kind provides 10 meals to children in need. Just recently they reached their goal of 1 million meals! And through the month of April, they are donating one meal for each new follower on the Cuddle + Kind instagram page.

We picked out this beautiful deer (and I have to admit, the ice cream shirt was one of the biggest reasons why haha.) Those pictures above are blurry but I couldn’t help sharing them because this is exactly what Clementine does every time we lay Willow next to her. She smiles and attacks it. I plan to hold on to this doll for her to give to her own child some day.

The toys that probably get the most use right now are our rattles from Bannor Toys. I don’t like to leave the house without a couple of her rattles to switch out throughout the day. They are the perfect size to fit in her tiny hands and of course, they always end up in her mouth.

(This is the classic rattle.)


Of course, in addition to them being functional, they are so aesthetically pleasing. The quality is so good. I also plan to hang on to these to pass down. Ever since I saw the state rattles, I had to have one. They have almost all 50 states to choose from. But I do majorly regret not getting a little heart engraved on St. Louis.


The heart rattle is another one of Clem’s faves. I love that it has her name engraved. We usually take the classic rattle, this heart rattle, and her lovey with us everywhere we go.

And this really isn’t one of Clem’s favorites yet but the other kids have all been obsessed with this wooden camera, also from Bannor Toys. It has the screen and functions lasered on the back of the camera to make it more realistic.

And of course it leads to them imitating me–taking tons of pictures of Clementine.

As much as I would love for Clementine to stay a tiny baby forever, it is so much fun to watch her learn new things. It’s sweet to see her already loving to play with toys.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a happy Easter yesterday. Thank you for reading and allowing me to show off the cutest baby girl 😉  I hope you have a great week!

April 17, 2017