WREN handmade

A stripey 1st birthday!

We celebrated Leo's 1st birthday this weekend and it was a great time. We live far from family but amazingly we had lots of family members here to celebrate along with our friends. The theme was stripes and we asked the attendees to dress accordingly. Just about everyone wore some sort of striped combination and it looked very festive! 

I ordered striped party supplies from Shop Sweet Lulu, which has very cute stuff. We had various snacks and cupcakes and mini pb and j's. It was fun to mix and match the stripes.

I love all the different stripe patterns going on.

I customized some store bought blowers to go with the theme.

We filled lots of balloons with helium and I made a stitched paper garland.

A custom birthday hat which of course Leo wouldn't wear even for a second.

The birthday boy was in awe of everyone singing to him!

I made a "1" iron-on for his shirt which he wore with seersucker shorts.

Friends and family watching intently as Leo took a long time to open his gifts.

And finally I make a backdrop behind the food table of Leo's monthly photos. I have mentioned these before, the onesies are from Culpeper General. It was hard the last few months to get Leo to sit still for the photos so I'm pretty glad to be done with that project! It looked great and is so nice to have a complete set though.

All in all a nice celebration of the past year with our little guy!

Backyard update

This summer we've enjoyed our backyard so much. Here are some shots from throughout the summer. I've definitely learned some things about planting vegetables for next year. I didn't harvest the broccoli soon enough and it started blooming, and I wasn't supposed to cut the leaves, oops! Apparently if you cut just the head the plant will keep sprouting for a few months. Also our raised bed needs so much water! It is currently pretty dried up but there are still lots of baby cucumbers so hopefully there's still some life left. The herbs and tomatoes have been great. I think they are totally cost effective since you can use a little bit at a time all summer. Anyhow, it's been a learning experience. 

Camping trip

Hi,

I can't believe how the summer has flown by. We have been away quite a bit and had lots of family visiting.  One fun thing we did recently was go on a 5 night camping trip in the Finger Lakes region of New York. It was Leo's first time camping and he loved it. Lots of new things to touch and ways to get dirty! We camped in Watkins Glen State Park and did some hiking and exploring small towns during the days.

In Watkins Glen the Gorge trail was amazing!

We cooked lots of good food over the campfire.

I picked a bunch of wild raspberries and we make hobo pies with them, yum.

All in all camping is a nice (and inexpensive!) way to enjoy the outdoors and relax.