best.day.ever.

Yesterday was Charlotte's 1st birthday celebration. Family came in from Ohio and friends from near and far gathered to celebrate. More pictures to follow, but here are a couple of the highlights. Enjoy! Here's a shot of the dress that Melissa made special for Charlotte for her party.

Here's a family shot we got before it all got started.

Some of the spread. If you've read the very hungry caterpillar it will all make sense.

Some of the kids that came to the party!

A fun craft/party favor.

It was so exciting that Charlotte started to get worn out.

Helping Charlotte blow out her first candle.

The cake before...

The cake after.

Opening up some of the presents.

A shot with Grandpa and Tiki.

A shot with Unta and Grammy.

A family shot.

Ended the day on the swings.

Happy 1st birthday Charlotte Gray Hess. We love you!

-mommy & daddy

rough circles quilt along...part seven

Quilt Along is finished, done, completed, all ready to snuggle!  All in time for a 30th birthday. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out...so here you go, the finished product.

Two things that you need to know, Charlotte was extremely fussy while I was trying to take some decent pictures AND after a day of beautiful 80 degree weather with perfect blue sunny skies it decided to pour down the rain as soon as I decide to take those decent pictures.

So along with some quilt, you are also going to get some runny-nosed, teething, drooling Charlotte.Here is a shot of the front, the back, wave quilting and squiggly binding.

The penny strip really ties the front to the back in my opinion.  You can also really see the very simple quilting that I did on this quilt.  Jay had the idea of just tracing some bulletin boarder from my classroom with a water dissolvable marker and then following the pattern.

All fabrics of this quilt were chosen by Jay.  I have some favorites, but one of my absolute favorites was the backing.  Jay picked out this cute little ocean print with little gray, white and yellow whales...they make me happy.

Remember the quilt back is just as important as the quilt front.  Especially when cute little baby feet are crawling all over it! 

The front all finished!

One little girl with her daddy's quilt and of course Larry the Cucumber, Larry can solve any rough times we may have.

I think she actually had a good time crawling around and I might have gotten a good one or two.

Well, I guess that is a wrap.

-melissa

11 months young

Charlotte Gray is 11 months young today. Her hair is still crazy. She crawls all over the place and never stops talking or making noises. She enjoys reading books again and Jack and Abby have probably lost weight from being chased all over the house. She climbs on anything and loves to eat whatever we're having for dinner. We think she is great and we love seeing her grow and learn. Now for the pictures. Enjoy...

little charlotte hands

little charlotte feet

couldn't resist posting this one with her in her socks...can you say wedding day slideshow picture?

sitting like a big girl on the slide

sticking out that tongue of hers

on the playground with mommy

pondering life

going up

coming down

love that face

proud to be her daddy

getting scooped off of the slide

ending our day with some sweet ice cream

ten months

Charlotte Gray Hess is ten months old today...and is she more fun than ever before.

Our trick to getting great pictures every month is to take them after Charlotte has taken a good long nap. She took a three hour nap this morning and then we ran some errands so we decided we'd take her pictures after her second nap this afternoon. She slept for about 90 minutes, we got her dressed, plopped her in the same spot we always do and this is the first shot we got.

but she slowly started to warm up...

and a little bit more...

here's a full length body shot so you can she how big she's getting...

and check out these thighs...

we moved the photo shoot to the floor, so you could see the new way that she gets around the house...

playing a little peek-a-boo between mommy's legs...

I'm not sure what they're looking at on this one, but I thought it was cute...

standing tall...

doing this new tilt her head thing...

trying to eat the camera...

and playing with one of her favorite toys (thanks aunt Jessica!!!)

Happy 10 month birthday Charlotte Gray! You are the best little girl on the planet.

-jay & melissa