Flash Back

Does this picture look familiar?!?!
It was taken around one year ago last April...

I thought it would be fun to see how much difference a year can make... check it out!

"Father and Daughter"

I'm gonna watch you shine

Gonna watch you grow

Gonna paint a sign

So you'll always know...

As long as one and one is two

There could never be a father

Who loved his daughter more than I love you

~Paul Simon

A Tisket A Tasket

I still need to pick up an Easter basket for Aliyah... I was planning to get a really nice one from Pottery Barn Kids:

BUT I started thinking back to what Easter was like for me when I was little. My brother and I had so much fun filling our baskets and I think my parents had even more fun coming up with creative (and really hard-to-find) places to put the eggs. I loved my Easter basket/bucket! It wasn't necessarily special or fancy, but the fact that it held all my eggs (and was pink) was good enough for me.

I am thinking of hitting up some garage sales to find something fun with some character for this Easter. Wish me luck!

If you are looking for something fun to do with little ones this weekend or the next, there are plenty of Easter egg hunts around the KC metro area - check out my post today on happybottomus. HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

withLOVE

I am so incredibly excited to announce that a local Kansas City store, Happybottomus has asked me, along with a few other local mamas, to help support their active blog with frequent posts on cloth diapering, baby carriers, healthy living, natural birthing, natural products and more!

Sounds interesting? You can...

follow the blog at live.happybottomus.com

shop on-line or visit the store on Metcalf and 91st St
in the same parking lot as Whole Foods.

"like" Happybottomus on Facebook

The owner, Brookie-Lee, was a stay-at-home-mom who started looking for a way to help her family with income while keeping the kiddos with her when she became pregnant with baby number two. She saw a need in the cloth diapering community - buying cloth diapers is mainly done online which means you don't get to actually see what you are ordering until it arrives to your house.

Her goal with Happybottomus is to provide moms a way to touch, see and compare cloth diapers in person before they purchase them. Her other goals are to connect the community and provide alternative products.

I chose to blog under the username, withLOVE because I felt that it was a good fit for how I live my life... how I try to impact my community and world... how I treat others... how I support my husband... and how I raise my child. withLOVE.

I just submitted my first post for review and it should be up sometime today!

Super Cute Kid Stuff

A Few Fun Finds...

woven straw fedora Baby Gap

reversible pinafore teaganandbaily

roll up trousers mini Boden

Benton red thatch shoes Keep

chambray romper Crazy 8

spin cycle dress MOSS

hand-dyed dino onsie SquishyBee

floral romper Baby Gap

belted paper bag shorts Baby Gap

lady bug flower sun hat Melondipity

metallic gladiator sandal Gymboree

vintage alphabet cards Mini Social

Love Letters

... just for fun

I’ve yet to read a greeting card that sounds better that what my husband can scrawl in his messy handwriting on a piece of paper. Not a single one I’ve come across speaks to us and what we know to be true and how it feels to be married to one another compared to the beautiful poetry and love filled notes that I have received through the years.

For that reason and the fact that Tyler hates buying greeting cards, we have a new rule when it comes to celebrations of love in our home. All cards for the occasion will be handmade - even if it’s just written on the back of our electric bill. The art of the hand-written love letter seems to be dying out in our technology age and so it’s our small way of trying to keep it alive.

In the afternoon, we set to work writing our love letters.

Aliyah and I danced around the living room to Stevie Nicks while we waited for Tyler to finish his in the other room.

We’re saving all of them in a box as a tangible part of our history together.

Tyler and I have also decided to make our wedding anniversary an official family holiday. We’ve promised that we will always take the day off from work/school to do something fun together with our children. We feel it’s really important to instill in our family that being married takes hard work and commitment but it’s also something that should be celebrated. We hope our children learn to look forward to April 8th each year in the same way they might anticipate a birthday or vacation.

A Celebration of Love

On Friday Tyler took the afternoon off. Aliyah and I headed downtown to pick him up from work and had a delicious lunch at Cafe Trio on the Plaza.

After lunch, we met Tyler's mom in the AMC movie theatre parking lot so that Tyler and I could sneak away for a couple hours. However, at the ticket counter, we weren't impressed with our options so we just decided to walk around. The weather was amazing - we spent a little time at a book store, I bought a pair of more comfortable shoes at Target to replace my high heals, we stopped to get some ice cream and headed off to the park... just the two of us.

We went home early to fit in a family nap with our little girl before dinner. When we woke up, we headed back to the Plaza at PF Chang's to meet up with Tyler's parents for dinner (they offered to take us out to celebrate). We all had such a great time reminiscing our special day 5 years ago.

Saturday, we spent the morning at the KC Zoo supporting "Pancakes for Penguins" with Aliyah's Uncle Russell and Aunt Jillian.

Tyler catching a flipped pancake from Chris' Cakes

We walked all over and were even able to see behind the scenes of the new polar bear's penthouse and learned a lot about Nikita. After the zoo we went over to my parent's house for lunch and spent all afternoon visiting on the back porch.

Tyler and I were a bit hungry on our way home so we decided to stop for a quick bite at Chipotle for dinner. We ran into Tyler's brother and his wife there - completely unplanned! It was amazing that this weekend we were able to see our whole family!!

Sunday was another gorgeous day. We did a lot of cleaning, dusted off our bikes and decided to try out Aliyah's bike trailer. We rode to dinner, grabbing some veggie sub sandwiches and back home. We loved being back on our bicycles and were happy to share one of our favorite family activities with Ali J.

She is excited for her 1st bike ride!!

Chubby legs are SO cute... completely relaxed enjoying the ride

I love how Tyler matches the trailer :)

Two Big Smiles!!

We truly couldn't have asked for a more beautiful weekend to celebrate our anniversary.... perfect!