Fall photo dump

Some photos that when looking back at them, seem months and month ago, but are really just from September and early October. I mean, check this one out of our outdoor dinner picnic at the Woodland Park Rose Garden. It can't have been just a month ago that it was hot enough for Jessie's daughter to be prancing around outdoors naked!

A few shots of Edie from a spur of the moment Orcas weekend we took this Fall. Jeff told her that her shirt was camouflaged with the blanket so she did this:

I think she thinks that by making this face, she blends in with the blanket:

Hanging out with Grandpa and the dude he hired to cut trees down - like a boss.

Getting ready to watch the trees come down:

Wood chipper excitement:

Trees after being chopped down, before being chopped up and dragged uphill to the chopper:

The fuzzy caterpillar she rescued from one of the trees:

My favorite outfit in September - I call it her "walking gay pride parade ensemble": rainbow knee socks with a rainbow unicorn dress and glitter shoes.

Our favorite Fall activity this year: going to party stores and posing with all the things:

No head lice was contracted during the posing of these photos (barely):

Sunday Fremont Market Day:

More party store antics (different store/similar hijinks):

"Mom, can I buy this bag of rats?"

NBD, just a kid with a bloody chainsaw:

Happy Fall everyone! Edie is wearing two halloween costumes this year - Elsa from the movie Frozen for school and then she requested I make her a Ring Tailed Lemur suit for trick or treating. We saw "The Lemurs of Madagascar" this summer at the Seattle Science Center and she really really loved it. I asked her recently if she could go anywhere, where would she go. Her answer? Madagascar to be with the lemurs.

Party

Edie would remind you that she is already nearing Five AND A QUARTER, so it's really terrible that it's taken me this long to post her family birthday party photos. I'd actually kind of forgotten about this overdue post, but a friend recently posted photos of her daughter's birthday and it reminded me that I still had some of these photos in a draft form.  The quality of these photos is substandard, but we had a fun birthday celebration with both sides of the family in Bellingham at my parents' house over Labor Day Weekend. Edie learned for the first time that she is capable of blowing up balloons herself. She spent about 30 minutes doing this over and over:

I made a "Frozen Cake":

Family arrived:

Presents were opened:

Here she is wearing her new Elsa dress, hand sewn by Aunt Kathleen and riding her new big girl bike from her great Grandma:

Elsa posing:

Frozen decorations hand made by her Grandma Fifi:

Waiting for the bouncy castle to inflate in my parents' basement:

My parents own a legit bouncy castle. I repeat, this is not a rental, it lives here year round and can be inflated indoors in about 3 minutes. Luna and Edie went bananas:

More presents, mostly of the plastic, princess variety:

Cake time:

Edie received so many thoughtful gifts from family. And then we made her make a thank you card with the intention of photocopying it and sending it to the masses, except we never did our part. ARGH. I need to dig out that note she made and go to Kinko's immediately...

Vintage Baby Book Shower

I've been trying to upload these photos for weeks, so apologies for the delay. Below are some photos from the baby shower we threw Amy recently. Amy loves being cozy and comfy and so we decided on a Bedtime Story theme and primarily used vintage books as inspiration for the decor and menu. I'm not sure how this happened, but I have ZERO photos of the actual party. Super embarrassing. 

Here were the invitations. We bought vintage Little Golden Books as the base:

Then my sister in law designed these adorable book wraps for the invite text, which I sealed with a bit of gold Washi tape in the back. I wrapped in kraft paper and postage was surprisingly inexpensive.

All the invites before I wrapped them:

My food photos are only so so. Here are the adorable Goodnight Moon-pies that Heidi made from scratch:

We served the moon pies with a (It Looked Like Spilt) milk bar (Amy loves herself some whole milk like no one I know). I ordered the tiny vintage milk glasses from Etsy and already owned the large milk containers from a previous event. The backdrop is pages from vintage books mixed with baby photos of Dave and Amy:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Fruit Salad that Kristin made:

Peter Rabbit's Garden Veggies, which we served in tiny clay pots with hummus in the bottom:

A little Secret Garden alcove:

For favors, Darrah made Monster Cookies and we decorated this little table with pennants cut from the Where the Wild Things Are. My sister in law designed the stickers and food labels.

Heidi made the most amazing blueberry lemon cake (Amy used to love the book Blueberries for Sal as a kid). I saw this tiny book banner on Pinterest and copied it and it turned out pretty well:

Above is Peach Pear Plum Punch:

Vintage book decorations:

Oh! And we also served Madeline's French cheeses with baguette and crackers. Sometimes I just eat stinky cheese with sour cherry jam from Met Market on baguette for lunch; it's my favorite thing to put on a cheese platter these days.

and lastly, a close up of the tiny books I made because I am apparently super proud: