Welcome baby Jacob!

Jacob Daniel Belcher arrived safe and sound Monday, September 17, 2012 at 12:58pm, weighing 7lbs 12oz and measuring 21 1/4 inches long! Daniel and I still cannot believe how much he looks like Will did when he was born, especially with his little cap on. The main difference is Jake's dark hair versus Will's reddish hair and their noses look a little different. But it's uncanny- we feel like we're looking at the same child about 4 1/2 years later! I don't have a cord to upload photos now, but I'll add plenty when we get home.
Welcome to our family, little Jake! We're so excited to finally meet you, especially your big brother, Will! He cannot hold you enough and your big sister, Maggie loves you too-- she wanted to hold you today was so sweet and lovey! :) Picture overload commence now...

Our last picture as a family of four, can't wait

to meet you Jake!

Getting settled in at the hospital, baby Jake won't 

be snug in mommy's belly much longer! 

 He's here! Jacob Daniel Belcher

September 17, 2012 at 12:58 pm 

7lbs 12 oz, 21 1/4 inches

 Maggie just had to sit in bed with mommy, it was so sweet.

She did not like the blood pressure cuff, though 

my boys :)

 Will just loves his brother and wants to hold

Jake as often as possible

 Maggie loves little Jacob too

 just precious

Our first photo as a family of five!!

Maggie is two!

Happy 2nd birthday my beautiful, sweetheart girl!!! I cannot believe you're already two years old! My, how times flies. These last two years have brought about challenges, as they always do with raising kids, but through it all, you've been such a blessing and brought so much joy into our home. Your smile and sweet disposition light up a room! Your motivated spirit and hard work ethic will bring about so many good things in your life. God has big plans for you little girl!! Just a few things I love about you as my 2 year old big girl. I love that you:

• have the sweetest smile and laugh
• love music and will dance and sing along to it
• have such a good sense of humor
• enjoy imaginative play
• have a mind of your own and don't mind sharing it with us
• love mommy so much- sometimes you won't give me a break- which can be endearing and frustrating
• picked out a pink gait trainer
• love girly things- dolls, shoes, hair and almost anything pink
• talk to the ladybugs on your bedding
• make daddy give everyone kisses before he leaves for work
• give kisses and love when we ask for them
• love animals
• are such a hard worker and determined to do things
• can be so dramatic- a couple months ago you would pull out the pouty lip on occasion but now you place a hand over your face
• "Hulk smash"
• are so smart and pick up on things so quickly- you already know some colors & letters
• will still calm down to "Seven Bridges Road" if we ever need to resort to that
• are the most beautiful daughter a mommy could ask for and I'm so glad God entrusted you to me

Happy birthday sweetheart! Mommy loves you so much and looks forward to spending many, many, many birthdays with you! :)

Update: How we spent Maggie's day!

I let Maggie decide what we did on her birthday- it is her special day! Will liked this idea less and less as the day went on because she was not picking the things he wanted to do. Like going to the McWane Center. I thought this would be a fun way to spend the day, or at least the morning, but Maggie consistently said no when I asked. Will was not happy about this at all. She chose to watch a movie (not Tangled, surprisingly) then we opened gifts and played. After nap time we had a little birthday ice cream sandwich and she loved it! Maggie likes desserts but cake has nothing on ice cream for this chick! After daddy got home, we went to dinner and took her to Yogurt Mountain- one of her favorite places. We had a really good day and I'm certain Ms. Moosie enjoyed it!!!

Maggie's 2nd birthday party

Maggie won't turn 2 until Friday, but we chose to celebrate her birthday early because Labor Day weekend gives more people the opportunity to travel and earlier is better when you're 9 months pregnant. :) Her birthday theme was Dora because, well, Maggie just loves some Dora. This made deciding the menu easy- Mexican of course plus fruits, veggies, chips & salsa for dip. I learned that soft taco shells are more popular than hard because I had almost as many hard shells remaining as I purchased. We like taco night, so no worries. This menu was also pretty easy on the budget and I had a smaller one this year than last because I'm not working part-time (from home) anymore, a baby is on the way and now a move, so less is more. I did still buy a few things- I'll detail them out below- it's a very long post.

First up, the invitation. We went to McWane Science Center on July 4th and one of their exhibits was Dora & Diego- a whole floor of fun stuff! Maggie absolutely loved the ginormous Dora replica and was more than happy to take pictures with her. I knew this would be the perfect picture for her invite, added all the necessary party info in Dora colors and voila!

I made food labels and cutlery bundles with free printables from nickjr.com. Instead of creating crazy names, I opted to name the food after several of the Explorer characters. I designed the water bottle labels on my computer and printed them on scrapbook paper.

 the food setup

The Dessert Table

I very much love Amy Atlas' work and have wanted to set up a dessert table for awhile now- I managed a small one at the Gender Reveal party, but I wanted to go a step further this time. I don't visit her blog very often because I'll set my own party expectations too high, but she is, at least to my knowledge, the dessert table originator so I'm crediting her with the idea. Here's how I did my table:

I purchased pink wrapping paper for the backdrop and scrapbook paper for the banner (though I did use a HL gift card, so didn't technically spend any money on it). I used items on hand to make the Maggie frame and the tissue poms, table cloth & streamers were used at my birthday party a couple months ago.

 I don't know if I bought a bad batch of tape, but we had the hardest time keeping this backdrop on the wall. The banner fell at least half a dozen times and before the party ended, the whole backdrop peeled away from the wall (you can see semi-fixed here)

 For the frame, I made colorful flowers in photoshop, arranged them as a border, printed it then added the M and Maggie in vinyl and placed them in a frame

everything finished (and the banner falling) Major props to my sis for making all the tissue poms- it really saved me some time! Plus I love re-purposing and they really add to the party decor. Thanks Trace!

The cake was a challenge this year. Dora was the first party I've thrown where I've been days away and still not sure how I wanted to make the cake. I'm not artistic enough to make a 3D Dora or draw her face on a cake. In the end, I decided a colorful cake with Dora figures would fit the bill. I did not, however, find the characters I wanted- the candles are ok. I bought one box of cake mix and separated them into two round pans, stacked them, added a layer of icing and covered in marshmallow fondant. Then I made stars and decorative balls out of fondant, wrote with royal icing (left from the cookies- discussed below) and added the only candles I could find. I wrapped a box to make sure the cake was the highest point on the table. 

I found a pack of unfinished wood boxes at Walmart for a couple dollars, covered them in scrapbook paper and washi tape and added styrofoam for the marshmallow pops (leftover from the fondant). The mason jars have so many uses, I decided to add lemonade and the kids really liked drinking out of them! I decided not to do favor bags this year and opted for treat bags instead so the kids could take home candy. I couldn't find purple bags, so I bought lunch bags (you can find a 50 pack for like a dollar at Walmart) and painted them purple with regular craft paint. I found the little cups (filled with goldfish) and the straws on Etsy. I tried to keep everything coordinated with the party colors. I bought all the candy at the dollar store- lemonheads, orange slices, jolly joes (purple mike& ike's) and pixie sticks. I chose stars, flowers and 2's for the cookies and used the same recipes for sugar cookies & royal icing as I did last year.

I added more tissue poms and balloons (I know, you're shocked) around the house for the remaining decor. 

The beautiful birthday girl and party guests

Presents & cake

Oooh, me me, I want cake!

 trying to dig in but can't get past the fondant!

Ms. Moosie had so much fun at her 2nd birthday party! And after all the festivities died down, we made the announcement about moving back to TN so I'm sure this will be a memorable day for everyone. I love you baby girl!! I'm so happy to have enjoyed your 2nd little party and made a special announcement to top off your day. 

Ch Ch Changes

Well, we officially announced the news to our families yesterday, so it's time to share this 'bit' of news with you: the Belchers are re-locating (back) to Tennessee! We're excited to go "home" near our family again but there will certainly be some adjustments as we've build an entire life here the last 7+ years. The move will not be immediate, in large part because I'm not prepared to pack everything up these last two weeks of pregnancy nor will I be ready immediately following the birth of baby Jacob. Daniel will, however, be working in TN while I'm here continuing to work with Maggie's therapists and waiting for the gait trainer we have on order, plus selling the house of course. Exciting and stressful all at the same time! Please pray with us that we can make this transition as seamless as possible and God continues to go before us and guide our steps on this new journey. Thank you!

We decided to break the news to our family at Maggie's 2nd birthday party, which means we waited about 3 weeks to tell everyone. This was my idea and initially Daniel was not pro waiting, but agreed it would be nice to tell everyone at the same time. Plus, I'm all about a dramatic reveal and I wanted to see everyone's faces. We stood in a position to see almost everyone...Buffy & Mark (Daniel's sis & bro-in-law) were just off to the side, so I didn't get their reaction. I set my camera to continuous mode and once Daniel started making the announcement, I started clicking. This is everyone's reaction when he first said we'll be relocating because the initial thought was somewhere like Houston or Seattle.

And here is (almost) everyone's reaction when he said Nashville, Tennessee. I'm super glad I decided to catch this on camera because we would never remember the responses otherwise. I won't post the entire progression, but you get the idea.

Also, this is the reason I didn't post nursery reveal pics earlier in the week. Since we're setting up the room, we (particularly Daniel) thinks putting up a crib etc. just to tear it all down is pointless. Plus, it'll overcrowd the room and that's never a good idea when your house is on the market. So, baby Jacob will just stay in our room until we move- he would've spent the first few weeks in there anyway, his stay will just be lengthened a little- but hopefully not too much. A part of me feels bad he won't have a "place" his own when he comes home, but that's the way things are now...I'll just set up something extra nice when we move into a new house. :)