Our baby girl is 1

This last Tuesday, we celebrated little Jayne's 1st b-day. Just a small party with our family and my parents, but I still wanted to do a little decorating.

This fun garland my sis-in-law let me borrow. She made it out of coffee filters! Love it.



Here are closeups of the month-by-month frame if you want.




I decided we needed a happy birthday sign for our family, so I looked through my files and found the template for these light covers and punched out happy birthday. It took some doing, but I am so excited to have it now.





I thought it was high time Jayne had a doll, so that's what she got. I made the rag doll when she was born, but it has been sitting on a shelf in her room, so I let it down for a little while so it could introduce the new doll to the family.

This little doll may look old and ragged, but that's why I think she is all the more charming. Being the sentimental fool that I am, I wanted to give Jayne my favorite doll that I grew up with. I was never into dolls all that much as a child (being somewhat of a tom-boy you see), but this one always had a special place in my heart and I think she was the first one I ever received. I hope Jayne loves her as much as I did...she seems to already.

Gertrude and Ruthie, together at last. Gertrude because when I was little, I felt horribly bad that I didn't have a middle name, so my brother Nate gave me one...Gertrude. For a while I would introduce myself as Elise Gertrude Wilding. And as for Ruthie, I just thought it fit. Jayne can rename them later if she wants.

We bundled her up in a little doll blanket my mom made (when I was little), her original little nightgown and some other dresses I had. This one in particular is special because not only is it adorable and sweet, but it was a doll dress my mom had when she was a little girl. (I told you I was a sentimental fool) :)



On to the cake! Jayne didn't quite know what to do. She went from "Seriously Grandma, quit holding out on me!"

to, "What is that thing?"

to, "Hmm, not bad"

to, "I'm goin' in!"




Want some? (Trust me, you do!! We all went nuts over them! Go here for the recipe. Warning, if you are opposed to butter, not the cupcakes for you. Also, I only added 1 stick of butter and 1 8 oz. cream cheese to the frosting and added sugar as needed. I also ommited the almond extract from the frosting because I thought the cupcakes had plenty.)

And ever the model of a proper lady, she made sure that when she was done, she wiped...

...and cleaned her hands


Happy Birthday!

We interrupt this pretty irregulary scheduled catch up to give you...

...a Halloween catch up.

Featuring Nacho,

his favorite snack-corn on a stick with mayo and chili powder,

and (totally unrelated) a couple of pieces of gum stuck to the bottom of some shoes.

I had a blast last year making Max's "Max" costume, so I decided to give it another go this year. As soon as I knew I wanted to do Nacho Libre, I began my search for all the pieces. My good friend Deseret Industries always comes through for me and this...

...became this

I worried about the cold on his little bare chest, hence the Chancho (two sizes too small) sweat shirt.

I really wanted Jayne to be Encarnacion the nun, but wasn't sure if that would be offensive to some of our neighbors. So when my sister-in-law suggested she should be corn, I thought, "perfect" since Max's favorite line from the movie is, "Get that corn outta my face!" Sorry, I don't have a before shot, but I made it out of a nylon camping blanket. Only one person really got it without being told which I knew would be the case. Poor thing. One day she'll say to me, "Mom, how come all the other little girls got to be princesses and butterflies and I had to be corn with mayo slathered on it?" I'm sorry Jayne, I'm weird, but I hope one day even later on you'll look at this and appreciate it.

As for Shane and me, we weren't even going to dress up, but at the last minute saw the gum-on-the-bottom-of-your-shoe idea. It was fast and easy so we went with it. Again kind of obscure. Nobody got it and kept wondering why we had shoes on our heads. I know, it's kind of lame, but if you make fun of us you'll have to deal with this

and you may get a nice pile drive to the face

or a punch to the face

and trust me, you do not want to get caught in the anaconda SQUEEZE

Happy belated Halloween. Hope you had a good one too!

ooxxooXoXx (hug, hug, kiss, kiss, hug, hug, Big Kiss, little hug, Big Kiss, little kiss),

The Fraziers

My little boy ain't so little anymore

Max turned three this summer. I can't believe what a little man he is now. Those little baby features are starting to melt away. Three has definitely proven to be far more terrible than two, but thank goodness for opposition in all things. Along with being super stubborn and coming unhinged over the smallest of things, he also has a really sweet side. And oh the laughs we have over the things that come out of his little mouth.


We decided to throw a swim party with all of our little neighborhood buddies.


Entertaining his guests like a good little host :)




The cake...to this day, no matter how many times we correct him, he says, "Remember my frog cake, yeah that was fun."





To go along with the whole water theme, we got him two speckled goldfish. He immediately named them Gerald (which was no surprise since every story of his has a Gerald in it) and Buster. Unfortunately, Buster and Gerald had a very short life, so we now have Buster and Gerald the sequel. Happy to say we did a better job the second time around and they are still with us.



Here are the rest of the three-year pictures we took.

Love you little buddy!