tinycandiphotography

These are just a few of the pictures that the photographer took at Jessitne's party! They are just breathtaking! Google search tinycandiphotography and see some more of her work or if you are on Facebook, try to search for her there!

12 month picture

One of my many favorites!

Celebrate Good Times!!!

Well, we pulled it off. It wasn't flawless, but it was fun nevertheless. We had Jesstine's big birthday bash on Saturday, which was actually my birthday. I had a lot of people ask me why I was going all out when she wouldn't remember it. The answer is, I will remember it! Jesstine will ask me someday about it and there will be a LOT to tell her! I know my mom couldn't provide this kind of party for us when we were growing up, so I wanted to give one for my child. Also, Jesstine is so precious to us! We wanted to share with her and others just how special she is! We have waited a long time (seemingly) to celebrate our child's first birthday. The first child's first birthday wasn't much of a celebration. It was full of a lot of heartache and pain. The road was long, and we made it! It was meant for a celebration! Plus, it was my birthday so I was going to celebrate by seeing my daughter happy! She was! You will know why when you see the pictures!

Before I get to the pictures though, let me give you a run down of the events leading up to the party. I wanted to get a few last min. things ahead of time, plus because it was my birthday, I wanted a cookie cake. We headed to get a white table cloth to cover the card table for more seating. Afterwards, we went to the mall for my cookie (as if we didn't have enough sugar waiting for us at home in the form of Jesstine's cake!!!!). To my disappointment, the Great American Cookie Co. was no longer there. (I later found out that it was because they went bankrupt and are no longer in business.) We decided to order one from the people who were now occupying that space anyhow. NEVER do it! It was a $30 mistake!!!!! The cookie was dry. They said it would take 7 mins. to decorate with a simple "Happy Birthday Lacie," and time was precious to us as we had an appointment to meet the photographer for 12 month pictures before the party. It took 30 mins!!!!! When we got home, the cookie said "Happy Birthay Lacie" and it was off centered. Let's just say it looked like something I could do! No, wait I would have done a better job than that!! Then when I finally got to savor it, it tasted fine, but it was SO dry I now have a sore under my tongue from where it broke my skin open in my mouth!!! I think I will try WalMart next time!!!! Needless to say, the events leading up to the party were not a great start to the day! I had read my comments on my facebook status from the day before and people were reminding me to relax and have fun. They said not to let it be stressful! I had to decide then and there to roll with the punches and have fun! As you will see, it all worked out great in the end!


This was the scene before the party. No the sign on the fireplace was not made store bought. I made it. I can't claim the idea though. I had been searching for ideas for a long time before this party. If you can't tell it says "Sesame Street is brought to you today by the letter J and the number 1!"


Here is the dining room. We ended up having to take out most of the booster seats because we didn't have as many LITTLE little kids there as I had expected. It still worked out well in the end. The kids that were there didn't really know Jesstine too well, so they all were not as eager to sit by her. The neighborhood kids sat by her though! I convinced the others that they needed to get closer once that cake came out though!!!!

I wanted to have Jesstine in something a little more formal for her 12 month pictures, so I chose this dress. In hind sight, I think I would have just let her wear her party outfit because it really was dressy enough and was cute!! It would have been just fine! Oh, well! Like I said, it all worked out great in the end! I know it sounds like overkill to have a photographer come for the party, but I needed 12 month pictures. I knew I would be too busy during the party to take pictures myself and she was coming anyhow, so I thought I would ask her to stay to take party pictures as well!

I wish I had a better picture of the cake! I guess that will come later from the photographer. It was such a great cake!!! It looked so much like Elmo! The cake everyone else ate was a cupcake cake that was in a rectangular shape. It had a different Sesame Street character in each of the corners (Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover and Big Bird to be exact) and in the center it was white and said "Happy 1st Birthday Jesstine!" It was cute and tasty too!!

We even had a visit from everyone's favorite 3 year-old himself! Jesstine tried to feed Elmo some of her cake! I am so glad she wasn't scared of him like some kids would be!

Here is the smash cake after the birthday girl was through with it! Doesn't look much like Elmo!

Here was her haul for the day! I think she did pretty well, don't you????

This was from Aunt Grace and family. It is a magnet set by Leap Frog. It is a set of farm animals that she has to match their front and back halves to make the music play! As you can tell, she liked it!

Here is her Princess Coupe from Uncle Seth and family. (I think Aunt Jenni picked it out!) She now has a chariot (the bike trailer I got for my birthday) and a princess car! She is ridding in style!
And she already knows how to hang one arm out of the car as she drives! She is a good observer now that she can face forward in her car seat in Mommy and Daddy's cars!!

Well, as you can tell, Jesstine had a great time and so did Stephen and I! Again, I know it seems like overkill for something she won't remember, but I will and she really is so special to me! I think I would have done the same for Babe B. truth be told! I just want to celebrate the life God has provided for us through our children! She is such a happy, beautiful and smart girl! We are so blessed! This was to share that blessing with our family and friends!!!

In Him,
Lacie, Stephen, and Jesstine Hutchins

Happy Birthday Jesstine!!!!

We made it to the 1 year mark! I am so happy to be the mother of such a beautiful, smart, funny, lovable, caring and just plain sweet girl!! God truly has blessed me and I could never thank Him enough! Never had I dreamed that motherhood could be what it has been for me! I of course have had my ups and downs. (As I am typing this, my little girl has a tummy ache and has been fighting sleep! She woke up an hour ago screaming and is still very restless. I pray she gets better and it is just an overnight thing! Her big party is tomorrow.) Anyhow, last month I promised a picture montage. I have included some of the monthly pictures you have seen already on this blog, plus a few others. At the end is a run down of what we did today on her birthday as well as a sneak peak of what is to come on her birthday post (Lord willing). Well, on with the show!!

This is one of the pictures taken Jesstine's first week home. She is so cute! She still makes that face often! I think she looks like my grandmother in this picture! She was so tiny at just a few weeks old!


This was her one month picture! Can you believe that little face! Yes, she is still mostly bald and I get comments often on "how do you get that bow to stay in, scotch tape?!" I have actually found a lady who hand makes bows that have a "no slip" piece on them. That doesn't mean she doesn't pull them out! I miss the days when she would wear headbands! Anyhow, her she was at a month!


This is at three months. She had obviously grown a little. This is when we started to first notice the torticollis. Look at that belly!


This is at 6 months! I loved this outfit and it was so convenient that it fell on Valentine's Day! I didn't care too much for Valentine's Day in the past, as my grandfather died on that day. This year seemed a little more bearable with this sweet face to look at!
Here is the big 9 month old! As you may have noticed, squirming out of the chair made for a difficult time taking pictures! Luckily she wasn't as mobile at this point. Not like at 11 months when she dove head first from the chair!!
And of course, the 12 month picture! Once again, even with Daddy's help, it was very difficult to get a picture of her. This was the best shot and it doesn't show off her cool 1 year-old shirt! I guess you will just have to keep reading until you see it at the bottom!

Whew! Time has really passed so quickly! I have noticed a definate (never can figure out how to spell this word as spell check always gives me "Defiant") change over just the last two weeks in various behaviors that my daughter is displaying. First is that it is so much more dramatic when she gets hurt, even if it isn't that bad of a fall. Second is that we have already had to drop our morning nap! I say our because I would usually nap while she did! Her morning nap was never really much, but about two weeks ago, she started to refuse to go to sleep in the morning. Then she would go to sleep at noon and only sleep for an hour! I decided after a week of that, I had had enough! I started to try and put her down once a day at the same time. She now goes to sleep at 1:00 PM every day. This works the best for my schedule with work and such. I can get home to put her to sleep after working in the AM or I can take her to Grandmom's to sleep right after I drop her off when I work in the PM. This year, my mom is taking the AM shift on Wednesday mornings and Sandra has the PM shift on Thursdays. My mom has wanted to take care of Jesstine for a long time! I am glad she can have that chance now!

Another change has been the size of my little girl's feet! It seemed like she had such small feet for so long! I think she was in newborn shoes until she was like 5 months old!!! NO JOKE! I am trying to encourage her to walk a lot more. She is to the point where she can stand with ease (when she isn't thinking about it), but will still only cruise around furniture and such. She will walk behind a push toy for quite a ways as well. That is the best we can do. Well, I knew she would be needing shoes that she could walk in, but also wear in the meantime. I was aware that Stride Rite made a prewalker shoe that worked for early walkers as well. The ones at Target that look the same just AREN'T the same! I tried that! Also, I knew that Stride Rite was really good about accurately measuring children's feet. So, I took her in. They didn't have any prewalkers, but we fitted her for a "Big Girl" shoe anyhow. I ended up buying them. Stephen was disappointed, not by the price but that the seemed too hard soled in his opinion. I also purchased one more pair of Robeez that I found on sale with free shipping online. Any how, here are a few pics of her in her shoes! Oh, and at first she LOVED them! She got tired of them by about the third day. Now, she sometimes picks them up while on the changing table and tries to put them on herself! So cute!

The push toy we borrowed from Grandmom. (She is getting one at her party tomorrow!) As you can see, she has already discovered how to take passengers along!

I didn't realize how cute this picture was until I went to find some to put on the blog. What a great shot of her cute little feet and legs! And here are the "Big Girl" shoes!

They are so feminine with the little bit of pink on the soles, scalloped edges and embroidered daisies! And of course they have to have ankle support when first learning to walk.

Here she is standing and modeling her new shoes!

This picture has nothing to do with her shoes. Stephen has recently re-joined his work tennis league. My tennis racket was not needed in his bag, so it ended up on the floor in our bedroom...along with the tennis balls he had played with. Jesstine may end up playing tennis. Look out, we may have a lefty too!

Again, nothing to do with shoes, although you can see the Robeez that I got her in this picture. Tomorrow is my birthday and my gift was a bike trailer and a helmet for Jesstine. This will help me on those days when I don't want to trek to the Y to work out! I will just put her in the trailer with some toys and go for a ride! That is the idea anyway! I may have to wait until it cools down!

We did actually have a mini celebration on Jesstine's birthday. Both Grandmas couldn't make it to the big party tomorrow, so we threw a mini celebration tonight! It was a lot of fun! We gave Jesstine a cupcake and after a little hesitation, she took to it quite well. As you can see (maybe, the quality isn't great because I had to grab my phone for this shot), she was starting to get sleepy and rubbed her eyes with icing all over her hands! Notice too, it is mostly on her left eye! This is because she mostly eats left handed. Interesting....like I said, maybe we have a lefty!

And last but not least! Here is the birthday shirt I had specially made for her birthday! I LOVE it! It is perfect! I put it on her today to get her 1 year picture and she had to pull it off of her chest to get a look at it! This was of course taken a month or so ago so we could leave a picture with feedback for the woman who made it! This will be her party outfit. Her birthday was today, but she will not be having her party with her friends until tomorrow....hopefully she is feeling better by then! (Just heard another whimper as I was typing that last sentence). This shirt has a matching bib and the crown was actually a Babies R Us find! Be watching out for more pictures of the big bash!

As always we hope all of you are doing well (all 4 of you who keep up with the blog that is!!!!).

In Him,
Lacie, Stephen and Jesstine