12 Months of Ainslee Blake

I'm not sure how it happened so quickly, but we have officially arrived at the months of Ainslee Blake finale. 12 months...she's 12 months! My sweet girl turned the big one on September 25th. Oh what a year it's been parenting this adorable ornery mess. 

Kisses for Carl.

Ainslee is pretty excited to be done with the monthly pictures. She is very mobile and has plenty of things to explore. No time for pictures.

Ainslee's Likes

• Putting spaghetti on her head. No idea why, but she always puts it on her head. Only spaghetti.

• Tearing up paper.

• Running errands with Daddy. If Daddy is going she wants to go. One day he was holding her and she pointed to the door and said, "Dada bye-bye," and waved. Meaning, "Daddy let's go!"

Running errands with Daddy does take it out of you, though.

• Books and Deacon. The girl loves books right now. She is also a huge fan of big brother. He is loads of fun to play with.

• Destroying games. If you want to play a board game, you better make sure Ainslee isn't around. She loves to mess up a good game of Candy Land.

• Sesame Street. The girl just discovered it and she loves it. (Also, I'm sure you are all dying to know where we got our fancy baby gate in the background. It's from the "take your dining room chair and lay it on its side" collection. Very fancy.)

• Emptying out any and all containers. Hangers are her favorite.

Ainslee's Dislikes

• I have no pictures, but she does not like for her big sister Hayden to tell her what to do. She has already learned to tattle on Hayden in her own special way.
• Really loud noises. We had to leave a school assembly early because she might have flipped out when the students were screaming a little loudly.
• Riding Elevators. Kerry put a video on his instagram of this. She does not like riding the elevator one bit. She actually cried.

More photos from the month.

What she looks like when we don't comb her hair after her bath.

We have a birthday tradition with our kids. You get a donut from the donut shop on your birthday. Ainslee loved her first donut.

The day after her birthday she took off and started walking everywhere!

Ainslee's First Birthday Party

Ainslee's first birthday party was awesome. The theme, the size, the weather...I loved it all. We decided to do a small intimate party and just invited family for her first. 

Her party theme was strawberries. We had strawberry cake, cupcakes, cookies, and candies. 

Ainslee's Meemaw made me the tea towels several years ago. I loved using them for the decorations.

Goody Bags

I just want to say I love my niece. She owns her own sign-making business in Atoka. I told her very close to the last minute that I wanted a chalkboard looking birthday sign and asked if she had time to do it (family is the worst...I'm so sorry Deana!). Anyhow, Kerry designed exactly what I wanted and Deana gladly said she would get it printed for me and this is how it turned out.

Amazing right?! Deana is awesome. Her business is DK Designs in Atoka...she has great prices and ships everywhere. 

I asked Ainslee's Mimi if she would make a strawberry dress for Ainslee's party. Isn't it adorable? 

We kind of forgot to take pictures of our party guests, but we did get this picture of cousin Ruger and big brother Deacon chowing down. Their big sisters provided the face paint.

Ainslee did have a good time opening her presents. Who doesn't love ripping up wrapping paper?

Mama and the birthday girl. Ainslee smiling/yawning.

I love my little family so much; we are so not photogenic, but I love it. This is us, face paint and all.

Deacon's hand placement is always so unfortunate.

My favorite part of any first birthday is the baby eating their cake. Ainslee loved cake. I had to take it away a little while, I think she would've eaten the entire thing!

You can't worry about looking all attractive-like when you are shoveling cake in your mouth.

This girl

She was absolutely willing to share.

Is she as ornery as she looks? Yes...the answer is yes.

Ainslee just up and started walking the day before her party. Here she was showing off her new skills.

She was a little over taking pictures at this point, but it's another great picture of her cute strawberry dress.

...and another.

Thanks to all of our family that made the drive to Cookson for Ainslee's big day, and for all the presents!