Happy 1st Bithday, Fisher!

Happy 1st Birthday to my Fisher-man! You LOVE wagon rides, so we thought we'd celebrated with a Little Red Wagon-themed party. But there wasn't lots of "wagon-themed" stuff available, so Mommy had to get creative. Also, you were a little sick with bronchitis on the day of your party, so we had to downsize it a bit; but you still seemed to have lots of fun!

Birthday Banner
Cake Table

Your cake!

*For more on the cake, click here.

Wagon Wheel Cupcakes

More Cupcakes!

Candy Apple Party Favors

Another Birthday Banner!

(Thanks for the idea, Lucy!)

Red Wagon Pinata

*made from 100% recycled materials (cereal boxes, paper towel roll, and a corn muffin mix box) Your big brother helped me paint it! :)

We had a Wagon Parade! Here you are eating a flower, my little goat! :)

Pop & Pap!

Throw Me Something, Fisher!

Parading with Friends!

More Parading!

The Spectators! :)

Trace is ready for cake!

What's All This?

This is the BEST DAY EVER!!!

Cupcakes are for babies...I want the real cake! :)

That's better!

Oooh, and some ice cream to wash it all down! :)

Uncle Josh & Trace take first crack...er...pull @ the pinata!

Candy For Everyone!

Our only family pic of the day. Your brother is upset that I took his candy bag for the picture. :(

After a 4+ hour nap, you woke up to open presents! :)

Supper time! Here you are playing peek-a-boo...except you cover your ears instead of your eyes! :)

We love you so much Little Bug. You are such a happy baby and bring so much joy to our family. At one year you can say "Da Da", "Ma Ma", "Eat", "Bye Bye", "Dat" (as in "What's that?" or "Who Dat?") hehe and you've attempted to say "Trace" a few times. You love to play peek-a-boo, patty cake (you love to roll 'em up!), give hugs when we say "Love, Love", and you make sure everyone knows how old you are; when we say "One" you point you finger way up high! You also love to dance, you crawl super-fast, especially when you're trying to get into something like Phoebe's bowl or Trace's lunch, and you put things in your mouth faster than lightning. You love to laugh, especially at your brother's silly antics. Oh, and you're still famous for your hair, although you've had 4 hair cuts in the past 6 months and you always stick your tounge out, but you've gotten much better about this since your 2 teeth have come in. You are perfect in every way and we can't imagine or remember much of life without you. Happy Birthday, Fisher. Looking forward to MANY more (but try to slow it down a bit, please?) ;)

We love you. -Momma, Daddy, & Trace

First Game at The Box

Last night, I took Trace to his first LSU baseball game at the new Alex Box Stadium. LSU beat Southeastern 7-3, and we had a great time.

Here are some of the highlights of the night:

Eating all the popcorn he wanted:


Watching the game with his friend Cole:

Wait, there's a park here? This definitely put going to an LSU baseball game at the top of his LSU sports list:
Oh yeah, there was a baseball game going on too:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas everybody! We're excited about Trace's 4th and Fisher's 1st Christmas this weekend. Trace has been asking for a blue skateboard for a few weeks now, and Fisher hasn't really asked for anything :) so he'll be surprised with whatever the big guy brings him.

This will be our first Christmas staying home, so we're excited about that too. While we enjoy going to Grand Isle and spending the holiday with the family, with the kids, it has gotten more and more difficult to pack up the house and go out of town for Christmas. We can't wait for the boys to wake up at home Christmas morning to see what Santa brought and to be able to hang out at the house all day and play with their new toys.

Enjoy the holidays and we hope everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Here are a few pictures of the Ballards getting ready for Christmas:

A few weeks ago, we beat the rush and went to the mall for the boys to sit on Santa. It went great, there was no fussing and no wait.

Trace drawing Santa a picture of what he wants:

Mailing his Christmas list:

Checking to see if he's been naughty or nice:

Explaining to Santa exactly what he wants:

Trace and Fisher with the big guy:

Counting down to Christmas:
Opening one of his Advent calendar gifts:

Topping the tree:
Making a Gingerbread house:

Each year for Christmas, our church participates in Advent Conspiracy, which reminds people to worship fully, spend less, give more and love all. One of the ways we gave back was for all the little ones at church to help make cookies to bring to a local fire station. Last weekend, we visited the fire station and delivered the goodies. The fire fighters got some sweet treats and the kids got to play fire fighter for the day:

silly 2010

Retro Flakes American Lung Association Holiday 5x7 folded card

Turn your holiday photos into holiday cards with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas Cards

Every year in November, it's become a tradition that we take family pictures for a Christmas Card. In past years, we've gone all out; and as you can imagine, it gets pretty expensive (the photographer, the pictures, the cards, the outfits, the haircuts, the postage...it all just begins to add up). However, this year we're on a tight budget now that I stay home. I've also become "Budget Nazi" and had all but given up on the idea that we would do a card this year. But I think Ernie could see that this made me sad, so he put his foot down and said, "We're doing them." He said it didn't matter if we had them made and only send out 10 cards, but we should still send them out because (and this is what got me), "It's Fisher's 1st Christmas." And so, the search began for a photographer. Imagine my excitement when I found that our good friend and photgrapher Christi Santangelo (you can find her on FB @ Santangelo Photography) was having a Christmas Special and conducting mini sessions that included 25 cards! I later found another great deal from Shutterfly that included 50 free cards if I write a blog about Christmas Cards, hence me writing this blog! ;) This whole experience of staying home/cutting back on our budget has definately been a challenge, but it's also helped me to become more creative in doing the things we love without going overboard with our spending. :)

Oh, and did I mention how much I love Shutterfly!? ;) Here's some of our Christmas Cards from years past that we've done with them: