The Butterfly House

While we were at my parents over the Holidays, we went to one of my favorite places: The Butterfly House. It is a botanical garden full of all varieties of butterflies. It is great to go in the winter because it is warm, bright and beautiful. The garden is full of tropical plants and flowers, as well as a small waterfall and stream. The butterflies fly all around you, and if you wear a colorful shirt, they land on you. They even have a section where they show you the transformation of the caterpillar to a butterfly. They have a caterpillar in each cycle. When the caterpillar is ready to emerge from the cocoon as a butterfly, one of the staff shakes the cocoon and the butterfly flies out into the garden. It is really cool to watch and have only seen it once when I was there. Laneah had a great time chasing the butterflies. It was fun watching her (as it always is) learn and discover. I know I've put up a lot of slideshows lately, but when there are multiple pictures, it is just easier to do a slideshow. Enjoy the pictures, I hope you also get to enjoy The Butterfly House someday.

1st Birthday

I know, finally! Sorry for the delay, but I finally have it together (sort of:). Anyway, our sweet little princess had two 1st birthday parties this year. We had one here with our friends and Jason's family and we had one at my family's house on her actual birthday.

The birthday party at our house was butterfly themed with white, purple and pink colors. I made a butterfly cake (which I was very proud of btw). It was a hectic day ( I had thrown the ward christmas party the night before and still had to clean, cook and decorate for Laneah's party). I put up her hanging sign that said "Happy 1st Birthday" and didn't really take a good look at it; only to see if it was straight. Later I looked at the sign and noticed the "a" and "i" were in the wrong place so the sign actually said "Hippy 1st Barthday" ! Luckliy I still had to pick up the balloons from the place I had purchased the sign from and was able to exchange it for a correct one. We ordered some yummy pizza from Papa Johns and people started to arrive. About 20 people came so Laneah was very clingy and shy. We ate and then opened presents. Laneah just clung to me so I had to open the presents and she would play with one hand while holding on to me with the rest of her body. Then we put a candle in the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" and she just looked at us like we were nuts:) I gave her a slice of cake and was hoping she would get really messy, but she was as dainty as she could be and really only tasted a little of the frosting and decided that she had had enough. I gave her a bath and after everyone had left, she had a blast playing with all of her new toys.

The birthday party at my parent's house was all pink princessed themed. (So fun, I love girly stuff. ) We bought Laneah a 1st birthday shirt, a pink frilly tutu, pink tights and pink converse shoes. She looked like a little punk princess. (Poor little thing was really sick, she must have caught a bug before we left. I felt awful that she was sick on her birthday and Christmas). We made cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles. Laneah was much less inhibited at this party because there were just a few people that she knew really well. She actually attempted to open the presents this time. I am surprised that she didn't care about tearing wrapping paper because is always tearing books, magazines, or anything else that you can tear. I guess she only wants to tear things she isn't supposed too:) She even crawled on top of some of the presents and then tried to open them with her teeth:) She had a great time with her new presents and chasing the kitten. Anyway, I made a slideshow of some of the pictures from her birthday parties. There are a lot of cute ones. Enjoy!