Sawyer's 1st Birthday

My brother has turned 1! His first birthday was on July 20, and his first birthday party was on the Saturday after. Over a month ago was my open house, and after planning a lot of that (color schemes, centerpieces, etc..) I wanted to plan another! I asked my mom if I could plan Sawyer's party and she said I could! Within a week I was searching Pinterest for cute ideas for the theme I wanted to go with. My little brother LOVES Elmo. So of course, I went with an Elmo theme! I found an idea for the invites on Pinterest.

 

Next I started searching for cake ideas. Meanwhile, my parents didn't know the theme until the day of the party so this is all fairly secretive. I wanted it to not only be a surprise for my brother, but for my parents as well. I wanted them to be able to enjoy the day instead of having to worry about food, and such. Here are some pictures of the ideas I had gotten from Pinterest.

I thought this was such a cool idea for a banner. We took pictures every month of how old he was, and I just thought this was too cute!

I loved planning this party. He was such a good little boy too! I am so blessed to have someone in my life that is this special to me. Sometimes, I get upset thinking about how my parents had waited to have another kid right before I was leaving, but other times I wouldn't have it any other way. It's such a great feeling to hear him say "sissy" and get excited when I come home already. I sure do hope he starts walking before I leave for MSU though!

 Here are some pictures from his actual birthday the night before!

Thanks for reading today's post.

-alexa

It's been a while.

 My oh my has it been some time since I've posted in my blog. I feel like so much has gone on since I've posted, but most of you could probably guess. 

This is a picture of the dress I wore to my Senior Tea. I bought it online at Modcloth.com. I have been loving vintage clothes lately!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, Alexa Stanton has graduated from high school! I feel like the week before graduation absolutely flew right by. I can also say that I was incredibly nervous to give the closing speech in front of over 1,000 people. I don't know what I was thinking! It turned out very well though :) 4 of my good friends and I decided to do something that has never been done at a graduation. If you have ever been to a basketball, or football game for Lakewood High School, you would know that the student section does something called "rowing". I guess you could call it a viking tradition. Once I was done with my speech, 4 of my friends came up to the bottom of the stage with me and I announced that I would like my class to row one last time. I can't explain how cool it was to see my whole class lock arms and row together. At the end of the row we yell "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!", and we all stood up and threw our caps into the air. Here's a video of my speech and our rowing.

 

After graduation was what our school calls Project Graduation. Basically, our class piles onto a bus and we are taken to a secret destination :) We ended up going to the Grand River in Lansing and we all got onto a Ferry! The Ferry was so cool! There was dancing, and food, and it was a lot of fun. It was kind of like the last hoorah for our class. After the Ferry our advisors took us to The MAC. It's basically like a YMCA, but cooler :) There was swimming, tennis, volleyball, basketball, and of course, snacks.

Right after Graduation, Spencer wanted to take me to Grand Haven for my first time so that's what we did on Memorial Day! I had a blast!

The next thing to look forward to after graduating was my Open House! Knowing me, I wanted everything to be perfect, from my dress, right down to the type of candy in the dishes. One might say they would've thought it was my wedding if they didn't know better ;). It turned out really great! The theme for my open house was more of a garden theme if anything. The colors were yellow (my favorite color) and white. I wore a blue dress, with a necklace which was a picture of me when I was a baby. I wore pearl earrings which my parents gave me as a gift before I graduated, and I also wore a new Fossil watch that my boyfriend, Spencer got for me!

So some big news for me recently.. The plan throughout my Senior year was to go to MSU to become a Registered Nurse. Plans have changed since about the week after my open house. I am now going into the Arts & Letters program at Michigan State University and majoring in Apparel & Textiles. I hope to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and aspire to become a Fashion Designer :)

Currently I am working no longer at Viking Chiropractic, but I babysit two afternoons a week, and every morning until 12 I work in the Onion Field pulling weeds with my pals! It's tiring because of the heat, but at least it's with my friends!

Thanks for reading today's post :)

-alexa