We celebrated my niece Eliza’s third birthday with dress up clothes. What a perfect set up for fun photos!
My 3-year-old Niece’s Dress Up Party
02/27/2014
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Eliza is 2!
03/12/2013My niece Eliza turned two a couple weeks ago and I haven’t yet shared the photos from her party. I was looking forward to doing a lot of testing with my new camera with all the cute little subjects but neglected to make sure my battery was charged. Oops.
Ali and Eliza are good buddies. They talk about each other ALLTHETIME. Eliza is always asking for “Please See Ali” and Ali is always asking for “Ey-za.” These two cousins who are 5 months apart could not be more different in appearance and personality. They balance each other out wonderfully and I hope their friendship gets deeper and deeper as they grow up.
Happy 2nd Birthday, Eliza! You make me smile. 🙂
The party is over. Everybody get out of my room so I can chill out!
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Cousin Love
04/17/2012Just a month ago, my siblings and their spouse and kids came to visit from Pennsylvania. Two weeks later, Jason’s older brother Steve, his wife Char and their 3-year-old Aiden came to visit, too. It was so wonderful to see everyone. The cousins met each other for the first time. They were very sweet together…lots of hugging and kissing going on. We went out to dinner and ice cream one night.
Char with Precious and Aiden, being silly at Oscar’s Taco Shop:
…and looking normal:
Uncle Jason and Aunt Martina with Aiden at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams:
Another day we had a cookout at my in-laws house. I didn’t do a very good job of documenting the adults. Oops. The three cousins had fun playing together.
The three Ahlbrandt cousins looking sleepy together after dinner and afternoon of playing:
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Easter 2012
04/12/2012I had every intention of getting a photo of the three of us all dressed up for church on Easter…but it just didn’t happen. After church, we had lunch at Cheesecake factory with both sets of parents plus Jason’s brother Dan, our sister-in-law Ginger and Precious’ cousin Eliza.
These two couldn’t be more different but I hope they grow up to be great friends. This photo just cracks me up:
After we all had afternoon naps, it was time for a quick photo shoot of our beautiful baby girl. (Jason and I had already changed into our comfy clothes.)
These two have a special relationship. Jason can make her giggle and laugh more than anyone else. She says “Dada” 30x a day—that’s 30x more than any other word. He adores her. And she adores him. It’s almost like she knows she came THISCLOSE to growing up without a daddy, but he fought hard for her—we both did—and Father God did a big miracle for our family in allowing us to stay together.
3 Comments | Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends, Family: Jason, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: 2012, cousin, easter, Eliza, Family, Jason, precious | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Eliza’s First Birthday
02/28/2012My first-born niece turned 1 on Friday.
It doesn’t feel like February 24, 2011 was so long ago.
On Saturday, we celebrated her birthday party out at my in-law’s house. It was a fun party.
Ginger makes the best birthday cakes.
Dan, Ginger and Eliza
Mmm… strawberry cake!
Aunties and couzies. Yeah, we’re nerds.
This sequence was funny. We were trying to get a good picture of the three 2011 babies together. Jaron started fussing…
Precious offered him her thumb. Works for her!
Jaron made a disgusted face. Precious looked at her thumb like What just happened? Eliza was impressed.
Three little buddies. Four months old, seven months old, 1 year old. Chocolate, Caramel and Vanilla.
Happy Birthday, Eliza! Glad we could celebrate with you!
2 Comments | Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: birthday, cousins, Eliza, Family, one year old, party | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
A Baby Shower for Eliza!
12/02/2010
Two Saturdays ago I hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law and my little niece, Eliza (with lots of help from Ginger’s friends and Eliza’s grandma and my mom.) Baby girl is due around Valentine’s Day so we decided to go for a love-hearts-valentine theme. I didn’t take as many pictures as I should have but thankfully our dear photographer friend, Beth Rose was there with camera in hand. Here are some pictures I did take.
One of the food tables, before guests arrived:
(Do you love IZZE as much as I do? Just fruit juice and carbonated water. And it’s pretty, too!)
Tables set up before guests arrived:
The favor and craft table. We had two crafty activities: a hair accessory making station and a bunch of handmade Valentines and a mailbox for welcome notes and prayers for baby Eliza.
My beautiful sis-in-law Ginger, the mom-to-be!
Guests:
We played two games. The first one everyone had 5-10 minutes to sculpt a baby out of playdoh. That’s all the instructions I gave. Once everyone was done, I asked Ginger to select the most realistic, the funniest and the most hideous. The other game we played was baby shower bingo, where partiers mark off items on a pre-made bingo card as the mama is opening her gifts. I downloaded the bingo cards free from here.
In the hallway we set up a photo “booth” with silly props to encourage ladies to pose in front of the camera. It turned out to be a lot of fun. These photos were taken by Beth Rose Goin:
Ginger and me:
Ginger and her sister Crystal (Eliza is the one with the glasses and mustache):
I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the photos BR took. But not as much as I’m looking forward to meeting my baby niece in a couple months! It was a really fun time and most importantly I think Ginger felt the love for her, Eliza and dad-to-be Daniel from their friends, family and co-workers.
3 Comments | Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends | Tagged: baby shower, Eliza, Family, framily, niece | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
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