happy 1st birthday, cora beth!

Lord, help me, but my niece has turned a year old already! How has this happened? I don't understand where that whole year went...but sure enough, it did. And the sweet baby girl that turned our family's world upside down & inside out with love a year ago has reached her first birthday. And we partied in style to celebrate!

It was a ladybug theme -- perfect! -- and my sister-in-law had really cute decorations and an awesome ladybug cake to match! They held the party ON Cora Beth's birthday, July 25, this past Saturday, at their home in Thomasville. We had a great turnout of family & friends to help celebrate her special birthday. She did wonderfully, but then...I knew she would. She's such a good girl. :)

Enjoy some of the photos I took during the celebration:

CAKE FIRST!

THEN GIFTS!

[this kid loves her some books!]

[this cracked me up because this is OUR gift to her!]

[you know I had to throw some artistic reflection in here...]

[...and me and the sweet birthday girl!]

For more photos from her party, click here.

cora beth's birthday invitation

I apologize for the length of time between now and the last post. Haven't had much to post on this blog lately. Until now. :)

I have been working on a very special project -- it's actually been done for a couple weeks now, but I'm just now getting a chance to post it here.

My niece, Cora Beth, is turning a year old a week from today. Can you BELIEVE that?? She has been a joy to all of us since the day she made her appearance almost a year ago. I personally haven't seen her in about 2 1/2 months (I'm not even going to speak of the withdrawals I'm having...) but I know she has changed so much just in that brief time. I can't WAIT to see her next weekend at her 1st birthday party!

Daniel & Brandi asked me to design her birthday invitation and, of course, I was so very proud and honored to do that for them, for Cora Beth. Brandi decided on a ladybug theme and actually found the cute wording that I put on the invitation. I had a really great time designing it and I'm very pleased with how it turned out:

best 11 years of my life...

I was a little busy over the weekend so I'm just now getting a chance to type this special post -- Jeff and I celebrated 11 years of marriage on Saturday, June 20, and it has been THE BEST 11 years of my life!

Jeff is so good for me and to me...God truly created him just for me. I love him with all that I can hold in my heart; he is my very best friend.

Happy Anniversary, babe! I look forward to sooo many more wonderful years with you!

[photo taken by Julie S. Mixon, July 2008, Surf City, NC]

rivenbark wedding

Jeff and I went to a wedding last Saturday...the last one we'll go to for awhile, I guess. All the rest of our peeps are married. A couple in our Sunday School class at church, Adam & Whitney, got married and it was just lovely. We haven't known them that long but we've come to love them just the same. We're so glad we were able to be a part of their special day.

It was during their reception at the fabulous Hilton Riverside in downtown Wilmington that I learned something very important about my camera. Jeff actually mentioned it , and while it was something I'd read about in the manual when I first got my camera, I had forgotten about it. I have a button on the top of my camera that looks like a little flower and you want to use that feature when taking close-up shots of anything. Here's what happens when you take advantage of your camera's features:

Isn't that a really cool shot? It was really dim inside the reception hall so most of the photos I took didn't turn out that great because of that. But this one turned out pretty cool because I could use flash and that cool "flower feature". I love how the tag on the top of the box is really clear & crisp and everything from there out just sort of blurs out. Thanks, babe, for that.

Thought I'd throw this photo in, too, of me and Whitney. I did a little bit of color editing to this one. I played around with filters and blending options, too, but just didn't get any kind of effect that I really liked. We don't really need any editing, do we? :)

a walk down memory lane...

A year ago this week, we were having the time of our lives somewhere in the Western Caribbean on our very first cruise...let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

[video done in Sony Vegas Movie Studio]

shower project x 2

Alright, as promised, I'm posting the invitation I designed for Elizabeth's shower this coming Saturday. The top of the invitation has an image that belongs to Elizabeth -- it's a paper project that one of her fellow bloggers created for her after Elizabeth sent her some homeade papers. Elizabeth is planning to use it in the baby's nursery somehow so I thought it would be special to use it on the invitation in some way, too.

Here's how it came out:

Save the date!

It is absolutely ridiculous how long I've been meaning to post this project. Way back at the beginning of March, I decided I wanted to throw my friend, Elizabeth, a baby shower and we set the date for a week from Saturday (May 16). So yes, as you can see the shower is nearly upon us...I should've written this post long ago.

Since we set the date out that far, I wanted to send a "save-the-date" postcard to increase our chances of having a good turnout for the shower. Elizabeth will be coming from Wake Forest, a good 2 to 2.5 hour trip, for the shower and I really want it to be worth her while to come. Also, I know how MY calendar fills up as we get into spring & summer and I wanted folks to have a heads up about the shower.

Elizabeth's fave color is red (and she does wonders with it!) and so she's incorporating that into the baby's nursery as well. From what I've seen on her blog, it is going to be a fantastic space, full of energy and fun. I can't wait to see the nursery finished!

I decided to go with that for the shower as well, and try to incorporate some of the elements she's going to use in the nursery. Here's what I came up with:

I have since mailed out the invitations so I'll be posting that in the next day or two (hold me to that, would ya? :) and you'll be able to see how I coordinated that. Had such fun designing both! I've been picking up items here and there this week for the shower -- I'm getting really excited!