Ailee Petrovic

Events February 12, 2020

Madeline Themed Parisian 1st & 3rd Birthday Party

With the Emilia and Georgie’s birthdays exactly a week apart, I decided that we would throw them a joint party this year! When I was pregnant with Georgie, my sweet friends threw me a surprise Madeline/Parisian themed baby sprinkle, and I absolutely loved every detail. A few years ago, I saw a ‘Oui, oui, _____ is three!’ party and knew I wanted to do it for one of the girls’ third birthdays – this just so happen to be the year! So ‘Oui, oui, Emilia is three! Oh how fun, Georgie is one!’ became the motto of the fête.

One of my best friends, Monica, who was the designer-brains behind the baby sprinkle, and I work out together 3-4 times a week. So she got roped into every detail of party planning – a blessing for me, since she is so incredibly talented. We designed the invitations using a graphic from Juan Charles on Fiverr.com, whom I’m used for every one of the girls’ parties for custom coloring sheets. Monica and I game planned every room of the house during our BBG workouts in the garage, and I am was so excited as we started to piece things together in the week leading up to the party. Her Ladurée inspired cake was next level perfection, as were all of her backdrops – but the ‘Bonjour Mes Amis’ welcome mat (inspired by Sézane’s beautiful tiled entrances) was probably my favorite. The biggest thank you to Monica – times a billion! This party would not have happened without her!

I am so grateful for my talented friend, Esther, who owns cuteheads, a beautifully curated girls dress company, who designed the girls’ party frocks and their capes. Madeline herself would have been jealous! My mom made dress up capes for the guests to wear too! We had oodles and oodles of fun balloons throughout the house (including Madeline’s balloons by the front door!) thanks to Tiffany of Glamfetti (the balloon party shop!). The flowers were done by Holly of Flower Vibes, who is as sweet as she is talented. Besides the fabulous cake, we had desserts from Wink by Erica and Sarah Savory and Sweet – and there were almost none leftover! That is saying a lot! One of my best friends, Julie, owns the very successful Young Wild & Friedman, and she made the most precious Parisian-themed mini play dough kits for favors. Everyone is always grateful for some YWF! I made an eleventh hour decision to have a balloon artist at the party for the older kids, and they flocked to Rick! He was such a hit – I’m so glad I hired him from Twist It Up.

Personal February 11, 2020

‘Finding Joy in Chaos’ Workshop with BreAnne Weston

This past weekend, I attended my first photography workshop, and it will be a tough one to ever beat. I’ve followed BreAnne Weston on Instagram since 2016, and I’ve oohed and ahhed over all of her posts ever since. She has this incredible talent at capturing people’s connections and emotions, and I was dying to learn from the best of the best. Sydney and I wanted to attend one of her Finding Joy in Chaos workshops last year, but she was 9 months pregnant, so obviously it didn’t work out. When BreAnne announced her Arizona workshop, we set 10 alarms to make sure we didn’t miss a spot. I learned so, so much during the workshop – from posing queues to client readiness tips. I have three sessions next week and can’t wait to put what I’ve learned into practice. Also, BreAnne is coming to Houston at the end of this month to take family photos! So if you are in the area (or willing to travel), email her!

In between deep dive lessons, we did three photo sessions: one was in-home and the other two in the desert. The families were all so sweet and insanely cooperative – I can’t imagine what my kids would do with 16 photographers paparazzi-ing them! We got to watch BreAnne work her magic, then we all snapped away. The biggest challenge of the day was definitely getting the ‘right’ angle, given the large crowd, but I enjoying watching and learning more than actually photographing on Friday, and we were given opportunities to be at the front of the crowd to individually snap away.

Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention BreAnne’s assistant, Becca (whom I loved), and the other attendees at the workshop. These ladies came from all over – Mississippi, Utah, Arizona, California, Nebraska – and I had the best time sharing stories with them, laughing all the way. They are so incredibly talented and sweet. You can see some of their photos on the workshop hashtag here. My favorite of them all was my bestie, Sydney – very glad we got to experience this together! Below are some photos that were snapped during our three days in Arizona. I am itching to go back already!

Personal February 5, 2020

Happy First Birthday, Georgie Margot!

Today, our sweet baby girl is one year old. I try not to be overly emotional on birthdays, but when I got her from her crib this morning and sang her happy birthday, I definitely shed a few tears. I now understand why ‘babies’ of the family are babied forever. I remember the day she was born so vividly – re-reading her birth story post brought back every emotion we felt on that special day last year.

Sasha and I just re-read Emilia’s first birthday post and Isla’s first birthday post – a fun reminder of what the other two were up to at Georgie’s age. Below are some updates on ‘Georgie at one’!

It’s up for debate exactly how many teeth Georgie currently has. She has three almost fully grown-in teeth on the bottom, one top tooth that is clearly through the gums and three others that are so difficult to check the status on given her wiggly ways. Georgie says, “Mama,” “Dada,” and we are pretty sure it’s Isla she is referring to when she says, “Iya.” She makes this consistent, “Ooooh!” noise when she is excited by things, and it melts me. Just a few days ago, she took her first step – multiple times, but just one step, then drop to a crawl. I can tell her confidence is building though – she stands on her own without support for longer and longer each day. As much as I’m on team “let them be little” and against wishing for the next thing to come, I do love walking! Georgie loves picking things up that she sees when she crawls and putting them in her mouth – hopefully that lessens/stops once she walks.

Personal January 29, 2020

Happy Third Birthday, Emilia Wilkie!

Our Emilia turns three years old today! Perhaps it’s being the second child – or more so a testament to her personality – but I would be lying to say, “I can’t believe she’s three already!” Because she absolutely feels like a three year old to us. She is a chatty cathy who is more quick witted than I am! She honestly makes me laugh more than anyone else I know with her dancing, jokes, dead pan stares and goofy faces.

On Monday night, to kick off being a ‘threenager’ a few days early, Emi told me sternly (pointed finger and all), “You cannot come into my room anymore, it is my room!” Ha – and oh did I squash that sass that quickly! Most of the time, Emi is my little sweetheart (although if you encounter her while she’s hungry or freshly awake, that’s not the word you’d use to describe her!).

The other day, we were accelerating to join the freeway, and as Sasha pushed down on the gas, Emi YELLS, “WHEEEE!!! FASTER DADDY! GO FASTER! DO IT AGAIN!” while Isla is yelling, “SLOW DOWN! THE POLICE ARE GOING TO GET YOU!” Sasha noted that it was the perfect example of how different the two girls are – one is cautious, the other more adventurous. She loves to be the center of attention and definitely eats it up (i.e. hams it up!) when she gets it. Emi loves to sing and dance – she’s always asking Alexa to play “Baby Shark” or “Justin Beavers.”

Emilia loves her baby dolls. She is always carrying at least one. She has names for all of them (approximately 12 babies), but “Big Belly Lulla” (pronounced “Woo-wa”) is still her favorite. She constantly amazes me with her ability to entertain herself. She will spend hours on end alone with her babies, putting them in their beds, giving them food, taking them on walks. She sings little made-up songs to them all of the time.

Emi walks into her closet solo (insists upon it) to dress herself every morning and, therefore, rarely matches. We’re working on this! She is about 90% accurate on putting shoes on the wrong feet. It is very likely if you were to run into her on an average day, she would have three different floral patterns on, her hair styled by herself with a bow or clip placed in a strange place, shoes that are on the wrong feet that absolutely do not match the outfit, ankle socks, and a jacket on. Marches to the beat of her own drum!

At this age, Emi’s favorite foods are cucumbers, “white cheese” (cream cheese), broccoli, macaroni and cheese, seed crackers, strawberry cereal, apples, blueberries, and blueberry waffles. She always chooses “banilla” over chocolate.

Emi loves being carried – constantly. Although she normally wants me to hold her, she is obsessed with her dad. She loves her sisters so much, and her cousin, Milly, is her very best friend. She adores all of her grandparents and loves 1:1 time with them. She always tells me stories about her friends at school too.

Some milestones that she hit this year include: being potty trained in June at 29 months old – it went better than I had expected (just a terrible two days stuck in the house) and transitioning to a big bed at the same time. She learned how to spell her full name (and all her family members) in November and how to write it on her own in December. Emi started Spanish classes in the fall and now know how to say all of her colors, how to count to 20 and some body parts.

We are so in love with this sweet little lady. Watching her grow into the girl she is today has been the biggest treat. I cannot wait to see what she’ll get up to as a three year old. You can read her first birthday post here and her second birthday post here.

Personal January 6, 2020

Georgie at 11 Months

Ohh, these monthly update photos officially became very difficult today – which is great, given that it’s my second to last to do. But how? In less than one month, Miss Georgie Margot will be twelve months old. I am in denial! I think that’s how all of these monthly posts begin though, so to avoid sounding too much like a broken record, I’ll proceed on this month’s milestones.

Georgie flew on four planes during the last month – bringing her total flights to eleven! The flights to and from Colorado were very interesting, given that she is constantly on the go and doesn’t really enjoying sitting still… for many hours at a time. We had delays getting to Durango, which made for lots of peek-a-boo-ing, hand clapping, snack smushing, etc. I pulled out all of the tricks – even tried to convince her to watch Mickey Mouse on an iPad, which she had zero interest in! She took naps in my arms on the way to and from Colorado, which was the first time in ages she had done that – so naturally, I was in heaven.

Georgie Girl ‘cut’ her third tooth this past week – this, coupled with the 11 month separation anxiety, led to lots and lots of time being held by me this month. She continued to love all of the foods I’ve mentioned in previous updates (beans, blueberries, strawberries, broccoli) but added clementines to the list.