A Kentucky visitor

We had a visitor at the beginning of September. Gram flew in to celebrate Landry's 1st birthday and I'm the slacker that just now getting around to posting about it.

She came the perfect time for me. I was so so overwhelmed at the beginning of the year and needed an extra hand. Dinners were cooked several nights and she was nominated to be on my party planning committee. She was a lifesaver!

  Miss Landry loved all that attention and loving that she got from Gram. 

We took a moment to enjoy the birthday present that we got for Landry. Her very own swing on our play ground. I think we made a good choice.

 

I needed a weekend like this, just family and time to just play. Life has been so insanely busy lately. I soak up every moment that's like this because I want my life to have more moments just like these.

 It seems like since we bought the swing for the kids, our playground has gotten a new level of attention. Campbell has FINALLY learned to swing by himself since starting Pre-K. I thought I was going to see that boy belly swinging forever. So now it's a race to the swings after school every day.

Sister even took a ride down the slide for the first time. I think she'll be out there running around with her brothers in no time.

 This was my favorite picture of the day. I love Julie's face in this and my allergy-ridden Nolan having a sneeze attack mid picture. He's usually the one who's looking away because of his over-reactive allergies when I'm looking for a nice family pose.

Thank you Gram for all that you do. You have no idea how much a cooked dinner can do for an overworked and exhausted mommy like myself. We can't wait until your next visit!

Nolan's 7th pARTy

I've been dreaming of this art party for years, long before Pinterest. Of course, Pinterest only fueled the fire and upped the bar to make me feel like I might be the cheapest mom on the planet.

Nevertheless, an art party was made for Nolan, so I was so excited when he said he wanted one. Although on the day of the party, it looked as though our theme was "Noah's Ark" with the torrential downpour that happened all.day.long. There goes the playground idea.

The hard thing about art is that kids either do it in 20 seconds or they take hours, but I think it kept them occupied just long enough. The favors were fun to make and it was the perfect time of year with school supplies. Bonus!

Of course, Justin made the tag that said, "Thanks for making my birthday a masterpiece." The little crayons were actually erasers and I think they were the most excited about those rather than the paint.

Double bonus that the art theme went perfectly with using the same banner and bright colors as Landry's rainbow party. We had another amazing cake that did not disappoint that was created by a speech teacher at my school. She is so talented.

 The kids went nuts when we cut into the cake and they realized it was rainbow colored, perfectly going with our bright paint theme.

I stole the Rice Krispie paint brush idea off Pinterest and the kids loved them. All the letters that were used for the canvases were cut from my Cricut, of course.

 

The easels for their nametags were just popsicle sticks that were already painted from the Dollar Tree that I hot glued together.

 

 I stole the idea of the beret and the mustache from my dear friend, Andrea, who also had an art party for her daughter. See, I'm just full of original ideas, huh? By far, this hat and mustache were the hit of the party to make our masterpiece photos complete.

Once the kids were done painting, we peeled off the stickers to reveal their names in the negative space, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. 

Although, not all the kids were a fan of the mustache, even sweet baby Blake played along.

Our friends are officially the most wonderful people to get out on such a nasty day to make it to Nolan's birthday. They helped participate in the art party because I definitely needed some parent involvement on this party since there was so much to do. The babies just played and Landry worked on her grocery store feet getting nice and dirty.

 

And these poor girls are just forced to be sisters because there are just too many stinky boys in our families. 

And in perfect McDonald fashion, right when I lit the candles, Nolan bumped into a friend and his front tooth started gushing blood.

We quickly dried up his tears and my Nolie Polie smiled with pride as we sang him "Happy Birthday" and I tried my best to hold it together. 

Next was opening presents and don't worry, Nolan's not angry in the photo below. That is his I'm so happy, I could hug your face off expression.  The beret was a nice touch for the photos, especially with the front tooth gap. 

Priceless.

I pretty much summed it up to be the worst party in the books after our torrential downpour with no kids being able to play on the playground, the front tooth gushing blood, and balloons that were laughable they were so small. 

But on the way home, with his toothless lisp he tells me, "Mommy, you deserve snuggles because you threw such a great party." 

And that's why I do it, folks. 

I'm so grateful to this little boy that made me a mama for the first time. He made my dream come true and I've been smiling ever since. He'll never know how he changed my life for good just by entering this world seven years ago.

Look who just turned ONE!

Well, I couldn't help but take some pictures of my beloved birthday girl for her one year old photo shoot. I've had a couple of practice rounds taking some one year old pics so I was excited to get some of my sweet Landry Kate.

All was going pretty well with the photo shoot. Sister was bringing out the oober cuteness factor.

 

And then our first mishap happened. Just as I put her in the basket, I had really cute balloons attached but they flew away before I even snapped a picture. 

 

No big deal, she's so adorable she didn't even need balloons to make her picture cute.

 

 

She was clapping to "If you're happy and you know it" like it was nobody's business.

And we even snuck in a picture of all three looking at the camera at once! Key word: "at once" It's a miracle!

But then things turned south pretty quickly. We decided to give the cupcake smash a second try thinking that it was maybe just a fluke that she didn't like it at her birthday. She gave it another whirl but seriously, this girl doesn't like cupcakes but she sure can tear up a bowl of ice cream.

 

Shortly after these pictures were taken  fussing and fit throwing began and bright pink icing was E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. 

Our white high chair looks someone with bright pink lipstick just made out with it. Oh well. It made for some sweet pictures. 

All in all minus the balloons flying away and the forced feeding of sugar we did to our child, the first photo shoot was a success!

Soccer mom x 2

We've been fighting it for about 3 years now. Nolan started playing soccer and we'd tote Campbell along to the games and chase him all over the field as we "watched" Nolan play. Campbell wanted to play so badly and we just kept promising him that when he turned 4 he could play.

Wellll.....he's 4.

Dang, that was a quick 4 years. And now that toddler that I used to chase at games is in uniform and holy cuteness he looks adorable in it.

 

We had a feeling this little guy would be our athlete but we didn't expect him to be the first one to score this season and within 30 seconds of the game starting. He scored two goals in his first game and last week he scored six. This boy was on fire and playing some good defense too! 

 

He is living and breathing soccer now. He completely copies what his coach says (who is so wonderful and patient) when he plays soccer at home and can't wait for practice and games.

 

Nolan is playing soccer again as well. Yes, two boys in soccer.  And no, I don't know what I was thinking. Nolan was on the same team with the same kids for years and we were undefeated. Well this year it seems like everyone disbursed and so it's all new team members. I think Nolan and one other teammate are the only ones that have ever played soccer. So I think we're going for the "Bad News Bears" record this year. It's all for fun, right?

Justin somehow got roped into being the coach. You know, because we don't have enough to do.  He feels bad when the team loses that he's somehow a bad coach. But I just remind him that Nolan will have no recollection of his wins/losses, only that his daddy was the coach. Nolan doesn't seem to mind the losing record. He's having fun. 

I've got my trusty crew on the sideline helping watch the games. 

 

After Campbell's game we went on and on about how proud we were of him and he said, "Let's talk about it some more." So as insane as I think I might be trying to work full time, get two kids to soccer practice and having games all day on Saturdays, I know that it's the right thing. It's getting them active, building their confidence and giving us more time together to spend as a family. 

First day of 1st grade!

So just as I'm getting over dealing with my baby turning one I'm dealing with my oldest starting 1st grade. AHHH! It's too many milestones for one mom to stay emotionally stable!

I love having Nolan at school with me. Seeing him in the hall waving like crazy to me and blowing kisses will put any bad day into perspective. The bad part about me being at school with him is that I'm always working when it's "Meet the Teacher" night. Luckily, I have one amazing husband who wrangled three young kids and was the parent so I could work.

This year he has Ms. Shue whom he already loves and talks about daily. He's totally crushin' already on her.

 

And here's my big kid on the first day of 1st grade. It was the first day of school for both of us. Can you tell we're sleepy? As for now, he wants to be an Astronaut when he grows up. It sounds like he could support me when I get old and wear diapers, so I'm cool with it.

 

Here's Nolan with his beloved kinder teacher, Ms. Japhet, his 1st grade teacher, Ms. Shue and the principal of our school, Mrs. Villines.

 

Nolan loves school which I absolutely cherish and pray that he always has a love for learning. 

 

He came home from the first day of first grade and said, "I already feel like a 1st grader!" Wow, that was quick!

 

And this is where I almost lose it because the photo on the left is my baby boy starting Kindergarten last year and here he is in the same hall on the right with this noticeable confidence looking like he's grown 5 inches in a year. 

 

By the time this boy is in 5th grade, I'll have to be down the hall just trying to get him in the frame of the picture because he's grown so much. 

Happy 1st birthday to Landry!

Yes, you read that right. My baby girl, you know that one that I was pregnant with for ETERNITY in the blazing summer heat, she's one today. As in 12 months. Sorry I'm saying that more to convince myself than anything. Denial sums it up.

Seriously. It seems like it took forever for Nolan to turn one. I'm guessing it was the new parent thing. But Landry's first year of life has been the fastest of my entire life, hands down.

For the first time out of all my kids, I finally did what I said I was going to do and we had a family party. My best friend, Angi and my sister's best friend, Sheri, came too but they're pretty much considered family. And what kind of party do you throw for a bright and happy sweet baby girl? Well, a rainbow party, of course!

Before you go thinking that I'm so creative, stop. Really, it's all stolen ideas off Pinterest. Seriously, I love that thing. It takes all he brain power out of putting together a party.

 

I did make the rainbow subway art. Yes, I did something without completely relying on my graphic artist husband. Can you believe it? Even our food was rainbow themed...rainbow goldfish, fruity pebble treats, twizzler and marshmallow party favors, and a rainbow fruit tray.

 

I had these little rainbow leg warmers long before I knew I was going to do a rainbow party, so double rainbow score on that! 

 

I made the ribbon high chair decoration just from my stash because if you don't know me very well, then you must not know that I have a SLIGHT ribbon obsession that was only brought to "out of control" level once Landry came in the picture. It's all her fault ;)

 

As for the hat, I saw one on Etsy and since I'm the cheapest person on the planet, I attempted to make it because I refused to pay $20 for a party hat made out of paper. 

This is the point in the party where I thought we might need to have her DNA checked because she was a little Miss Priss about her smash cake. I like to live vicariously through my children at their first birthdays because I secretly wish that it was acceptable to eat my cupcake as an adult like most babies do.

 

A teacher at my school made both cakes for me and I think she needs to quit her day job. Seriously, it was this bright and so so good. I found myself sitting with the leftover cake eating it with a fork without cutting a piece. Don't judge.  

 

After we gave her a bath with rainbow colors floating all in the tub, it was time for presents!  Sister was spoiled with the cutest clothes and games that she can't stop playing with. My baby has a good excited.

 

She was even showing off her newly acquired walking skills. My one and only child actually taking steps at their first birthday! SLOW down, Landry!

 

We had so much fun at our family party and Landry hasn't quite yet learned that you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.  It cracked me up that she was too Miss Priss for her messy cake but not so much for nose picking.

 

A HUGE thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law for cutting out water labels and streamers and helping so so much. Having a baby with a birthday during the first week of school made a really stressed mama, but it was a blast and made for some wonderful memories.