Lego land birthday

This year we decided to offer Nolan to either have a party or invite one friend over to spend the night and that we would go Lego land. Thank goodness he chose Lego land. Don't get me wrong, I love to throw a birthday party but with his party only weeks after Landry, a little break in party planning was nice.

My parents came to watch Landry and we took Nolan, his friend and Campbell to Lego land. I gotta say that I don't understand the fascination with legos, but I do love how much they creativity out in my boys. They could play with them for hours.

I'm not sure who had the most fun out of all my kids...including my biggest one.

My favorite part was seeing the the little Lego towns that looked just like DFW. Way too much. Of course I would love the part that remind me of a doll house.

I gotta say, I'm really sold on this kind of party. I'm hoping we might just be able to talk him into something like this every year.

First and last day of 1st grade

Nolan just finished up his last day of 1st grade. It's so hard to believe I have an almost 2nd grader!

Here he is on the first and last day of 1st grade. Good to know that he wanted to be an astronaut at the beginning of the year and I asked him now and he said he wanted to be a ninja.

Can you say parenting fail? Imagination counts for something, right?

 

Here's a pic of all his first and last days of school so far in elementary. 

The top left pics are his first and last day of kinder. I think kinder is when he changed the most. Look at that baby face with the red shirt on.

He said this was the pose that they made him do for school pictures so he did it completely unprompted. Can you tell he's a photog kid? And is it just me or does he looks like he's in high school here?

First grade has been a great year. He's an amazing reader and his artistic skills always amaze me. I'm so so proud of this sweet little boy. It's a little bittersweet being the end of the year at Chisholm Ridge because Nolan has done so well, learned so much and had great teachers both years. I'm praying for an easy transition to his new school. I loved being able to peek in on him during the day every now and then and just blowing him a kiss in the hall when I saw him pass by. He still waves at me like he hasn't seen me in weeks.

Ok I have to stop talking about it or I'll start crying.

Here's to a new chapter in both of our lives.

Basketball season

Well, I’m super late on this seeing that basketball season has been done for about a month now. I could make a hundred excuses why I’m so late. I work two jobs, have three kids, blah blah blah but then you hear it from me nearly every month because that’s about how often I write posts anymore. I’ll save my my-life-is- so-hectic soliloquy for another day.

My husband, Justin, has a slight obsession with basketball, but when you grow up in a state that lives and breathes it, it’s just in your blood. Plus, the fact that he’s 6’4” had coaches hunting him down to play.

This is the second year that Nolan’s played. While he may not be the most coordinated on the team, I gotta say that he shown a lot of growth. He was one of the youngest on the team, which made him look short….something I not used to. He’s usually one of the tallest. 

I’m not proud to admit that my most competitive side comes out at my kids’ games. I mean I’m not one of those yelling-at-the-refs type of parent but I do tell my kids to hustle. Nolan was a great hustler. In fact, I think that sometimes he was more concerned with racing the other kids to the other end of the court than he was in making a basket or anything else. But hey, at least my kid was running, right?

Basketball is a hard sport especially for young ones. I didn’t start playing until I was in middle school and even then it was difficult for me. Ok, I tried out for the team and didn't even know what a lay up was. Yikes.

But do you see my boy having fun with that big ol' grin? Makes those weekly practices worth it after a long day.

Probably the cutest part of the whole season was Campbell wanting to go to every single practice to watch his bubba and wearing Nolan’s jersey from last to every game. He said that he was tricking everyone that he was on the team. He wants to play so badly but we’re going to wait a little longer since it takes so much coordination for him. Landry was the sweetest little cheerleader at every game and it actually really kept her interest, amazingly enough!

We’re so proud of Nolan for this season and how hard he worked.  

Circle of Life continues

Santa brought Nolan a bike without training wheels when he was 6. We rode it and I thought it would never happen but we finally got him to ride that thing a year later. It was just a couple of weeks ago that he could ride without one of us running right next to him.

I remember a particular photo in Justin's baby book as I was watching this proud father/son moment. I told Justin that it reminded me of the photo and I just had to grab my camera so I had it for Nolan's baby book one day.

They were both 7 when they really learned to ride a bike. The one on the left is Justin circa 1981 in Kentucky and Nolan now in 2013 in Texas. .

 

I think the only difference is that we didn't believe in helmets in 1981! I hadn't seen this photo in years, and honestly I was trying to just get the darn thing in focus. Lucky break that it was the same angle and that Justin and his dad are both sporting beards! Twilight zone. Welcome to my life every holiday when I'm with him, my father-in-law and brother-in-law in the same room at the same time. 

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.

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. 

Tonsil fairy

My poor Nolie Polie suffered through 7 cases of strep throat through his kindergarten year. I think his teacher thought I let him go around licking doorknobs with how many times he got it.

We finally went to an ENT and he recommended having his tonsils taken out. We had to put it off until the summer so that we'd have time off school. The week leading up to the surgery we played HARD...swimming every day, riding bikes, playing outside because I'd heard horror stories about how kids recover from tonsillectomies.

So this past week we had the surgery. The staff at Cook Children's Hospital Northeast is amazing. They had him smiling and laughing the second he walked in the door. There was even a fun house mirror to greet us.

Soon after that they even gave his horsey a fire hat...never know what might happen in surgery.

He was so smiley and happy before the surgery and I just kept thinking, "Poor thing doesn't even know how bad it's going to hurt."

They gave him some giggle juice and he started to get really mellow. About 30 minutes later they took him back. He kept looking back at me as they were wheeling him away. It doesn't matter how routine of procedure it is, when you're a mama, you're a nervous wreck about your baby. The night before I hardly slept. I guess I didn't realize how nervous I really was!

After 15 minutes, Dr. Palmer came and told us he was doing great and that his adenoids had grown back and so he took those as well. When we went back to see him, he already had his rainbow popsicle and was pretty groggy. But within 15 minutes, he said, "I'm hungry!" I couldn't believe he wanted to eat after that.

We've been on a diet of scrambled eggs, yogurt, applesauce and ice cream the past few days. The day of the surgery we went to Orange Leaf to treat him to yogurt.

Friday and Saturday he went around the house like normal talking about how great he felt and then this pretty much sums up Sunday-Thursday. I think the scabs are forming and falling off.

I've been setting my alarm to give him his pain medicine. It feels like having a newborn all over again. Hoping that my Nolie Polie feels better really soon.

Here's to hoping that 1st grade doesn't include strep!