Lately

The Budweiser Clydesdales were in town a couple days this week and my mother really wanted to take the kids to see them. 

They were HUMUNGO. And so pretty.

Lucy was loving it.

As we were about to leave, we saw my friend Amy and her boys, so we stayed to play with them and waited to watch the horses leave.

I don't know about you, but Ryder looks like he could pass as a Barry brother. They all three have the exact same hair. Its pretty awesome.

While we waited on them to leave Lucy snacked....

...and Ryder cheesed it up. Of course he doesn't look at the camera though. This kid always looks down and to the side when I take his picture.

The Clydesdales were at the amphitheater, so of course they had a band playing. Lucy decided it was a great time to bust out her new moves.

Yea....she doesn't have shoes on. She did come with shoes, BUT I felt bad because we were in a rush to get out there before the horses left so I crammed her feet in these shoes that honestly should have been stored away a month ago. I decided it would be fine for her to be barefoot for 20 min. She lived :) And on a productive note I rounded up all of her shoes that have been lingering in random rooms of the house and put them back were they belong and purged all the too little shoes from her closet. 

Yay, dinner has been eaten, baths have been taken and now its off to bed! Oh buddy, I was freaking exhausted.

We have some fun things planned for this weekend including a baby shower, birthday party, and maybe a trip to see the Blue Angels! As in a trip to the Northport Wal-Mart parking lot......we learned our lesson the first year people.

What do you have going on?

Spring is Here!

My poor Ryder has been really sick for the past couple of days. He went in for his 4 year check up and had a little bit of fever and goop coming out of his eyes. The doctor said it was pinkeye and gave us a prescription for drops. The next morning he was running a fever and has been every day since. He has been laying around, not wanting to eat much and is really pitiful. 

So, since we have been chained to the house so Ryder can get well I have been taking miss Lucy outside and letting her roam around the yard. Unlike Ryder this girl doesn't need anyone to play with. She will go sit in a pile of clovers and just pick them until I tell her to stop. 

Since Spring (or maybe Summer since it was 85 degrees yesterday!) is officially here I decided it would be fun to let Lucy play in the hose.

Oh man, get ready. There were smiles and tears. 

Her first little taste of playing with the hose this year. Look how cute and timid she's being.....

I turned the pressure up a little at this point. Still being kind of shy about it. Don't worry, she'll get into it. *Side note: She found this Alabama pacy somewhere in the laundry room. It was Ryders. You know, back when he took a pacy....when he was like a month old....

There's that smile!

 

Oh Snap. She loves it. 

  

Apparently the Advil started to kick in. Ryder peeked out the window and saw how much fun the sis was having and wanted to join in :) I'm glad he felt just a little better.

  

At this point Lucy was still being pretty sweet about letting Ryder play in the water. The key here though is that she was still the one holding the hose. Ryder doesn't like to get wet, which is good, because a sick kid + getting drenched with a hose doesn't sound like a plan. He stayed pretty much dry except for that little bit on his pants. 

And here we are. Ryder wants a turn with the hose. And I can't stress enough how sweet he is. He asks Lucy so politely for a turn......she didn't like that too much...

"Oh my God, MOM! Do you not see that he took it away from me?! DO SOMETHING!" No girl.

"Seriously, why aren't you stopping him!" 

"Alright, this is just getting ridiculous. Watch out, I'm about to go all out."

 Oh and believe me she pitched a big one. Another spank(seriously, the 12,000 of the day) and a little redirection and we are on to playing happily in a puddle.

Ryder finally gets that crazy girl off his back. He doesn't even pay her any attention when she is acting like that. Its so often and over every little thing that he has just learned to tune her out. I really can't wait til this phase is over with.

 

Shortly after, George gets home from work. Man, this face is awesome!

And he informs Luce that it's time to go inside. This is the face she makes when hearing the sad news. Um hello, do we not see how busy she is watering the driveway??

When she doesn't do what we say("put the hose down, lets go") George holds her hand herding her towards the door.

Here you are about to see the 3 stages of a her silent protest.

Stage 1: Throws her head back and arches her back

Stage 2: Goes completely limp

Stage 3: Plays dead and lays on the ground. Does she care that she is outside soaking wet and in the grass? Nope. She doesn't discriminate on where she will do the silent protest.

SWEET JESUS. She is a hot mess. For some balance, I thought I would throw this little sweet nugget in: If you are laying on the couch and there is a blanket beside you, she will cover you up. If you are crying, she will very sweetly rub your cheek and make a "shhhing" sound :) And she loves to give kisses.

See, in case you thought I wanted to send my 18month off to boarding school the fact is that she makes up for the crap moments. Most of the time...

*pic from here

Here is what is swilring around in my life lately.

• I can't wait for summer to get here. Occasionally in the summer I would go sit in my backyard and read a book and let the sun dry my hair while Lucy was napping. Of course I can't do this everyday, but on the days I did I was so relaxed.
• Our washing machine broke last week. Well, it would go through all the cycles perfectly but it wouldn't agitate. Thank goodness my dad had a super old one from the 80's in storage that works. If it works that is all I care about. Plus, it washes our clothes in half the time the other washer did. Win.
•  We haven't been going to bed until almost midnight lately. I don't know how George and I got on this path, but it is not a good one to be on. Tonight we are going to bed at 10:30, if not sooner!
• Ryder has been having some sleep issues as well. About 6 months ago we let him sleep in our room because Lucy would just scream and scream when it was time to go to sleep. So we thought it was pretty cruel to make Roe stay in the room and listen to her scream. We let him stay in our room until she stopped that nonsense. Well, Lucy is now a champion sleeper.........and Ryder is still in our room. If we even mention that he is going to sleep in his room he breaks down into a panic. What have we done! He used to be so fine with sleeping in his own room. In the dark, alone, with the door closed. Now he is "scared of the dark". I am going to start preparing him today that he and Lucy are both going to sleep in their beds tonight. It will be a rough week, but I have to get my room back! I just wish I could sit in my room and read a book before bed, but I can't when a 4 year old needs to sleep. Im thinking a sleep machine will be a great help in this. I get it, silence & darkness are creepy sometimes. 
• I have recently discovered dry shampoo. IT IS AMAZING. My hair is super oily. I can shower at 10 pm, go to bed, wake up at 7:30 and it looks like I haven't washed my hair in 5 days. It would be so much easier to take shower at night and then all I have to do in the a.m. is get dressed, straighten my hair, wash my face, brush my teeth and put make up on. Dove makes some that is about $5 a can. It has only been 2 weeks and I have already went through 3 cans though. It doesnt last very long thats for sure. Bumble and Bumble makes some that I am sure is way better and lasts longer, but I haven't convinced George that it's worth it to drop $35 on dry shampoo. 
• Grocery shopping is on my list of ToDo's today.....which is always a fun chore with two kids in tow. Saracasm. 

What do you have going on in your life?

 

Hi-Ya! It's a Ninja Birthday Party!

Friday night was Ryder's Ninja Birthday Party! IT. WAS. AWESOME.

We had his party in the children's area at my church and it was perfect. The floors of the children's area need some major TLC, but we are working on it. And there is a random map of Canada rug hanging out in there......not really sure where that came from.

Anyway, here we go!

Ryder was so happy! You know how sometimes you think they don't really notice little details, but then later they recall specific things and tell you thank you? Well, this happened a lot over the weekend :) Man this kid needs a hair cut. Oh Heather! Where are you!!!

We hung balloons from the ceiling with bad guy faces drawn on them. The kids loved hitting them. The plan was that they were going to have "Ninja Training". First they would break boards, then hit then pinata, then finally they could attack the bad guys. Real World: those kids ran right in, picked up a sword, and started swatting. We had to make them come over and break boards and hit the pinata. Seriously, if you are looking for a rainy day activity, hang balloons all over your house.

 

Willow was a pro at breaking boards. She is one of the cutest kids on this planet. I mean, HELLO, blonde curls, gorgeous. We bought a huge sheet of insulating Styrofoam at Home Depot, cut it down to the size of boards, and spray painted them to look like wood. George scored them with a knife so when the kids punched them it broke in half. They loved it.

 George kept asking them to head butt the boards. Umm, do ninjas head butt things? This isn't soccer George.......Willow knows what Im talking about. He's crazy.

Either way, Ryder gave it a try :)

 I looked and looked and looked everywhere online for a Ninja pinata. I couldn't find one, so I decided to just make one myself. One of my fav blogs did a tutorial a while back on how to make a number pinata. I figured the idea could be applied to any shape, so I set to work. I got a huge Amazon box out of storage and stacked two pieces of cardboard together. Then I drew out my ninja, cut him out, and cut four 4" wide strips of cardboard. Then I got out my tape and started taping the two pieces together, with the strips of cardboard as the border, if that makes sense. After I had what looked like a 3' tall gingerbread man I got out tissue paper and started fringing it, then hot glued it on in layers. It took me a solid five hours to make him from start to finish, but it only cost $1.50 to make. So I say it was a win. If you want the actual tutorial with way better explanation, go here. Really, you can do it! It took a long time, but it was worth it I think!

Miss Lucy decided to dive face first into a cupcake. Even though it's super cute it had to get wiped off.....

She wasn't a fan.

Finally Ryder got to open his presents, YAY!

We are all super excited about some bowling pins.

Now for the food details, YUM!

I downloaded the "karate" font from Dafont.com to make the birthday banner, and printed it on matte photo paper. The black looks so much better on photo paper.

Cupcakes!

I ordered the printable cupcake toppers and labels from this Etsy shop.

 

We had "sushi" that was made out of rice krispie treats, a swedish fish, and a strip of fruit roll up. Thanks Pinterest!

HI-Ya! Punch! I got those glass beverage dispensers on sale at Target last summer for $10, whoop!

Who doesn't love a fortune cookie?! I ordered a box of 60 off Amazon. They were awesome.

I love paper straws. I know they are probably overdone but I will have them at every party. I always ordered way too many, so now I have quite the color collection going on. I get them from the same amazing Etsy shop every time. Go here for the best selection!

When the kids got there I had this sign and a bucket of black belts waiting on them.

Ryder thought it was an awesome party, and I had so much fun planning it for him. It's funny, right during crunch time, like 2 days before I am cussing myself for stressing out. But then the day after I am already thinking about what we will do for Lucy's in September. 

Birthdays are fun :)

Mine's next!

A Fall Mini Session and Guest Blog Post

I mean, really, I know my son is the cutest ever, but Jenny's photography is AWESOME.

A couple of months ago my friend Jenny asked me if I would help style some mini session photo shoots. UM, YEA! We quickly decided on a fall/apple theme. So I set out to build an apple stand. And I am proud to say that the hutch part, I built all by myself! George did help me with the market bottom, it was hard to do it alone. Using a skill saw takes a little muscle, and ours might be kind of crappy because it kept kicking back every time I got to the very end of the wood. SO, we switched to the jig, my fav. 

After we built the stand and painted it I thought it needed a little something extra, so I found a scrap piece of wood and drew a scalloped bubble with a crayon (thank you Ryder) and cut it out with the jigsaw. Spray painted it with chalkboard paint, screwed it to the stand, and now its perfect. Now, after the photo shoots are over, we can write whatever we want on the sign and erase it as many times as we please :)

If you want to build your own apple stand, or lemonade stand, or whatever stand go here for the plans! It really is so cute and easy.

SO, we did all this set up, and took all these pics to show you what YOU can do for your kids fall pictures! Jenny is setting up 30min mini-sessions on October 9th and 10th. Go here, to Jenny's blog to get more info OR you can email her at jnphoto@bellsouth.net and reserve a time :)

Here are a couple more of my favs

 

 

 The sweet little nugget above is Jenny's son, Cash. His eyes are gorgeous!

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I am also very excited because I was asked to do a guest blog post on a friends awesome blog! Go here to see what I have to say about transitions in family! I met Misty through my friend Ashley when Ashley and I worked at Bama Bean together. Remember, I told you that was my most favorite job of my life! Misty has a super cute son and she blogs about her sweet family, go check her out!

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OK people it is rainy, Lucy's napping, George is back at the ENT with Ryder and I have a project Im working on that I will hopefully be able to show yall by Friday.

Oh, in case you(mom) are wondering why George is BACK at the ENT with Roe he is on his 3rd set of tubes....yea, and he's three years old. A new set for every year it seems. So now, they check his ears every 3 months until forever I guess. Last week he had fluid they had to get out, so they are rechecking that. 

OK, bye!

We're Back!

 

pic from here

YAY! WE ARE HOME!!!! This will be a quickie post, I will share our pics and adventures with you tomorrow.

We had so much fun and it was awesome to get away, but oh buddy are we glad to be back home. This was our first trip down with Lucy and the drive there and back went really well. Both kids were awesome, thanks to the dvd player my mom got them ;) Im not a fan of kids constantly watching or playing something, but on a long car trip with two young children it was a lifesaver. 

It has been fun getting back on Pinterest, and catching up a bit on the blogs I read. The condo didnt have internet. 

Now I have a mountain of clothes to wash and dry and put away. That is the craptastic part of going on vacation. 

Two milestones did happen while we were away: 1) Ryder got two splinters in his foot! Stupid wooden deck :( 

2) Lucy started to really walk. She has been taking steps for a while now, but only like 3 or 5, then she would fall. But now she is walking everywhere. I mean she still falls some, and she sometimes thinks that crawling is the way to go. But she's getting it!

Ok, that's it for my boring update! I will be picture heavy tomorrow! BYE!