Monday, March 13, 2017

2nd Party Animals Birthday Party


Davis loves animals, he always chooses books with animals to read before bed. And some of his first words or mimicked sounds were of animals. So since I completely waited until last minute to plan something for his party, this seemed like an easy and fitting choice. It also was so much fun, and I might have a slight addiction to schleich animal figurines.....





The cute little animal birthday parade printable ended up being my inspiration. It's a free printable found at The Caravan Shoppe, as well as where I got the printables for the poster sized 2 and the "pin the bow tie on the bear" game. I fell in love with the bear print and actually plan to print up another one to frame and put in the boy's room. If I can ever get around to it....

But seriously you guys, this shop has the cutest stuff...I plan on frequenting it during the holidays when I need some inspiration.





My sister made adorable mini party hats!

We served animal trail mix (a mix of animal crackers, nuts, m&m's, choc covered raisins, etc) Fruit/ cheesecake dip, fizzy white grape/lemonade punch--surprisingly different and yummy, and my personal favorite--animal parade cupcakes with white chocolate frosting.





YOU GUYS. These cupcakes turned out better than I thought possible...I secretly hoarded the leftovers and ate them with my coffee for like a week straight.



They had actual chunks of those beloved animal cookies in them! I drooled when I first heard the idea and then adapted one recipe to make my own. I also figured this would be the only opportunity I would have a justifiable reason to bake one of my sons a cupcake that was part pink....it was all for the theme, of course. This is the RECIPE I almost followed, except I omited the sprinkles in the batter and added maybe 1 1/2 cups of cookies to the food processor and roughly broke them up and then just folded those into the batter at the very end. Please, heed the advice and do not use white chocolate chips for the frosting, you need good quality white chocolate (I used lindt) and it made all the difference in the world! ( Davis just pointed to the above photo and said, "I unt oneeeeee" me too my son, me too)

Ok, must change the subject before I throw my boys in the car to go get all the ingredients to make these Right.Now.

Let's talk about the birthday boy. He is just the cutest two-year-old around. He took the whole day in and exhibited nothing but his normal sweetness.




He didn't quite get the whole point of the pin the bow tie game....but that's ok, his cousins and brothers loved it. Naturally.




He also took a moment out of his day to try and morph himself into a smurf.....

chalk.

That's chalk....

Thankfully his Auntie caught him in the act and saved him from a full body chalk down.





He does make a pretty darn cute little smurf....

He's also the cutest little cupcake eater and loves them about as much as his mama. I love the eager beaver anticipation and the sweet encouragement from Bennett as he tried to blow out his candles.










We love having the whole family there. After presents and getting all the kids hyped up on sugar, we were able to take the party outside.










Oh and all the boy's wore their Modern Moses King Judah t-shirts....because you know, it's a lion....with a crown....theme perfected.

Every year I feel like birthday and celebrations just get more and more fun. My boy's truly are such a blessing and I love being able to make a super special day catered just to them. They are blessed to have some amazing family, cousins that are best friends and friends that gather with us to celebrate them.

I'm also realizing that I now need to start letting go of party decorations for 1st and 2nd birthdays as this will be the last time they will be used....not gonna lie....it's hard on this mama's heart. But it's also exciting, I feel like we are entering into this next phase. The phase with more independent little beings, less diaper changes, and a whole lot more brawling and we've added face punching....yeeeeaaaaahhhh, raising boys. They need to make a body armor for that.

Regardless, we love them. And will gladly invite you into our wild circus any day. :)

Thursday, March 2, 2017

My baby is two

It's been two years since our eyes first met.

He is nothing short of sweetness...all around, bursting at the seams, sweetness.

I can't even imagine life without him in it. He's been a soother to my soul from the second I met him. He's like this calm, constant force that makes every crevice of my heart smile.

My how he has grown and changed in the past two years, but I would say, his personality and easy-going demeanor have remained the same.

He loves me. His first words, or the way I used to be able to really get him to chat it up were when we played the game "I love you more....no, no, no....I LOVE YOU MORE". We would say this to each other (still do) over and over again, each time getting louder and giggling along the while.

He is by far my quickest talker and articulates many things well. His voice is soft and raspy, and he usually will half whisper his answer when he says "Yeeeeah". If I walk in the room in the dead of night or after his nap, he reaches for me and says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Speaking of the dead of night....we've been seeing waaaaay too much of it lately. He's making me a bit crazy with the amount of time he seems to feel the need to get up. I seriously feel worse now than when he was a newborn. Every night I pray that this will be the night he sleeps through or only wakes up once...twice even.....three times would even be a charm.

I blame it on his molars (he just cut his bottom and hopefully the top are on their way in)

And breastfeeding.

Back in the day, I thought I would never be an extended breast feeder.....two years later....and absolutely zero interest in dropping one or any of his feeding sessions. In fact, some days I swear he is tricking me into MORE. Because, you guys, he's just so gosh darn cute and sweet, I have such a hard time telling him "no".

He calls it his "Mmm-mmm" and will walk up to me and say "Mmmm-mmm, peeeeeaaaassssseeee?" yeah, try saying "no" to that!


He's my singer, and really belts out the song "Be, just be. Come and rest, at my feet." There isn't anything sweeter than hearing a little voice singing in the backseat with so much enthusiasm, especially when he sings the word "be" and "feet" he draws them out way longer than the song...but it is so cute! I much prefer his version any day.

When he dances he always does so by nodding his head up and down to the beat, always.

He is almost the same width size as Bennett, and I'm pretty sure will pass him up soon. They are only one size away from where the same size pants. His thick little thighs and slowly thinning ankles are the cutest. At his two year check, he rang in at 23lbs and 33 inches (I think...I need to double check...because my brain....) which made him 12th percentile for height and 22nd percentile for weight. He grew 1 1/2inches from his 18th month check. Crazy.


He's my little love, seriously. This kid will cuddle until he won't. He is always happy but even happier when in my arms, or holding my hand, or sitting next to me. We've finally gotten him to go into his nursery during church. It's pure torture for me leaving him there.

The other week, he was having a particularly hard time letting go of my hand. So I squatted down in front of him and said, "Buddy, mommy needs to go to church, I promise you I will come back"

He nodded his head and said, "Otaaaaaayyyyy"....while his lower lip made it way out and his eyes welled up with tears. With every statement I said like, "You have your buddy Sawyer here.....my friend  Aleah is your teacher" He would nod and say "Otay" but that little lip got bigger and bigger until I scooped him up and held him close. He tries so so hard to be a big boy and buck up when he needs to. But there is absolutely no denying that he would rather just be with me. And I'm more than ok with that (secretly, I kind of love it).


He attempts to do whatever his big brothers do. This is both amazing and scary. He has no fear....none. I find him jumping off of couches, chairs, if he can jump from it...he will try. We took the boys to a place called Dizzy Palace....it lives up to its name, in case you were wondering. Little did I realize upon going that I would be having to crawl around and climb up that whole dang, germ-infested palace right alongside, because Davis was determined to do EVERYTHING. (I earned mom of the year award that night--completely re-tweaked my neck all in the name of fun!) His favorite were the giant slides. The first time he went on my lap and squealed all the way down. After that, he would push me away and say "me own" and would go down by his big boy self! So we would race down all the slides. All of the them...even the ones I was scared of!

Speaking of big brothers, he loves them. LOVES.THEM. I still don't get this because they run him over all day long, and are always knocking him down, taking things from him, convincing him to do things they wouldn't do themselves. And yet, there he is, right next to them, big cheeky grin on his face. Gah, he is too cute for words.


He is a comforter. If someone gets hurt, he runs up and puts both arms around them and gets his big sorry eyes right in front of theirs. Sometimes he pats their heads and will lay his head on their backs to make them feel better. Both Kyle and I can't figure out where he learned this, because it's definitely not reciprocated from his brothers when he gets hurt....which is hardly ever, might I add. This kid is tough as nails. When he actually cries, I know that it's serious. But it's usually fixed with a kiss or  "tiss".

He loves to read books and has many of his Sandra Boynton books memorized. Currently his favorite are some little farm books of animals...hence why we ended up doing an animal themed birthday (details to come).

He loves Mickey Mouse and Peppa Pig.



He hates, HATES hang nails. If he finds one, he comes running at me screaming "FIT IT, FIT IT!" He will not continue on with his day until I fix it, usually resulted in me cutting his nails really short.

He cannot be trusted with markers, paint, crayons....anything that can potentially add color to my walls and furniture. He is worse than Bennett....I never though that would be possible, never. Which is why I have a serious love/hate relationship with letting my boys paint. I always know it's going to cause me to lose my marbles...because....this.

It all starts cute and creative.







Before I can say stop, someone has painted their hands and tummy...this particular day was not one of my finest. I ended up cleaning green hand prints off of chairs, walls and crevices of the faucet handles....

But then talking to the pancake kind of makes up for those days where my sanity is tested.

"Can you hear me now....."

"Good."






Pancakes. His favorite. (notice the black finger....that would be the markers....)

He is the most compliant little person I have ever met. He shocks me sometimes. Every once in awhile he will get this teeny-weeny, slightly naughty streak and will shake his head and tell me "no" when I ask something of him. But then all I have to do is say, "Davis, look at mama's eyes....can you please obey mama and do (whatever it is he said no to)" Almost always he will look me in the eyes immediately and say, "Oh, otay" and scamper off to do the requested task. He is quick to help, and quick to remedy a situation in which he has wronged someone. I call him my little people-pleaser. I often wander how much of the sweet little personality will carry him through to adulthood.



While he is pretty much attached to my hip, there is a very special place in his heart for his daddy. He gets all heart eyes when he hears the garage door open and knows that daddy will walk through the door any second.

He loves being around his brothers so so much. And when he's not with them he's usually tailing behind me...but sometimes He wanders off on his own. And I find him playing quietly, building legos, doing puzzles or doing non-destructive drawing. (our motto is always, "only on the paper")



There is so much more I can say about my littlest dude. He is simply the sweetest human being and adding him to our family is one of the best decision we've ever made. He just completes us in a way that only he can. I have said over and over that he softens me when I need it the most, he calms storms in my soul in his own quiet way. He seems to know when I need one extra kiss or a little squeeze. He crawls into my lap and snuggles when I fear I've lost all my boys into boyhood. He reminds me of God's grace and commitment to hold us in His big big hands. I',m forever grateful for his tender heart and the kindness that flows from it. It is more of a blessing than he will ever know. He makes me excited for what he will become one day. I have no doubt he will lead others in a soft-like strength. Because that's how he does life. Always.

Ah, baby boy....your mama is infatuated with you. Everything about you. Words cannot describe how in depth that love is.

Happy two years sweetheart.