Bring on the noise!

It just got a whole lot noisier in our house!

 Damian stopped by his brother's house this afternoon and he gave Max our nephew's old drum set. The kids had the best time playing and singing together! Damian and I may or may not have been shouting at each other in the family room.

 



I happened to look at the sky tonight and saw a big, full moon. That explains A LOT about my day with my first graders! I must have repeated myself 5,235 times today!  

We are ready for the weekend over here!!

lately

I just love this time of year. We are back in the swing of things. The weather is starting to become cooler. Our busy birthday season is upon us. Fall is definitely in the air!!

We have been having a great time lately, I just haven't sat down to write about all of our fun.

Here's a short recap: we celebrated Damian's birthday on September 14th and Max's party was on the 15th(a few weeks later than his actual bday due to his new cousin being born the day after his birthday and the craziness that is the beginning of the school year!). His two requests this year were for a pinata and water slide. He loved both of them! We were blessed to have our family and friends join us in celebrating our five year old. I made a baseball cake and his big sister decorated his football cupcakes for him. He was sweet to tell her they looked beautiful!

Here are just a couple of pics from his big day:

 

 We've also been enjoying our new niece/cousin. She is absolutely precious!

 The weekend of Max's party our friends Jon, Cathy, and Cael came to stay with us for the whole weekend! We had so much fun hanging out, playing, watching our gator football, and just spending time together! We also celebrated my friend Jenn's little guy Ethan's first birthday. I have some cute pics from his Elmo party that I need to share. That was a busy weekend for sure. We joked we needed to go back to school/work to get a break! I felt like a did a lot of cleaning that weekend!! :)



This past weekend Damian and I had a date night...wahoo!! We went to dinner at a local Japanese steak house and then went shopping for a new bed. Life is exciting around here! I was also able to get a few new pieces of clothing too! The kids spent the night at Gram and Papaw's with a few of their cousins and had an absolute blast! We picked them up Saturday and headed out to do some more shopping. We were pretty much out and about all day so, we had a fun family movie night at home watching The Lorax. Sunday the kids weren't feeling too well, that junky virus going around-runny nose, cough, & yuckiness, so we laid low and just went to church and came home to grill out. We were bummed to miss Grandpop and our nephewAaron's birthday celebration at Papa Joe's...one of our favorites.

This week we signed Emma up for girl scouts and we're going to sign her up for dance classes too. We're looking forward to a family filled weekend celebrating my sister and sister in-law's birthday.

 

Grandparent's Day

I'll be honest and admit I didn't make any cutesy crafts for the grandparents yesterday but we try to show our grandparents how much we love and appreciate them throughout the year so hopefully they know that!!

Today Max celebrated Grandparent's Day in his kindergarten classroom. He was joined by Gram, Papaw, and Mamaw Jennie for the ice cream party. His Baba and Grandpop would have loved to have been there too, but they live too far away. They are planning on coming over on Saturday for his birthday celebration. Max is a lucky little guy to know his grandparents so well. I grew up surrounded by my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and love that my kids have the same experience. At the dinner table we share about our day and Max's favorite part was having Gram, Papaw, and Mamaw come to his class. (I shared about how I tripped after getting off the bus from taking my first graders to the YMCA for swimming and almost bit the dust in front of 4 different classes....fun times!)

I'm happy to report that I (finally) finished painting the master bedroom and we finished the board and batten in the entryway. We also found a rug for the living room and accomplished a few more projects. I still have a list a mile long but we're getting there!

We are having a pretty low key(meaning I'm not going crazy doing a million things) birthday party for Max this coming weekend with our family and friends. I am excited to get everyone together for a fun time! Max's only request was for a water slide and pinata. I still have a ton to do and a busy week at work, but I'm looking forward to checking things off my to do list!

Seven Year Old Sunday

My little girl is growing up and there's nothing I can do about it except embrace the change! She is loving second grade!! We checked her grades on Friday and she has straight A's!! So proud of our girl! She is in the middle of reading two books. Mr. Popper's Penguins at home and another chapter book at school. I caught her reading the other night while I was doing dishes. That warms my heart!! I was the exact same way when I was little. Actually, I do the same thing now! I can't get enough of reading books!! She also still loves to write stories and that is her favorite thing to do besides making crafts. We went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and she begged her daddy for a kitchen science experiment set. She told us that she's changed her mind and doesn't want to be a nurse anymore, she wants to be a scientist. Needless to say, Daddy bought it for her!

I love this girl so much!!

Five Year Old Friday

It has been a super busy week and it was a short work/school week. How does that happen?!! We are getting into a great routine and I'm loving it! I'm so happy the weekend is here so I can get my house painting finished, work on a couple of other projects, yard work, clean the house, spend time with family and friends, and start getting things ready for Max's birthday party next weekend. I'll probably be ready to go back to work on Monday to get a break!

 Tonight we went to a Food Truck event in our downtown area. We had a fun time and ate delicious food. We're definitely planning on going next month too!

 

Here's what's been going on with my five year old:

Back to school time means homework time.  Max didn't quite know what to think in the beginning. When he gets home from school he is ready to play inside, play outside, and play some more. After working so hard in school all day, he's ready for a break. The first couple of times it was tough to get him to sit down and I'll admit we bribed him with chocolate chips!  We are getting into a good routine now and he's enjoying sitting at the table doing his work and he finally realized the quicker he sits down and finishes the work, the more time he'll have to play.

Luckily, it's just letter and number practice right now. He also brought home his first book on his reading level and he wanted to read it over and over again last night. He has a new one for the weekend and I'm sure we'll have the story memorized by Monday morning. We are so proud of our smart boy!

 

 

 

 

my new niece

My newest niece, Abigail arrived on Wednesday at 2:47 a.m. and we couldn't be more excited!! There is just something so special about a new baby in the family. We LOVE babies in our family! She is grandkid #11. (and there are only 3 of us!) She was welcomed by her proud parents, 3 big sisters, and 2 big brothers. Not to mention her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and her great grandma Mamaw Jennie...who is so proud to have a great grandchild named after her. I went to the hospital on Wednesday morning and afternoon and again on Thursday afternoon. I had to wait to go again until yesterday and I couldn't wait to get my hands on that sweet girl. She looks exactly like my brother's baby pictures and is just beautiful!

 

I just love being an Aunt!!