Friday, August 3, 2012

Noah's Blue Elephant First Birthday

When it came time to start planning Noah's first birthday party, I turned to Pinterest, naturally!  I totally stole this sweet blue elephant birthday party idea from Pinterest.  Yes, some elements are mine, but I mostly got a lot of great ideas from Pinterest.  I'll post more pictures of our Noah-bug and what all he's up to later on, but for now I'm just posting his birthday party.  I think he had a great time...I know I did!


I can't believe he's already one.  Time flies faster and faster with every child that comes along.


 Happy First Birthday, Noah!



I decided to do light blue and green dots with blue elephants.  I made the centerpieces and put "fake" straw and circus peanut candy in the pails.




Jack's Bakery did a fantastic job on the cupcakes.  I was really happy when I went to pick them up.  They did a great job with the elephant/dot theme.



 I made some "one" letters and put them on the entrway table along pictures from every month of Noah's first year.



My friend, Robin, helped me make Noah's banner.  Note to self: do all letters in green!




I made his little "Noah" letters and decorated with a few circus peanut candies.  We had lemonade, water, cupcakes, and ice cream and then swimming at our neighborhood's pool.



I think my favorite part (besides Noah enjoying his party and cake!) was the blue elephant favor boxes.





It was a fun party and we were so thankful that our family drove out to celebrate and that a lot of our friends also came out to celebrate.  We were honored to share our celebration of Noah's first year of life with all of them.

Father's Day, 2012

 

Oh Father's Day!  It's such a special day to celebrate Jordan and let him know how much we appreciate all that he does for us.  He works so hard but then comes home and works JUST as hard in those hours before the boys go down.  I am so fortunate to have him be such a great father to our boys.  He is such a great spiritual leader and financial leader for our boys, but he also plays hard with them and loves them fiercely!


We are a happy bunch!  Happy Father's Day, Jordan!



And then real life sets in....





Poor Matthew...he's just just going through a stage where he will NOT sit to get his picture made.  Ever.  I'm hoping he gets over it pretty soon because he freaks out when we sit down to do pictures like this.  It makes me sad because honestly, I'd love to have just one picture of everyone smiling.


John Michael is more than happy to sit and have his picture made with Daddy!  It looks like they're sharing secrets!



And Baby Noah is always happy to smile and have his picture made!  He knows how to turn the smiles on!



Matthew decided he would sit and get his picture made to give Daddy his gift.  We got Jordan a great new frame of the boys' spring pictures so he could take it to work and put it on his desk.



We had a nice family dinner and I made Jordan's favorite, Blueberry Crunch!  It turned out extra yummy since we used some fantastic blueberries from the farmer's market.



As usual, we couldn't be home to celebrate Father's Day with my dad, but we were thinking about our dads that day for sure.

Farmer's Market, A Saturday Special!

 I love our town square. I love the cool shade under the giant, old trees.  I love the fountain that each of my boys cooled their little toes in each summer.  Mostly, I love the Farmer's Market every Saturday!  I love walking around and finding peaches, apples, the best blueberries ever, yummy tomatoes, and riding Mr. Sam's truck at the Walmart Visitor's Center across the street.  Most Saturday's we do the same thing but it's always fun!


Earlier this summer they had hot pink snails that made a stop by our town.  I love how they took up residence on top of buildings and on the front lawn of the courthouse!  Pretty neat!


 






Those snails were pretty fun to climb on!



Talk about brotherly love!  Matthew helped John Michael get a cool sip of water!





This Saturday they had a tent set up with all kinds of water tables with sand and shovels!  It was really messy but so fun!



I love Saturdays!

Outside Fun!

Before it got to be about 1,000 degrees everyday this summer, we played outside A LOT!  The most fun thing we did was put our silly sprayer sprinkler on top of the trampoline!


 


The boys thought it was a lot of fun and they love to jump on it.  Hey, I don't blame them!







I know some of our most favorite memores are being made in our little backyard!




Noah's First Steps

I took these pictures of Noah's first steps with my iPod Touch, so they're pretty blurry.  It was the easiest thing to grab to take pictures and video of Noah taking his first steps!  He took his first steps on June 1.  That's about a month before he turned 1.  Just like the rest of our boys, he took his first steps in our den!


 




He started crying and fussing, but I think he was very tired and also a little confused about what was going on!



Here he goes, walking from Jordan to myself...just like the other 2 boys!



He's so proud of himself....



And I was pretty proud of him as well!



He did that starting over the weekend, and by Monday night he greeted Jordan at the door, full-on walking by himself!  Since then he has been into everything!  He is such a little mess.  I think he's happier now that he can walk and run with his big brothers.  He wants to be big so badly!


Wow, it's been A While....

To say that it's been a long time since I've blogged would be a giant understatement.  I've gotten so behind, and because I was behind on posting, I felt like I couldn't catch up.  It seems like by the time bedtime rolls around I am so tired and honestly, I just don't feel like sitting at the computer!  I'm going to start to catch my blog up, one post at a time!  I know there are just SO many adoring fans (you know, like my family!) who are just dying to read my blog!  Here goes, I'm going to start back in May.....Travel back in time with me, won't you?!!

Back in May we took a mini overnight vacation to Branson.  We had never been to Silver Dollar City before so we decided to go!  We bought season tickets and set out to explore the park.  It was HOT and I don't really think it's laid out very well so it was hard to navigate and figure out where things were.  The more we go, the better we'll be able to navigate and be more familiar with rides, etc.


Our boys could have stayed in this FIVE story ball-house for HOURS!  They loved it.  There are tons of suction hoses around and the kids can suck up all the balls like a vacuum!  So fun!  The balls also randomly fall from the ceiling every 10 minutes or so too!


 



We ran into some friends from church and Noah played with their little girl a bit!  The ball house was a huge hit!



Next, John Michael decided all on his own that he was ready to ride the swings!  He did great.  He is growing up so much lately and just doing so many things by himself!  He also rode kiddo roller coasters with us that day.



Matthew and Noah played in some colored sand, and let me tell you, it was SO fun cleaning colored sand off of hot, sweaty, sun-screen coated children!  What a mess, but it was so fun for them!  We rode the merry-go-round and of course, Matthew would not ride.  He will not ride anything right now.  I hope he changes his mind before we go to Disney!



Towards the middle of the afternoon we let the boys play in a sprinkler before we packed up and headed out to our little chalet/cabin.  We went and check in and about that time I started feeling really sick.  I thought I was overly hot from the heat, but looking back, I was sick for sure.  I crashed and took a nap and then woke up for dinner.  Luckily, Jordan's mom was with us, so she started on dinner.



Let me tell you what we did for dinner:  Earlier in the week I made a spaghetti casserole and froze it.  We packed a cooler FULL of ice and just brought it with us.  We packed fruit and juice, and homemade green beans that I had made.  This worked great for us for dinner because we just popped the casserole into the oven and threw the green beans into a pot on the stove and we had a home cooked dinner in our own cabin instead of having to eat burgers at a restaurant.  It's no fun eating out with kids, and this was just a great way to save money and have less stress!  After dinner we headed to the pool and swam before coming home and getting them all in bed.  Matthew and JM shared a king size bed (ha!) and they slept great in it!



Jordan and I ran out to the store later that night and bought some breakfast food so that, once again, we could cook in our cabin instead of having to eat out.  After breakfast my family blessed me by letting me take my "Southern Living" magazine out to the back porch.  I just sat and read and it was so quiet!  It was a wonderful treat for me before packing up and heading to the park one more time.



It was a fun overnight stay!  I'm glad we decided to go.  We loved our cabin so much.  I hope we get to go back and take advantage of the pools and playgrounds.  Since it was such a short trip we really didn't get to explore too much!



It was a fun trip to Branson.  Since we have season tickets, I know we'll be back to Silver Dollar City once the weather cools off!