FATHER'S DAY WEEKEND & MORE

Happy Monday! I'm so excited to look out my window and see blue skies as opposed to rain & clouds. I feel like that's all it's been doing here in southern Indiana lately. However, I do believe it's supposed to a hot one this week, so time to break out the baby pool, sprinkler & slip-n-slide! 

While the wild one is napping (thank goodness for morning naps!) & the first born is coloring, I thought I would catch everyone up on what's been going on around here. This past week was super busy...a family reunion, a 2nd birthday party, Christian's summer camp, my step-dad's birthday, we celebrated our 5 year anniversary, my 10 year high school reunion AND ended it with a day full of Father's Day fun. Sprinkle in two wild & crazy boys, a hormonal-third trimester preggo, doctor's appointments & one working late hubby and you get a week of EXHAUSTION! 

Needless to say, I am SO excited about the fact that we literally have NOTHING on the agenda until the weekend. I'm going to catch up on housework, Netflix, outside fun & maybe even finish the nursery (HA! I've been saying that for weeks now...)! 

 Our week started off with miss Scarlett's 2nd birthday party...the boys had a blast playing with their friends & chowing down on delicious cupcakes. And Gavin may or may not have thrown a red-headed-sized temper tantrum when we wouldn't give him a second cupcake. Worst parents ever, I know.

Also pictured, dancing in the sprinkler, and attempting to hang onto a one-year-old that thinks he can swim & has ZERO fear of the water (or anything for that matter). Yet please note in the background, the timid first-born that's scared of the water and took major coaxing to let go of the side of the pool. Could these boys be any different?!

 Silly faces, snack time & rare brother snuggles during morning cartoons...

Making Papaw's birthday card went a little something like this:

"Papaw has looooooong legs, a big circle head and he's SOOOOOO happy to see me. Oh, and he has birthday hair."

And Gavin didn't care about Papaw's birthday, he wanted to rip the feathers out of Mimi's baby chicks.

We have also implemented snuggle sessions to our day. Gavin will come up to me with his paci, "baby" & blankie and point to the rocking chair. Okay, twist my arm. ;)

On Thursday, Gavin had his 15-month check-up. He weighed in at 24 pounds (67th %ile), 31.5 inches tall (61st %ile) and his big ole noggin was in the 87th %ile. She said he appeared to be very advanced for his age & was impressed with how many words he can say...that's right, he might be the moodiest, craziest red-head ever, but he's a smart one! He then tried to escape before his vaccines...nice try, buddy!

Oh, and he's also started an obsession with sleeping with every stuffed animal he can find...he calls them his "babies" and it's the cutest thing ever.

I ordered another comfy maternity dress from Old Navy (along with some goodies for the guys...how could I resist?!) & then showed off my 29 week bump in all it's glory. I had my glucose test and a check-up with the nurse practitioner...no gestational diabetes for me, but I am anemic again (no surprise there, I usually am). I have gained 15 pounds, I'm measuring about 2 weeks ahead of schedule (also normal, I make large babies) & she marked me down as attempting to go natural in my file. Lord, give me strength!!! It's not that I have anything against pain meds, but with both deliveries I've had epidural issues, so I'm going to see if my body can hold out without it this time. Not likely, but we'll see!

On Friday, Dustin and I celebrated 5 years of marriage with steak, mashed potatoes & truffle mac-n-cheese at our favorite restaurant...Eddie Merlot's! Oh, and I also got these cuties. ;)

On Saturday, I decided to finally finish painting the closet doors in the nursery. The difference between bright white and antique white is unreal! 

I also hung 3 things on the walls! I'm getting there, one slow step at a time!

Saturday night was the high school reunion...I cannot believe it's been 10 years! 

And Sunday we celebrated with presents, homemade McGriddles, lunch with my step-dad & dinner with my dad's side of the family.

The kiddos had a blast eating Arni's pizza & playing with their cousins!

And that's it for the recap! I'm looking forward to a relaxing week ahead & then it's the wedding of one of our best friend's this weekend. We are also starting to plan our PARENT'S ONLY trip to Texas next month to visit some friends...it will be a nice little 'babymoon' before we officially become a family of five! 

Hope everyone enjoys their week & thanks for reading!

BIRTHDAYS & FIELD TRIPS

Happy almost Memorial Day Weekend, everyone! I'm not exactly sure what our weekend has in store for us...we're throwing around a lot of ideas...boating, staining the deck, cleaning the garages, working on Dustin's new office....all I do know is that we have a baby doc appointment tomorrow & then a babysitter TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. Sorry if it seemed like a was shouting...but it's because I was. ;) 

But anywho, I wanted to catch everyone up on our past week. I turned the big 2-8. I'm content with this age, I'd like to stay here, please. ;) 

Gavin was the cutest napper ever. Why are the always so much sweeter when sleeping?! Oh yeah, it's because they aren't throwing themselves backwards onto the floor because you told them they can't throw their paci into the toilet. 

Despite the craziness that has been my world lately, there are the sweetest moments when they are both calm & snuggly. And those moments must be captured because they are rare.

The rest of our days are similar to this. Wild. Laughter. Yelling. Tears. Pushing. Pulling. Hugging. Life with boys.

Last Thursday was Christian's 2nd to last day of preschool & they had an ice cream outing. I don't know about you, but the face looks much sweeter than the actual vanilla cup with sprinkles.

And then Friday was his official last day. We took a field trip to Huber's Orchard & Winery with all of the other students at his school. He had a blast...as did his brother. Of course, the second his little girl friend showed up, they were inseparable. 

We were absolutely exhausted after a few hours of chasing these two around. And to think we're adding another into the mix...

Saturday was my birthday. It was very low-key...we visited Dustin's grand opening at the new store, did a little all-by-myself shopping & then dinner with a few friends.

It was also filled with two of my favorite things...fresh peonies from my momma's garden & FGT's. 

And folks, I make some darn good fried green tomatoes.

Ever since Christian was little, Dustin would empty his pockets of change and give it to him for his piggy bank. Now we're teaching Christian to split that money in half and let Gavin put some in his bank. They were both really excited about it & one may have thrown a fit when the money was gone...I'll give you one guess as to who that was.

On Sunday we had family pictures taken by one of our closest friends, who also happens to be an amazing photographer. I was totally prepared for baby bump Finn to be the only cooperating boy, but they all surprised me and made it an almost stress-free experience! 

This week I decided to try cutting out the AM nap, as this is normally his longest nap and then he either refuses to take an afternoon nap or it lasts mayyyyyybe an hour, if I'm lucky. Since I am an introverted person, and require quiet time to myself at some point during the day in order to survive, this was just not working for me.

Gavin did great until noon, when he started to get pretty fussy. I decided to do lunch a little earlier and this is what happened. Two grapes later and he was asleep. He stayed asleep for the transfer & the diaper change. And then slept for 4 hours. I definitely got the quiet time I needed! However, I hate that he was that exhausted, so I'm going to try giving him just a 30 minute morning nap and see how that goes. It's all trial & error, this parenting thing!

And yesterday was my dad's birthday, so we joined him and the family for dinner at Big Four Burgers in New Albany. Dustin was a little overwhelmed with the size of his burger. ;)

And that's it! It's been a week full of ups and downs, visits to the chiropractor for my lower back pain (ahh, relief), cleaning up the outside of our house, planting trees and tomatoes (GROW, BABIES, GROW!), looking forward to some kid-free time and checking in on little Finnick. 

I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend, stays safe and remembers what Memorial Day is about...God Bless the men & women who paid the ultimate sacrifice for this beautiful country.

Thanks for reading!

HELLO, MAY!

Let me just start with...YAYYY! May is by far my favorite month! It's mine and Christian's (along with 527 other people I know) birthday month, and I've always been a lover of birthdays! Plus, the flowers bloom, the weather gets warmer and I get to plant tomatoes and patiently wait for tomato season to start. However, we are only a week in and I can already tell this month is going to fly by. Dustin is opening a new store that he has been working so hard on, so between his work schedule, family photos, school stuff for Christian & birthdays, we literally have something planned almost every single day this month. I think I counted 5 free days with nothing going on. That's insane. I can't imagine what life will be like when the boys get older and start doing outside school activities. 

Our first week has already been crazy busy, because I got the bright idea to start on the boys' shared room. I'll post a blog all about that as soon as it's finished...which all I'm waiting on now is for a spare hour to finish putting together the closet. Then that room will be complete and I can start thinking about the nursery...my husband just loves pregnant, nesting Bessie. ;)

May started out with the oldest's 4th birthday. He was born May 1st, 2011 at 1:55 in the afternoon by emergency c-section (that was fun....). He shares his birthday with the same day the Navy Seal team found and killed Osama Bin Laden, so guess what we watched on the news the entire hospital stay?? I thought about sharing his birth story (and I might one of these days) but to be honest, I don't remember a lot of the details, so I feel like a lot of it would be guessing & going off what Dustin has told me happened. Regardless of how he entered the world, he was a healthy 8lbs, 5oz and 22inches...at 2 weeks early! Thank goodness he decided to come early, that would have been a LARGE baby!

He is my sweet, sensitive, dramatic & super hyper little man. He is so independent and thinks he can do everything all by himself. We butt heads a lot because I am a control freak, and giving him control to do stuff literally makes me crazy. BUT, we are learning about this whole parenting thing together & I think we're doing pretty good so far. At 4 years old, he is 42 inches tall (89th %ile) and weighs 33.6 pounds (26th %ile). He is in his first year of preschool, and is obsessed. He counts down the days until he gets to see his friends, learn a new letter & sit by his best friend Addalyn. 

For his birthday this year, we took donuts to his classroom & his teacher told me they sang happy birthday to him. Then when daddy got home from work, we took just him to dinner and to pick out a new toy. It was a very laid back birthday, but he loved it and that's all that matters!

The entire way home from preschool, he kept telling me, "Mom, I just love Gavin. He's my favorite brother." Then I looked in the mirror and saw this. 

My heart is still in a puddle on the side of the road.

And to end the day, he got to sleep in his new bunk bed. Obsessed. 

On Saturday, we spent the entire day working on the room, took a break to let the boys play outside & then called it a night.

On Sunday, we took an early birthday trip for me up to IKEA. We spent the whole day together without kids, and it's just what we needed! 

This week, we've been putting together all of our IKEA goodies, and I'm in love with how this table turned out! I got the idea to stain it from another blogger & now I want to stain everything else in the house this color.

I'd say Gavin approves, too. 

At Christian's 4-year check-up...all was great until they poked his finger. Like I said, he's a little on the dramatic side. ;)

And we celebrated Cinco-de-Mayo with a ladies trip to a Tapas restaurant, followed by ice cream. It was really a send off for our bestie, Kayla, who is off to Texas for her husband's next duty station. Gosh, I'm going to miss her!

I hit my 5 month preggo mark this week. I've gained about 8 pounds and I'm currently having horrible cramping. I'm assuming they are ligament pains, but it's insane to me how every pregnancy is much more intense than the previous. I feel like my ligaments should be plenty stretched already, so give it a rest please! But that's what I've been trying to do the past couple days...rest, water & a heating pad. Other than the cramps, I'm doing great. Sleeping well, still have lots of energy & starting to get endlessly hungry. Did someone say pizza, french fries, mozzarella sticks & an ice cold coke?! Because that's all I've been wanting lately. Good thing I throw in a healthy smoothie and salad in between all of these cravings!

Belly bump from every angle...including the dreaded front view. I've said before in past blogs that my "lovehandles" seem to be taking the brunt of my weight gain. Excuse me, but there is no baby in there, so that can stop now. ;)

Since I'm trying to get lots of rest, yesterday was a snacks on the couch and endless amounts of Bubble Guppies day. Luckily the boys obliged pretty well and we're insanely adorable.

And when Dustin told Christian to go pick out a book & crawl in bed...this is what he came into 5 minutes later...Buzz Lightyear ears, toothpaste crusted face & passed OUT. We cracked up over this for a good 30 minutes. Considering he normally needs 2 books, 2 songs, a drink of water, to pee just one more time and then to come out 3 more times to ask if 1) he has school in the morning and 2) if daddy has to work, we couldn't believe this sight. It made for an easy bedtime routine & Dustin and I actually got to watch American Idol in real time on the couch (GO CLARK BECKHAM!).

I'm hoping to get the boys' closet finished later today and then be able to finally share the room with everyone tomorrow. Wishful thinking, probably! 

Hope everyone is enjoying May as much as we are...thanks for reading!

CELEBRATING 4 YEARS OF CHRISTIAN!

Christian's 4th birthday party was over the weekend, and we wanted to keep it fun, small & simple. However, Christian's favorite thing in the world to do is bounce, so of course we had to throw in a huge bounce house! We invited all of Christian's friends (and their parentals) to help us celebrate. Because I'm a habitual party thrower, I already had everything I needed, so a quick trip to the grocery was all the planning this mama had to do...those are my kind of parties! 

We spent the morning cuddling, which seems to be his favorite thing to do lately. I feel like he can sense that things are about to get even more crazy come September...

And then he caught sight of the big bounce house being put together...talk about excitement!

After quiet time, it was time to get dressed and for the party to begin!

Bounce house fun! Gavin was in awe and then very quickly fell in love...but I mean, come on, who doesn't love a good bounce house?!

My mom baked the cake & I decorated it. She claims they aren't the prettiest cakes in the world because she's horrible at icing them, but I told her I didn't care because her cakes are the YUMMIEST in the world. Plus, all Christian cared about was that 1) it was strawberry and 2) it had DASH on it!

Even though I didn't have to do a lot of party planning, I did spend a couple days working on his birthday board. This is probably the 10th board I've done, so I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it. Don't get me wrong though, they're still a ton of work and require a LOT of patience. Everyone keeps asking me how I do them...so here ya go: I buy a black foam posterboard, paint markers & grab a ruler. I take a lot of time planning where I'm going to put each section, drawing lines with pencils and getting everything just where it needs to go before I start with the paint markers. For the large name letters, I print out a font that I like and attempt to copy those...but the rest is freehand. And although it won't cover mistakes completely, you can use a black sharpie for any small errors you might make along the way. 

Christian had an absolute blast. He bounced his little heart out with all of his friends, took a quick break to eat, blow out his candles & open presents, and then went right back to bouncing. It was definitely a great day for all! 

Thank you to everyone who was able to help make his day special!

FAMILY, ZOO TRIPS & SAD BIRTHDAYS

Happy Sunday! I hope everyone had a great weekend...this mom definitely did! I have an amazing husband who happily gave me the weekend off. One of my girlfriends was in town from Ohio and another is moving to Texas in a month, so a girls weekend was in order! It was so nice to escape the 'mom duties' for a couple days, but today is back to dirty diapers, snotty noses, belly laughs & constant noise...AKA life with boys!

This week Dustin's dad & family came in from North Carolina, but unfortunately Gavin caught a horrible cold, so him and I weren't able to visit a lot. Dustin and Christian luckily squeezed in lots of visits though! And I'm not sure how we managed it, but we somehow got all the cousins in on one picture! Amazing!

For lunch on Tuesday, I asked Christian what he would like. He very matter-of-factly stated he would like a happy meal. I try to limit his fast food intake (aside from Chick-fil-a...we're addicts!), so I tried to accommodate his request of a happy meal in my own way. 

His reaction? "Mommy, I love this happy meal!" 

Fist bump for mom. 

On Wednesday, we got our Disney Magic Bands in the mail. I am SO beyond excited for this trip (as if I haven't said that enough)! I know it will probably be crazy stressful with a 1-year-old tagging along, but I'm prepared for the crazy & SO ready to surprise Christian.

It was also a super nice day out, so I grabbed a mommy friend and we headed to the zoo. The polar bears are always my favorite, and he didn't disappoint again this time around!

We finished off the beautiful day with a trip to Polly's Freeze....my favorite summer food & ice cream joint!

Unfortunately, Gavin woke up Thursday morning really sick thanks to big brother's preschool germs (again), so it's been a constant schedule of humidifiers, nasal sprays & baby cough medicine. Luckily no fevers this time around, just a bad cold.

I've been craving these 3 things a LOT. I finally found a tomato that actually tastes almost as good as a home grown tomato, and I pretty much eat 1-2 every day. 

One grumpster and one cheeser...both equally adorable.

And last but not least, happy 17 weeks baby bump! There happened to be a full length mirror at the baby shower I was at this weekend...hello, bumpie oppurtunity! ;)

Baby shower fun followed by a very eventful hibachi dinner with the girls...luckily we had amazing company and laughs, because service, food & other people were not so fun! But it made for a good story and definitely kept things interesting. :)

And that wraps up our past week. This week, I'm looking forward to coloring Easter eggs, decorating for Easter festivities, doing last minute Disney planning and seeing the boys do Easter egg hunts. However, it's also a very hard week for our family, as it's my brother who passed away's birthday and another holiday without him. He would have been 26 this year, and it doesn't matter how many years have passed since the accident, events like this don't get any easier. I miss so much about him, but mostly I miss what could have been. I wonder all the time what kind of uncle he would have been to the boys, and I know they would have absolutely adored him. 

So happy 26th birthday in heaven, Cory Michael. You are missed every.single.day.