Happy Birthday To My Better Half

Happy Birthday to you Tim, the love of my life, my partner in crime, the best daddy in the universe, and my favorite person in the world.  

I hope you have a fabulous day, I cannot wait to celebrate with you this weekend.  

Our Weekend

I haven't done a weekend post in awhile, for lots of reasons, but I want to keep note of this one, because it was particularly fun.  At least for me.

This weekend was the weekend of stopping pumping all together.  It has gone pretty well so far.  I pumped for a total of 8 minutes on Saturday and haven't pumped at all since Saturday night.  I'm almost to 36 hours and I'm in some pain, but I'm surviving.  I'm sure hoping to be feeling better in the next couple of days.

Friday night, my mom watched the kiddos so that Tim and I could go out to dinner.  We weren't planning on doing this, so we left home almost as soon as we got home to drop the kids off so that we could actually get in somewhere.  Friday nights and dining don't go together so well without planning to wait for hours or a reservation.  Anyway, it was super nice to get out for just an hour without the kids.  A short but much appreciated date.  A wonderful start to the weekend.

Saturday was busy, but nice.  The kids and I got up early (as they usually do) and we let daddy sleep.  I fed Katy then made Cooper waffles and we played together.  I got laundry started and it was a fun morning.  Cooper and I watched The Pioneer Woman when Katy went down for her morning nap.  Tim woke up and came downstairs and I fell asleep on the couch for almost an hour!  Then we all got ready, ran some errands, went to lunch and then visited a new baseball park that is open for the first season this year.  It was a good afternoon.  When we got home, since the weather was so nice, I took the kids outside, Cooper played with all of the neighborhood kiddos and Kate "played" with the other 3 babies around her age.  All of us Moms had a "Working Wives of the Court" meeting, haha.  Every one of us moms was out and chit chatting about things going on around our court, our lives, the kids, etc.  Even though it is not my ideal living situation (living in a neighborhood), I am blessed to live on a court where both of my kids have other kids around their age to play with.  Cooper has Alexis (4 months older), Julia (10 months older), Evan (14 months younger), and Mia (1 year older) to play with and Kate has Sarah (3 months older), Luca (1 month younger) and Joshua (3 months younger).  Such a blessing!

 

Of course there was much basketball playing in the house as well.  Cooper just cannot get enough basketball.  

On Sunday morning, we missed church because I wasn't feeling quite up to it, and the kids were playing and having a lot of fun together.  Tim let me sleep in and he took care of feeding and playing with the kiddos.  Once I did get up, Tim and I paid the bills together (a rare occasion), did some more laundry, cleaned up some and played with the kids of course.  Cooper decided he needed to dress up like a superhero.

When we finally looked up at the clock, we realized it was time to get moving, we had a birthday party to go to!  It was my friend Jill's son Wyatt's first birthday celebration.  Wyatt's brother Max, is one of Cooper's best and oldest friends.  Wyatt is just a couple of months older that Kate and they go to the same babysitter at least for now, so I think they will probably be buddies too.  

Kate really likes Wyatt's toys and Max...

We went grocery shopping and I had my first ever shamrock shake on the way home.

The kiddos played some more, then it was dinner time and bed time.  That was about the extend of our weekend.  Fun and BUSY!  I'm looking forward to another weekend already.  We'll be visiting my family next weekend for my Grandma's 80th birthday celebration! :)  

Hope you're all wearing your GREEN today, Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Thankful in November - Day Twenty-One

Day twenty-one.... Birthdays.

I'm thankful for birthdays.  One day per year that is specifically for us.  For each person to be celebrated on their day of birth.  Today, just happens to be my birthday, and I'm taking the day off.  So is my husband.  We're having a "date day" - we're going to spend the entire day together, while the kiddos are at home with their sister!  I've been looking forward to this day for a couple of months now.  Today, I turn 33.  My mom made me the cake in the picture above, it's a delicious carrot cake.  Thanks Mom!  We've been enjoying it since last Saturday and it's disappearing quickly!  Anyway, I'm thankful that each person gets a day to celebrate just them.  I know to some people, birthdays aren't any big deal - but as a kid, my mom made them special and made me feel special.  So I want to do that for my kids and family!

Cooper's 'Friend' Party

This weekend, we had the second (and last) of Cooper's birthday parties.  The child isn't spoiled at all....

Anyway, we started around 11, ate lunch and took pictures around the gigantic Mickey Park Posters that I picked up at Party City.  Only one family didn't get pictures because My friend Jill was feeding her son and I forgot to make them come in once she finished.  Sorry Jill!

Here's the family picture with the Mickey Park Banner.  

After that, we let the kiddos jump on the trampoline for a bit then played pin the nose on Mickey.  I am thinking these kids are pure genius though cause all but one of them got the nose in exactly the right spot. Genius or they could see through the mask?!?

I try to make it a tradition to take our picture with Cooper and his cake each year, so here's this year's picture.  I made a Mickey Mouse cake, you can see it better in a picture below.  After the games, we sang Happy Birthday, blew out candles, devoured cake and ice cream and then opened presents.

                                              

I had all the kids sit on the floor to eat their cake and ice cream, I figured it might be easier, to keep the mess closer to the floor??  They actually did pretty well though and I was impressed!

Here are a couple of pictures of Coop with some Mickey themed presents he received.  The first was a Mickey Mouse Costume.  It's adorable and he had to stand by Mickey Park once he dressed up to get a picture! 

Then Stephanie, Ryan and Soup got Cooper this Mickey Mouse Scooter.  OH MY, the kid LOVES this thing.  I think it might be his favorite present of all.  I'm not really sure how Steph and Ryan always seem to get such great presents - but they do! :)

                                               

Steph and Coop with his scooter.  He had to ride it as soon as it was ready!

All in all, I think it was a great party, Cooper had a lot of fun and I sure hope the guests did too! :)  Hopefully, I'll post about Cooper's family birthday party soon, I didn't take too many pictures during that party, but maybe I'll steal some from others who did!

Hope everyone has a Happy Monday!

TGIM?? & Weekend Rewind

Some days, do you ever feel like Thank God It’s Monday?  I mean, by Friday, I will be all about it being Friday, don’t get me wrong.  But, after this weekend, this crazy busy weekend, it’s nice to come to work, where I sit on my booty the majority of the day.  That’s awful isn’t it?  I know it is.  But reality is, is that sometimes, I just need to rest, and I get lots of it at my job.  I sit at a desk and work on a computer all day long.

Speaking of weekends, we had a good one.  It was busy, but good.

Friday night, we had Steph’s birthday dinner at Olive Garden.  We got the family “party” room, so it was just us and it was super nice to have a little privacy where the kids could roam without having to worry about them disturbing other people.  I made Steph a s’mores cake.  Even though it had lots of marshmallows in the frosting, it still didn’t taste much like a s’more.  It was tasty though.

Saturday, we headed down south to visit my side of the family.  We went to an orchard/pumpkin patch for lunch with my mom, Shawn and my grandma, then took some pictures of the kids with the pumpkins.  Then we went to my niece’s birthday party.  It was a nice day.  On our way home, we went to Lucas Oil Stadium to watch our local high school play there, but the game was delayed and the concession people couldn’t get me hot water to warm Kate’s bottle, so we had to head home after only being there a short time.  Glad we got to take Cooper in there though, cause we won’t be taking him to a Colt’s game this season for sure.  He’s just not got the attention span quite yet.

Sunday was spent hanging around the house, not doing too much of anything for me.  I spent most of my day sleeping, feeding Kate and washing bottles.  Our friend Jon who moved to Michigan last year was in town over the weekend and he came for dinner last night.   We grilled out and had a nice time visiting with him.  He used to be at our house a lot when he lived in Indy, so we’ve missed our extra family member.  It was so good to see him, if only for a few hours!

So why did I need to come to work to rest?  Well, Miss Katy girl, doesn’t want to eat.  Each time I fed her yesterday, she ate 2-3 ounces.  That is highly abnormal for her.  She usually eats 5 ounce bottles.  Then during the night I was up a good 2 hours 15 minutes.  The first time from 12:45 to 1:45 – where she ate a total of 2 ounces.  Then from 3:45 – 5, when she ate 2.5 ounces.  She still wasn’t hungry this morning.  I’m hoping she’ll eat at the babysitter today.  We’ll see.  She was still a happy smiling baby all day yesterday and again this morning.  So there’s always that. 

Happy Monday folks!  Let’s make it a good week!

Randomness

Cooper made this at his preschool for me for Mother's Day. I am blessed. I didn't include this in my weekend post because I didn't see this until Monday..... I cried when opening it. I am complete mush these days.

Have you tried these??? They are awesome! A great way to change up how you make chicken, pork, or fish. We've only tried a few of them and only with chicken, but we've liked them all, and this one is our favorite so far.

We do a picture of each person on their birthday with their birthday dessert of choice, and it has to say their age. We mostly use candles, but I got creative with Ryan's peanut butter pie this year. We are only going to have one slot left very soon..... Sooner or later I'll have to add another frame. I just updated this with this year's spring birthdays, Ryan, Tim and Andrew. Next up is Katy, then Soup, then the rest of us in the fall. Do you do anything like this in your family? This frame hangs in our kitchen. I love seeing these photos every day.

I saw this idea somewhere, probably Pinterest, but I like it. I hope I can remember it for Katy's first birthday party. A pennant banner with each monthly photo. So neat!

It's getting closer.......

Have a great Thursday Ladies!

Swim Lessons, Rotisserie Chicken, Birthdays and other stuff

I’ve been a little absent lately.  All due to the fact that I feel like I have nothing to blog about.  Now I have a nice lump of random stuff to blurt out and get out there in cyberspace.  This post is going to be loaded with pictures from the last couple of weeks, it’s going to be a long picture filled post.  Maybe it’ll get me back on track for blogging?  Let’s hope.  I miss my hobby.

Cooper started swimming lessons last night.  He was SO excited to go and couldn’t wait to get in the pool.  Then…. He didn’t get in.  He was the ONLY kid out of about 30 who didn’t get in.  I think it was all an act.  He will be getting in on Wednesday, the teacher is going to put him in, this kid drives me crazy, in the best ways though.

These picture is before the lessons started.  He would not even sit still for a picture, he was so pumped, so excited to put his goggles on and swim…..  If you’d have only gotten in kiddo….

That color is DONE in Kate’s room.  That pink color is the ONLY color that is finished out of the ELEVEN colors that I’m using, but it’s done.  And, you just got another sneak peek.  Cool huh?

Easter.  Family photo and then the two most precious kids in my world.   Tim and Cooper were exhausted from the activity filled day.  I cannot tell you how long it’s been since Cooper actually slept on one of us, it’s precious and I know it won’t happen very often anymore, so I had to capture it.

Like I said, precious.  I mean if you don’t smile when looking at this picture of Soup, I don’t know what would make you smile.  She’s great.  This is how she was when we were dying Easter eggs.  Happy girl.

I finally found the fabric for Kathryn’s curtains/bed skirt.  Now to order it and get it in and get busy sewing.  So excited to get that room finished.

Tim’s birthday was yesterday.  That’s the lopsided mint chocolate cake that I made him.  Recipe found here.  It’s delicious.  We went out to dinner on Saturday with Steph, Cooper, Andrew, Ryan and Soup.  It was good.  The restaurant was nice enough to let us bring the cake in.

This is me, every night in bed.  I turn constantly just like this fella.  The pregnancy pillow is helping, but I just cannot get comfortable for very long. 

I saw this picture on instagram the other morning.  I want to do this for someone’s birthday someday.  I think it’s awesome.  Too bad it was too late to arrange it for Tim’s birthday yesterday.  Maybe for his 50^th? 

Park time.  Cooper loves going to the playground and Sunday was a perfect day – so we went.  And he played his little heart out.  We went down the slide together, he swung on the swings, we played on the see saw, drove the fire truck and he ran around like a crazy kid. 

I think that’s it for now.  Here’s to blogging more than once every two weeks!  Happy Tuesday everyone!