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!
If any of you follow Holly or Aly on instagram, you've heard about the Surprise Sprinkle that they along with my step-daughter Stephanie threw for me over the weekend. Oh my gosh ya'll, I cannot tell you how surprised I was. Let me tell you the back story.
For weeks now, Tim has been telling me that he was taking me out of town for the weekend after our anniversary. Our anniversary was last Thursday, so I was pretty excited that we were leaving Saturday morning and weren't coming home until Monday afternoon according to Tim. Well.... turns out, this was not exactly the weekend we were going away.....
Thursday night and Friday night, Tim cleaned. He cleaned like we were having a party or like my Mom was coming to stay. Which was his story. My mom was coming to watch Cooper for the weekend, while we went away for our trip. So I didn't think much of it while he cleaned like a crazy man. Cooper and I even went out with Erica, Mel, Bill, and Mary Friday night so that he could have the house to himself to get more cleaning done.
He had me pack on Saturday morning. He told me what to wear and what to pack - since he knew the activites we'd be doing and I didn't. I thought nothing of it. He wouldn't tell me anything about where we were going except that we were heading south. He told me we had a lunch reservation in town then we were heading out. So we packed up the van on Saturday and made our way out.
He pulled up directions on his iPhone to the Greenwood Park Mall, and the app told him exactly how to get there. I knew as soon as she said Greenwood Park Mall that we were going to Bravo! to eat. It's my favorite restaurant.
When we pulled up, we parked next to a white Toyota Venza that just happened to have Missouri license plates. I just randomly told Tim, that looks like Holly's new car, Vivian.... I think about this point, his head started to explode, because of all of the places he found to park, it was next to Holly's, but he played it well. He said something like "Emily, do you really think Holly is here? Why would she be here?" I knew in reality it was just the biggest coincidence but I just had to take a picture and text her because I thought it was hilarious.
Well, when we got into Bravo! Tim told the host we had reservations, and he took us back to the big surprise...
I was pretty surprised.
Then I saw Holly:
You can see for yourself how the entire thing played out, I cannot believe I'm sharing this video due to the fact that I PUSHED Aly out of the way and COMPLETELY ignored the rest of my friends/family to get to Holly to give her a hug. I was just in shock that she was actually there. I couldn't get over it and couldn't see anyone but her for a minute.....
Once the shock wore off, I was super excited to see everyone! I couldn't believe that they had done this for me. They had been on covert operations for a couple of months planning this entire thing. Holly contacted Stephanie to get addresses for her, and they went to all kinds of trouble arranging everything. Then they showed up, all three of the fine fine ladies decorated and made this a supremely special day for me. My closest friends were there, my mom was there and my second mom Mary was there. I am a lucky lucky girl.
I need to give a shout out also, to Kristen, for designing and providing the invitations to Holly. She wouldn't let Holly pay her a cent for them, and she even designed a game for us to play! If you are ever in need of some custom invitations, cards, thank yous, etc, please contact Kristen's Little Laws Prints! She's awesome! I contacted her on Saturday after the party and she designed some Thank Yous for me, and as soon as I get them from her, I'll be writing them out and sending them to all of the ladies who were there for me!
Here is a mock up of the invitation. Insert Emily Johnson for Savannah Morrison and Katy for Jensina and then the address of Bravo! As well as Holly's info for the RSVP stuff and you've got the picture. She changed all the info on this one to post on Facebook so that it would still be a surprise.
Here's a picture of the entire group of ladies in attendance.
Holly, Aly, Stephanie, I love you ladies and appreciate all that you did for me on Saturday!
Well, after a looooong break, I’m blogging! Happy New Year everyone!
We’ve had an eventful 12 days. I was off work from 1pm December 21 to today. I cannot explain to you how wonderful and much needed that break was. I was burnt out, and I really wanted some time to rest, relax and unwind. I’ve got about 5 months of nonstop work without a day off coming up and I really wanted to enjoy this last Christmas with Cooper before his brother or sister comes.
Speaking of brother or sister….. My anatomy scan is scheduled for January 14 so we are hoping to find out the baby’s gender that day. Yippee! Only 12 days away. Back to our break….
We got to visit lots of family, the weekend before Christmas we visited Tim’s family in Ohio….
All of the cousins
The Johnson Siblings
Then, on Christmas day, we open presents at our house, then we visited with my dad at his house, then my mom at her house. My brother and his family visit with us at dad’s then mom’s also.
Christmas morning at our house
At Dad’s house Christmas day
At Mom’s house Christmas evening
Our Christmas was wonderful, we are truly blessed. Time with family was the most precious, and Santa went above and beyond, as usual.
After Christmas, we spent the rest of the week hanging out around the house. We had about 7-8” of snow on Christmas night, so Tim and Andrew spent the majority of the day after Christmas snow blowing the driveways of our neighbors and our house. Cooper and I spent the day inside enjoying new toys and watching too much television.
We finally left our house on Friday, only because Tim and I both had dentist appointments. We were home by 1 and Cooper and I did our normal daily nap from 1-3. Boy am I going to miss those naps. Saturday and Sunday we spent at home, not leaving for anything.
On Monday, New Year’s Eve, Tim went to work for 1/2 day, and while he was gone, Cooper and I cleaned some and ran some errands. Then Tim picked up Kampbell and we spent the rest of the day hanging out with the Coop and the Soup. That night, we had some friends/family over. Erica and Mel, Andrew’s friend Garrett and girlfriend Hannah, and Stephanie and Ryan of course. We played a euchre tournament and had lots of good food. We also let Cooper stay up until after midnight, it was almost 1am before I put him to bed. It was the first time he has stayed up that late and he did great.
Yesterday was spent catching up on sleep, laundry, cooking breakfast for all of the overnight guests and getting the house back in order.
All in all, it was a wonderful break. I’m so glad I was able to start the New Year fresh and relaxed! I’m glad to be back in the blogging world too!! I’ve been reading blogs so I hope to get back into the groove of writing!
I'm back! I actually meant to be back on Monday, but due to some sickness - I'm just getting back into the swing of things today.
I couldn't miss out on the opportunity to share our Halloween Adventures with everyone today, since I know most everyone else is probably doing the same. What can I say? I like to be with the "in crowd" sometimes. :)
Our Halloween activites started on the 13th this year. We decided to take Cooper to the Indianapolis Zoo for the ZooBoo they host each year. Our awesome neighbors went also, and Allie and Cooper had fun. It rained while we were there, but we decided we weren't sugar and we'd make it through.
Pictures from that evening:
Before we left, Cooper and Allie's dad, Keith, were throwing around the ball.
Allie. Isn't she the cutest DJ Lance Rock you've ever seen?
Checking out the penguins.
And looking for the elephants.
Allie getting some candy.
Cooper getting candy
The next few pictures are from an area of the zoo where the kids can go in and feed birds. Cooper and I admittedly got a bit scared the first few times they flew right up to us, but we both got the hang of it. Allie is a pro at this.
Of course, they had to get their heads inside these for a photo opp.
The next thing that I made for Halloween was this cute little pumpkin. Lindsey had this cute little personalized pumpkin on display on her front porch and I just had to ask her to make me some cutouts! She sent me the letters, polka dots and the ribbon and I made this, which ended up being the only decoration I did for Halloween:
Next, on October 20, our festivities included carving pumpkins. Andrew was home from college for fall break, Steph and Ryan came over, and Cooper decided he was too scared of the pumpkins so he didn't carve any. I am happy to say, I just sat back and enjoyed not getting my hands dirty this year also.
Tim and Ryan carving out their masterpieces.
Tim is super proud of his pumpkin.
Not sure what's wrong with Andrew, looks like he swallowed something sour
Steph carving a K pumpkin for Kampbell.
October 27th was the trunk or treat at a local church. Our church had a fall festival, but we didn't attend that one, we thought Cooper would have fun trick or treating instead. It was pretty cold out that evening, so we didn't stay a terribly long time, but enough time for him to eat some popcorn and collect some candy. :)
On the Monday before Halloween, the 29th, the high school for our area had a safe trick or treat in the halls. It was from 5-7 and it was packed. I didn't get many pictures because Tim couldn't make it, so I was wrestling with our coats, Cooper's football, his pumpkin, the camera and keeping my 3 year old in line. Here are a couple though. He really had a good time at this event. I loved it because he got to see so many other kid's costumes - when they actually didn't have a coat on overtop.
Finally, on Halloween, we took Coop around to our neighbor's houses, and then he helped us hand out candy. He got to wear his football costume all evening and that made him super happy.
Daddy with Cooper before heading out.
Mommy with Coop before going Trick or Treating.
Heading up to the first house. It was decorated :)
We met up with the neighbors and you can tell, the Moms always get to take the pictures! Janna and I were taking the pictures, while Keith, Diane, Pete, Tim, Allie, Julia and Cooper got their picture taken.
Cooper wouldn't join the girls in a picture of just the kids, so I got one of the cutie pie girls anyway!
My neighbor Janna made that Princess Presto dress! Isn't it awesome?!?
Here's Cooper helping hand out the candy. I think he had as much fun handing it out as he did collecting it!
That's a wrap! Halloween is definitely not just a one nighter event at my house! :)
