the moments of our week

It's been a crazy around here lately.  Actually pretty much a rollercoaster.  A rollercoaster of events, a rollercoaster of emotions and attitudes.
Here's a recap, along with a random selection of pictures, from both my phone and my camera. 

We had moments that were tiring...like Dave working Saturday and Sunday for the first time ever. Although it was because of being home for most of the week before due to rain, it still just messed with both of us mentally.

We had moments that we cried...like when Mason was so sad and shy at Tae-kwon-do and made this mama feel so bad for him.  And like when God showed his awesome power and goodness to us in an UNBELIEVABLE way!!

We had moments that were infuriating...like when Mason refused to participate in any way in the Tae Kwon Do class he had been counting down the days for.  (not participating wasn't the infuriating part).  But his behavior went downhill very fast and very STRONG, in front of a room full of other parents and kids.  It was very humbling. And Dave and I were on different pages as to what to do about it.  Dave's personality says to pick him up and walk out.  My personality says to keep trying, surely we'll get somewhere by the time the class is over. I definitely should have listened to my hubby on that one.  It would have saved a lot of stress and embarrassment. We are now working on simple respect issues.  Like looking at someone when they speak to you, and shaking their hand and responding to questions asked, and obeying when you are told where to stand.  AND, we are also learning that when you are promised ice cream IF you participate, you do not still get the ice cream after an hour of refusal and bad attitude.  I am certain that we as parents messed up terrible somewhere in that hour long class.  But we were stumped.  Not sure how to handle him.  There's such a thin line sometimes between crushing their spirit and disciplining inappropriate behavior.  The last thing we wanted him to do was be confused and think that he was in trouble for being shy and not wanting to do Tae Kwon Do.

We had moments of relief....as we finished our taxes earlier than EVER.  We always get them to our accountant on April 13 or 14.  Meaning he files for an extension and takes care of them in October.  But this year they are completely DONE!  WAHOOOO!

We had moments of fear....as I left my jewelry show last night in the middle of a humongo thunder and lightning storm.  And hail.  I almost wrecked twice because every underpass had cars pulling over to have shelter from the hail, but they were half way still out on the interstate, make it super super super dangerous.  I pulled over (in much smarter, safer spots) 3 times, and each time I thought it was safe and headed back out, the hail pounded my car again.

We had moments of joy and entertainment....as our baby boy turned 4 months old and is all of a sudden rolling over and over again all the time! 

We had moments of frustration...as our baby boy rolled himself to his tummy 4 or 5 times in the night and screamed until we rolled him back.

We had moments that tested our faith...asking the Lord to either open or close the doors on an opportunity Dave has been given.  An opportunity that required us to say YES, not knowing how it would all happen, but trusting that if it is His will, the doors will all be opened and He will provide.

We had moments of chaos...as my 12:30pm flight to Cincinnati to see my sister was cancelled, and I was told I'd now fly out tonight at 5:30, arriving in Dayton at midnight.  This meant all the little details I had taken care of as far as who was taking Taylor to preschool, who was watching Mason, who was taking me to the airport, etc....were cancelled.  And now I have to pray my heart out that my sweet little travel buddy will be good to me on the plane.  The evening hours aren't usually his best hours of the day, and they are the hours in which he sleeps the least. 

We had moments of FUN.... when we stuck in a spontaneous picnic at the park with friends and got to help a friend celebrate turning 5!

It was a crazy week.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something. 

But I'm off to see my sister and baby Alice this evening - the craziness surely will not continue.

dreaming of you sweet Caribbean

Today we could be leaving a jet plane.

To Miami.

To get on this ship.

 And enjoy our balcony room,

For 7 days in the Caribbean.

For free.

(thanks to Premier).

But instead, all I have is pictures and memories of 2010.

My sister-in-law texted me from the airport this morning.  Trying to not make me feel sad that I wasn't with them.  I texted another friend who was sitting there at the airport in excitement ready to be there already, and I could almost SMELL the Caribbean and feel that excitement we felt a few years ago when we went cruising for the first time.

But when the trip was announed last spring, I was puking and couldn't get off the couch.

We just just recently found out we were expecting baby #3.

And as much as I pretended in my head that we could STILL go and just take our 4 month old along.

I was just kidding myself.

I knew we'd have to miss this trip.

Even if I did earn it for free.

And even if our last cruise with Premier was the best trip in our entire lives.

Good thing, sweet little Gavin is one of the best reasons in the whole world to miss such a spectacular vacation.

There's no way I could leave this cute little thing for 8 days.

There will be another one.

And Dave and I will be on that ship -  you can count on it.

And thanks to Facebook, I'm sure I'll get to be reminded through pictures being posted, of how much fun and sun we're missing.

 

looking back

So we hear that Gavin looks like Mason, pretty much all the time.

I definitely thought that too from the very first day.  But I don't know that I realized how much a like they look as babies, until I was looking through Mason's baby pictures before his birthday.

It was fun to find some of the same pictures (perspective wise) that I had taken of both of them, and around the same age.

So what do you think?  Do you see the resemblence?

our brackets

The kids filled out their first brackets this year, and we got a kick out of some of their rationale in choosing teams.

Mason went for all the Florida schools - because we vacationed to Florida, duh!  The kids are pretty much all about Florida all the time.

He also picked Michigan to go pretty far (beating KU!), because that's where Uncle Jason, Aunt Stacy and Jeremy and Sydney live.

And he was kind of partial to Davidson (because it has Daddy's name in it).

And he thought the name Iona was cool to say.  Too bad they lost already.

And he likes Cincinnati "because there's LegoLand and Aunt Rebekah there".

He even picked Cincinnati to beat K-State, he must really love LegoLand, or Aunt Rebekah maybe?

Overall, it's not surprising the 2 teams he picked in the final game...

Florida vs. Cincinnati (a #6 and #7)

With Taylor, I tried to explain on the #1 and #16 matchup that the #1 team is ranked much higher, because it's a typically a better team. I didn't go into a lot of detail about the seeds.  But she picked up on it quick and for the entire first round, chose the higher ranked seeds every time.  I thought as we went further into the rounds that she wasn't paying attention to the seeds anymore. But somehow she ended up with all #1's in the Final Four.  So, I guess maybe she was. 

She was much more systematic in her selections.

Have you filled out your brackets?  This is the first year I decided to make my selections based off  my head and not my heart.  We'll see how that ends up for me.

a cowboy party

Mason changed his mind about a hundred times on what kind of party he wanted.  I asked him lots of times if he wanted to get on the computer and look at ideas, knowing that once he saw some themes played out, maybe he'd like them.  But he was stuck on a K-State party.  Even though we had that for his 3rd birthday. 

And then for awhile it was Mater.

And then dinosaurs. And Legos.

He was all over the place.

Finally I asked him to choose something and stick with it so Mommy could start planning and getting things ready.  All on his own he chose a cowboy party.

PERFECT.  I knew it would be easy and I had lots of things I could use from his nursery which was vintage cowboy themed.
Oh yeah, and with 4 days to go, he came up with The Wizard of Oz out of no where. HA! Maybe at that point he was just messing with me. But whether he was serious or not,  I got him back on the cowboy track right away (since I had already ordered a few things).

So with one week to go, I threw some things together.  But really, even if he had given me 2 weeks, I wouldn't have used the time.  I work at the last minute. 

A quick order from Oriental Trading Company got me the dessert plates, napkins, cow balloons and bandanas.  I had red and white straws leftover from Taylor's Country Fair party, and we used all of our jars for his party too.  Since they are Mason jars of course.  And then I grabbed several of the decor items that had been in Mason's nursery to use on the table as well.

This is the first time I've used fondant.  I got a mashmallow fondant recipe from a friend, and he even came and helped me decorate it.  He saved me lots of stress in trial and error, and helped make it look fabulous!

Mason was spoiled with gifts from grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles.

He anxiously awaited to find out what Uncle Steve was going to pull out of the bag.

His first pets - 2 dwarf frogs.

One of the parties I used for inspiration had a Marshmallow Shoutout with pvc pipe shooters.  So this was Daddy's job for the party.

He followed the instructions that I found on The Idea Room. And knocked out 10 guns in about 2 hours.  I made the tag on photoshop and we packaged marshmallows up to use as our party favor.

And then it was shootout time! (my basement may be the worst place ever for pictures, but these were just too cute not to share).

Poor birthday boy actually couldn't blow hard enough to get the marshmallows to fly out (oops, should have tested that out before hand).  So he actually had quite the birthday boy meltdown. Until we told him to just start throwing marshmallows at everyone and we stated a mandatory rule that if you got hit by Mason you had to fall down dead. He loved it! WHEW!  We redeemed ourselves.

Uncle Jim wins the prize for most dramatic death by marshmallow.

Our menu included some cowboy style food - Sloppy Joes, KFC coleslaw (our kids' favorite), baked beans, chips and root beer.

Here are a few more links...

If I had done cupcakes, I would have gotten these western cupcake liners  from Sweet Cuppin Cakes Bakery.  But we definitely do cakes more at this house.  In fact, I wouldn't mind as the kids gets older that we phase out of all the decorations and other details and just do a fun cake for each birthday.

Sometimes I do invitations, sometimes I don't.  It's just family usually, so it's easy to just email everyone.  But it is fun to do invitations when I have enough time to get one done.  I loved the invitation that was used for this Rootin Tootin Cowboy Party.  That's where I found most of my inspiration, as well as this Cowboy Party and Western Party at Kara's Party Ideas.

It was such a fun party! And we're pretty sure our birthday boy had a blast - which makes all the work worth it!