4th Birthday Party!

We celebrated Alex's birthday early this year!  Anyone who knows me, knows I start planning Alex's birthday about 6 months out!  This year Alex didn't really have much of an opinion other than she wanted it to be purple.  I threw the idea of a movie party out there and she LOVED it.  Since Brave was coming out a few weeks before her birthday, we decided to have her party early (on opening weekend)!  Instead of going with a Brave theme, we did purple, purple and more purple!  The theater was fantastic and handled everything!  All we had to do was show up with cake or cupcakes.  Of course, because Alex wanted purple, I picked up our own paper goods, but they would have provided them if I wanted.  We had pizza and cupcakes then got to see the movie.  My favorite part was the manager reserved 2 great rows in the theater for Alex's party!  We walked in right before the movie started and took our seats!  During the party they took drink and icee orders from the kids and delivered kids packs with popcorn, drinks and graham crackers as soon as they were seated!



the birthday banner I made!

 silly girl coyping one of the triplets!

 happy girl with her cupcakes!

I would totally do a movie party again!  In fact, Monsters University and the second Despicable Me come out around Alex's birthday next year! 

Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day.  I woke up early and Alex and I made stuffed french toast for breakfast!  Considering I didn't follow a recipe I think it turned out pretty good! 

Then we got ready and drove to Cedar Park so we could ride the Father's Day Flyer on the Austin Steam Train.  We rode it several months ago but Josh and Alex wanted to ride it again on a different car.  I knew it would be a fun Father's Day activity so the second I got an email about the Father's Day Ride, I booked our compartment!  We rode in a private compartment on the City of Chicago pullman car.  It is so much fun having a private compartment because Alex can move around all she wants and we can just relax!  We had a yummy lunch and dessert.  It was so much fun!  My girl shares her Daddy's love for trains!

Josh and Alex heading to our compartment

Alex took so many pics of us while we were on the train.  She actually did a pretty good job!

 Daddy and daughter with huge smiles!

 my girl!

 Josh and Alex after the ride.  The car we rode in was BEAUTIFUL!

It was such a fun day!  We are already talking about our next ride!  Next time we will probably do a ride out of Rusk...either the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown in October or Polar Express in December!

Weekend at the Lake

Thursday Josh headed to the coast for a fishing trip with the guys.  Since he was going to be gone for 3 nights, Alex, Cooper and I headed to my parents.  It ended up working out perfect.  I spent most of the week getting sick so it was great to be at my parents so I could rest and Alex could still have all the attention she wanted!  We had so much fun while we were there.  It was nice to sit back and watch Alex interact so much with my parents.

One of mom's friends has baby turkeys so he brought them over for Alex to see.  She held one for about 3 seconds then was happy just petting them.

 This pretty much described me over the weekend, no make up and glasses.  I'm still not feeling 100%, but much better.  I think I just had a killer sinus infection.

 Alex spent time swinging while singing Gloria.

 We put dirt in a jar for rollie pollies.  She added flowers and grass too!

 We spent tons of time in Alex's garden.

 My parents have spent so much time working on Alex's garden.  It is soo cute.  They have tons of plants, a little pebble walk way, lots of little decorative things and a sitting area.  Alex spent part of the morning dead heading plants and planting the seeds.  The garden is going to be over run with flowers before we know it!

 Alex and Popi spent time playing "baseball" with a ball scoop thing.  It took her a few tries to make contact, but once she did, she didn't want to stop playing.

Once she would hit the ball, she would drop the scoop and run the make believe bases.  Basically, she would just run around the yard and then head towards mom for a high five!

 Then of course a victory dance!

 All the "baseball" worked up an appetite so we had a picnic.

 Alex's favorite berry of the season...raspberries!

 One of Alex's favorite things to do is help Nomi water plants.  This particular watering session turned into my child running around without a stitch of clothing on in the water!

 Saturday night we ate dinner outside then roasted marshmallows!

 Can't forget this sweet boy!  He loves being at Nomi and Popi's!

 One of the best parts of being at Nomi and Popi's...sharing a room with my girl and waking up to this sweet face!  Her room has 2 beds in it and she insist I sleep in there with her instead of my room. :)

The hardest part of the weekend was missing this boy.  My parents lost their beloved Stoney on Memorial Day.  There was a freak accident he was unable to recover from.  It was such a sad day for our entire family.  Stoney was such a sweet protector of everyone, especially the kids in the family.  We waited a week to tell Alex about it because Josh and I needed time before we could work up the strength to talk about the death of a pet with her.  Last Sunday we talked to her about Stoney and read her a book called "Dog Heaven."  She mainly listened as we talked about how happy Stoney was in heaven.  It broke our hearts when she asked when he was coming home and we had to tell her he wasn't.  My sweet girl started sobbing.  She has spent a little more time with her stuffed dog we named Baby Stoney a few weeks before he died.  While we were at my parents Alex was making up nicknames for everyone and she said Stoney needed one in heaven.  I teared up and she looked at me with the sweetest face and said, "Mommy, don't be sad.  Stoney is in heaven and he is happy."  My girl always knows just what to say.