Happy 2014

This year will be my year to be a better blogger. My post may not be lengthy, but they will be more frequent! I find myself with at least 45 minutes to an hour in the carpool line every single day. Why not use some of that time to blog?

We had a fantastic, American Girl filled Christmas! 2 days after Christmas we had a trip to the AG store, saw Shin Yun in Houston, then took Alexandra to see Pirate and Princess with another sweet family!

We rang in 2014 with the James family...and also grew our family by one.

Meet Dashy Pie Stafin, the lucky little kitten who found us on New Year's Eve. 

We are currently celebrating our 3rd Christmas with Josh's family and I'm savouring the last few days of time off with the family. Josh took off the 2 weeks Alex was out of school. 

Ita and Ito's

We headed to Dallas for the weekend. We drove up Saturday and went straight to my grandparents house. My parents, aunts and uncles were there. Grandma made her yummy enchiladas for lunch and the guys helped work on their storage shed.
Alex was very shy when we first got there. She would barely leave my side.

After she got a little food in her tummy, she opened up a little. It was a beautiful day so we spent most of the afternoon outside. Alex found pecans, watered plants and just played around.

Alex and Popi found a caterpillar. I so proud of my girly girl, she held it!

On our way out, I pointed out a stone to Alex that had Hudson's handprints on it. She put her sweet little hands on his prints, it was soo cute and sweet

Later that night we went to my best friends for a pumpkin carving party. Pumpkins post will come later this week!!

Family Fun Day!

We had such a fun Saturday! Alex has been asking to go bowling so we decided to take her today! She LOVED it! She bowled with bumpers and a ramp...and she beat me...TWICE! Kind of embarrassing, but still fun!




We went to Fudrucker's for lunch and had cookies when we were done. Alex wasn't ready to go home so we went to Toys R Us to look around. I figured it would be a good time to get Christmas ideas! Alex loved trying all the bikes out. She was soo good and never asked for anything until she saw the Calico Critters Manor. She tried picking up the box and said we needed to go pay. I have a feeling this will be on the top of her Christmas list this year! It's perfect because there are soooo many accessories that go with it so we can continue to add to it!



Alex still wasn't ready to go home so we went to Barnes and Noble. We sat and had coffee (and milk) then we played with the train table and read some books!

I love days we get to spend as a family doing fun things!

Wild Oak Ranch 2011

As part of our parents Christmas present, we told them we were taking everyone on a family vacation...but they'd have to wait until summer! We took both set of grandparents with us to Wild Oak Ranch in San Antonio. We (Josh, Alex and I) went last year and loved it, but we thought it would be so much fun with the grandparents too! We had 2 connecting room, one with a full kitchen. I spent the week prior planning meals, grocery shopping and packing. Josh worked a half day Thursday and Nomi, Terri and Ray drove to our house. We left soon after Alex got out of school. Once we got to the resort, we had dinner and Josh and I went to the grocery store for the cold stuff. Alex was spoiled rotten with both sets of grandparents there. She even slept in bed with us the first night! Popi met us there on Friday.

It was a perfect vacation for multiple people. We had plenty of room between both rooms and having the kitchen was a life saver because we could cook pretty much every meal there. I LOVE that the kitchen was stocked with all necessary utensils. The only thing I took was an extra pan because I knew cooking so many meals in the room for 7 people would be a little difficult with the 3 pans the hotel provided.

We spent our mornings in the room taking our time with coffee and breakfast. We went to the lazy river for a few hours then went to the room in shifts for lunch so someone could hold our cabana and Alex could get in a nap in the room with someone with her. We had a prime cabana with 6 lounge chairs, shade and a lazy river entrance.

We spent our afternoons floating the river, reading books and napping by the water! It was PERFECT! Friday night was a movie under the stars. They showed Tangled, which is an Alex favorite! Grandma and Nomi liked it too! Saturday night we did dinner at the restaurant on the property then went to the fire pits for smores! I LOVE how kid and family friendly the entire resort is.

I met a really sweet mom who happened to be from Bryan! Crazy small world! Alex also made friends with two boys from Houston. She enlisted them to help her make princess sand castles. They were soo cute with her! We had so much fun and are talking about making this a yearly trip!

Alex getting in a little nap on the way to San Antonio

Nomi, Alex and Grandma post breakfast, playing in the room

Ray and Josh catching up over coffee

Terri and Ray floating the river

Daddy and his girl!

our little river entrance from our cabana!

Josh relaxing!

a little break from floating

our perfect cabana!

Nomi and Popi

me and my sweetie!

Alex's Fairy Forest

We celebrated Alex's 3rd birthday yesterday with a Fairy Forest Party on her actual birthday! I started off my morning at 6am with a quick shower and a trip to the donut shop for her breakfast tradition! A chocolate sprinkle donut. This year we included chocolate milk! She gave both 2 thumbs up! She ended up eating about 3 bites of her donut before Cooper swiped it and had 2 sips of her chocolate milk before she decided she was over it!

With Alex's help, we came up with the theme for her party in January! I am all about a lengthy planning time so I can take my time to find exactly what I want for the party instead of rushing around at the last minute! Alex received a beautiful fairy pop up book from my best friends mom and I immediately knew I wanted to go the traditional fairy route instead of Tinkerbell.

I found the perfect invites on Etsy.

We wrapped up fairy wings and tutus and delivered them to each girl attending the party. Alex selected the colors. She chose purple for her friends and pink for herself.

My sweet little fairy on her birthday!

My biggest task was creating the fairy forest. I knew in my mind exactly what I wanted it to look like, but creating it was the hard part. I spent the months prior to the party cutting out all of the paper good (cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers, Happy Birthday Alex pendants, Alex's Fairy Forest pendant and the animals around the forest). The week before the party I created the forest. My parents came in town Thursday night and my mom helped with all of the finishing touches. Josh suggested we use some astro turf we had in the attic for the forest floor. I LOVED the way it finished the look. We had so much fun working on every last detail!

We had a kid height table and kids chairs for the girls. Each place was set with a craft to start with. The table centerpiece was edible. We made marshmallow kabobs and fairy wands that were pink chocolate dipped pretzels.

Each girl had bracelets, rings and a wand set out for them as well.

I made the little cone shaped tree to match the topiaries on the food table.

The food table, before the food was set out. I re purposed the topiaries from Alex's baby shower to match the theme and color. The book on the left was our inspiration for the party.

The only picture I have with the food on the table is actually cropped in from a different picture so it isn't the best! The kids food included Magical Fairy Wands (fruit kabobs), Fairy Garden Veggies (carrots, celery and tomatoes with ranch), Snail Sandwiches (ham and cheese roll ups and pb&J roll ups), Chocolate Kissed Fairy Berries (chocolate covered strawberries), Fruity Fairy Flowers (tarts filled with yogurt, blueberries and raspberries) and Fairy Fizz (sparkling cherry limeade and strawberry lemonade).

Each item had it's own little sign I created.

The inspiration along with a close up of a topiary.

As each girl arrived, they picked a seat and started working on decorating a fairy house. I painted them pink and added a pink and green ribbon. Each girl received a little bucket of jewels to glue on to the house.

When they were finished decorating them, I placed them on a bag with their name. They used the bag later to take home their fairy house, wand, bracelets and wings. While they were decorating their houses, the girls snacked on the fairy wands and marshmallow centerpieces.

One by one, the girls were taken to the face painter while the others worked on their houses. Every girl ended up having her face painted and a few went back for painted bracelets!

Alex loves to have her face painted anytime she can so we wanted to make sure to incorporate it into her birthday party!

Alex had so much fun opening her presents.

Since we celebrate Alex's birthday 3 different times, we try to change up the cake/dessert each time. We ordered cupcakes and I made wrappers and toppers to personalize them.

When the girls we done with cupcakes and ice cream they all played around. Alex gave Chandler a ride on her new tricycle.

Before the fairies left, we tried for a group picture!

(left to right: Ina, Alex, Abby, Chandler, Helen and Carson)

Her birthday party was soo much work, but soo worth it! I loved seeing Alex's face light up every time she saw a new detail of the party coming together. My mom was the biggest help setting everything up and making all the beautiful bows that were tied to anything that stood still! Josh was a champ cleaning the house and doing yard work while we worked on the food. My sweet Dad did pretty much anything we asked from putting together gifts to running to the store for stuff we forgot! Terri and Ray were key in keeping Alex and Cooper occupied the morning of the party!

Happy Easter!

We had such a fun Easter! We spent a week at my parents house since Josh was out of town for part of the week. I have lots of pics to share, but I'll just do Easter for now! Saturday we took Alex to see Grandma and Grandpa. They hid eggs for her and as soon as we walked in the door, she grabbed her basket and said, "Let's find eggs!" She had tons of Easter goodies in her baskets. She got a cute little princess accessories set.

We went back to my parents that afternoon and Alex got to color eggs!

Sunday morning we got up and Alex found more Easter baskets! This kid was spoiled rotten by the Easter bunny!

After we got ready we drove to Dallas to see all the family. We did two egg hunts, one for the little kids and one for the big kids. Alex found WAY TOO many eggs. Josh had to follow her around with her big basket so she could dump the eggs into it when her little basket got too full! We had such a great Easter weekend.