AveryAnn's First Day of 2K

AveryAnn started 2K last week and I was so nervous how she would do.  Barrett started MDO at 18 months but she had not been to any sort of organized childcare thing.  She was adamant she was NOT going to school.  She had zero interest anything school related.  SO I was pretty sure how this was going to go...

Tried to get a picture at home...

Tried to get a picture of us together..

Tried to get a picture by the fountain at school... she wouldn't pose for me but I snapped a couple cute ones on the way in. 

She cried and screamed when I dropped her off.  I could hear her screaming from the second level.  But I didn't get upset.  It was comical by that point because she was so adamant she wasn't going.  A friend dropped her daughter off after I'd left and she said AveryAnn was fine.  That her face wasn't even red.  That made me feel so much better.

Her teacher posted this picture later in the day.  I loved seeing her smiling face.  She said she loved school but she didn't want to go back.  When I dropped her off  Thursday she didn't even cry.  She was so excited.  She was less thrilled yesterday but she is always so happy when I pick her up and talks about how much fun she had.  I think this is going to be so good for her (and me!)  We're looking forward to a great year!

Mother's Day

We kicked off Mother's Day weekend with a little date night at Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the Arc Stories event.  We picked up food and met some friends and had a fun night listening to live storytellers.  I love the Arc Stories podcast.  I have a love/hate relationship to going to the events because while I enjoy listening to the stories live, I hate that then I've already heard the stories when they are on the podcast. So I don't go to many events but the one in the gardens is my favorite.

I'm not going to lie, getting there was a pain.  We were worried about getting our food and getting there on time.  When we got there we realized they didn't put forks in our to go food.  I threatened to leave and go home.  We ran to a store and picked some up.  It was really no big deal and I totally over-reacted. 

We made it a quadruple date night and it was so much fun! 

The kids spent the night with my parents.  Saturday before I picked them up I ran to the store to get last minute Mother's Day gifts.  Then we came home and relaxed at home!  I feel like we've been on the go so much this spring it was nice to just be home.

Patrick went to the grocery store on his way home and got stuff to grill steaks for my Mother's Day dinner.  We cooked way to much food but it was all so good! AveryAnn and her daddy both love corn on the cob.  She will eat her weight in corn.  

I forgot to take a picture before I dug in.

Sunday we got up and went to Mass.  I found this sweet Lilly Pulitzer outfit for AveryAnn in a consignment sale.  It is adorable and I love it so much.  They don't make this print anymore so I got on ebay to see if I could find a shirt or something that matched it for me.  Much to my surprise I found a dress so I ordered it. (I was talking to my mom about it and she ended up also ordering one for me.)  I love it so much!  I know she won't want to match me for long so it's fun while it lasts.

My sister and I both had our picture made in this little dress when we were around 3 years old.  I'd been talking about having AveryAnn's picture made in it for a while but I made my mom get it out for me so I wouldn't forget about it and her out grow it.  It fits her perfect right now so I need to hurry up and get her picture made in it.

We got to see Madelyn and Brooks (John and Hope too).  We were obsessed with Spot books as kids and of course my mom still has all of ours.  (For Barrett's first birthday John got him a Spot book and I ugly cried.  It was so sweet)  Now my kids are kind of obsessed with them too.  My mom got them all out for them when they were staying with them.  So AveryAnn was telling Madelyn all about Spot.  The girls are starting to play together more and more.  Madelyn goes to daycare and you can tell she's a lot more comfortable around other kids.  AveryAnn is getting there.

We left my parents and went to Patrick's parents.  We're so thankful for his Mama every year but especially this year.  It's been a difficult year for her but she is so strong and makes me want to be a better person!  We're so thankful for both of our mother's for everything they do for us.  They are so supportive and never hesitate to drop everything to help us in any way.  As I get older, I'm realizing not everyone is so lucky.  I try not to take either of them for granted.  

Spring is Coming

AveryAnn had a big week of riding forward facing in the car finally!  I'm kind of shocked we made it this long.  Now when we drive she's constantly yelling, "yook, mommy a ____!"  It's really cute!

Friday morning my hair straightener died.  I'd had it for 12 years.  It was the first thing I ever bought with my credit card (stupid, I know, don't be like me).  Of course this is turning out to be one of the most expensive months of the year for us so I'm going to have to strategically work a new one into the budget. 

Friday night we went to my parents house so my dad could color my hair.  AveryAnn was helping Granddaddy get some work done while I was processing.

Barrett curled up on the couch and took a little nap.  We got home late Friday night and crashed.

Saturday morning I got up and got ready for a brunch baby shower.  The kids had a fun morning at home with daddy!  That afternoon I took the kids to my parents house to spend the night because we were going bowling for my friend Anna's 30th birthday!  I also enjoyed a solo target run to get a wedding gift for a tea on Sunday.  I came home a took a little nap before getting ready for our little (group) date night.

I kind of love bowling!  I'm not great at it but I think it's so much fun!  We rode with Jeremy and Jessica and always have so much fun with them!

I love this sweet friend of mine!  I love that we've known each other forever but our babies brought us this deep, forever friendship.  We are soul sisters and almost always know what the other is thinking because we're thinking the same thing.  Also, she's so pretty both inside and out.

Love these girls!  Anna has a ton of friends and all she wanted for her 30th birthday was for them to all be together to celebrate. We were missing a few but we had the best time! 

Sunday, we got up and got ready for church.  I had to run by and get the kids dressed for church because I forgot to pack their church clothes. We went to Mass and then came back to my parents for lunch before the tea.

We went to the tea and then my sister and I ran up to go to HIIT.  Hope came to the tea and then she and John and Madelyn went back to mom and dads to hang out.  After HIIT there were more people at the tea so we stopped by in our sweaty gym clothes to visit.  After the tea was over we went back to mom and dads to visit.  Hope had taken these cute pictures of the girls while we were gone.  They are really starting to interact and play together and it is so sweet!

I took this picture of the three of them.

Then I told Barrett to kneel down so he would be the same height at the girls, but they got on their knees too and we all had a good laugh.

We finally made it home, way too late, but it was so worth it!  We don't get to see John and Hope nearly enough.  We don't live that far away but it's so hard to coordinate our lives and get together!  We're getting into a busier season at work and life.  Baseball practice starts this week and we're really excited!  This is our first year of coach pitch!  I think that's all for today!  

Characters & Candles

We had a fun busy weekend!

I'm going to start with Friday because the weather couldn't have been more perfect!  I moved the office outside and the kids played all day!

I got this little outfit at the consignment sale and it is the cutest thing ever! 

They got a blanket out of my car and laid down just checking out the clouds!  It was so sweet.  After work we met some friends at the park and played, played, played!

We kicked off the fun early Saturday morning at the Just Keep Smiling Live with the Characters! show. This was the fifth year and it was so much fun.  My boss got us VIP tickets so we got ot go early and meet Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, Marshall, Chase and Moana.  Barrett was so excited and AveryAnn was excited from a distance.  She waved to them but she had no interest in getting close.  I loved that we go to take our time with each character and really interact.

Grampy tried but she was having no part of it.

After we met the characters we headed to our seats!  The show was great as usual.  Every time a new character would come on stage AveryAnn would go "wook, Mommy! Wook!" or "Wook, Grampy! Wook".  I loved getting to see the show through my kids eyes!

After the show we met a few more characters!

We've never seen Star Wars but my sister was Rey so we had to go see her.

After the show we headed home to get everything set up for AveryAnn's birthday party!

Confession:  I struggle with my kids birthday parties.  It started with Barrett, obviously, I had a big first birthday party.  It was beautiful and perfect and I loved it.  I knew that I wouldn't so anything that big year after year but for the first year it was perfect.  Since his birthday is Christmas day and the holidays are so hectic I tossed the idea of a party in December after that first year.  We started just doing a little play date with his buddies at our house and it has been perfect.  We see both of our families on his birthday and we have cake and celebrate with them then.  He's already talking about his birthday party next year so I don't know what we will do.  SO when it came time for AveryAnn's second birthday I wasn't sure what to do.  I hated to do a big party when Barrett doesn't get a big party, but I wanted to make sure we got to celebrate her with our families.  So, I planned a little party at our house with our immediate families to celebrate her and it was perfect.  I got the house all ready and then picked up the cake and pizza.  I ordered her cake from Publix and I loved how it turned out!  It started pouring down rain while I was in the store and I got soaked. 

I always buy fresh flowers when I'm having company.  I feel like they add a personal touch to even a simple get together!

As soon as we were done singing and we blew out the candle she asked for a fork.  She thought she should just dig right in the cake before I cut it.  This was after she got her own piece and fun uncle Patrick gave her some ice cream.

Love this sweet little family of mine!

Sunday was busy too!  We got up and started getting ready for church.  For some reason both kids woke up so early.  While we were getting ready Patrick got called into work and it was raining.  I'm sure my attitude was less than Christian.  We survived Mass and quickly ran to my parents to change and drop AveryAnn off because Barrett had evaluations for baseball.  This is the first year we've had to do evaluations and neither of us knew what to expect.  The weather was less than ideal and was effecting how they usually hold evaluations.  The boys were going one at a time and having to wait in line and they were not happy about it.  Barrett was tired and hungry and after waiting for 30-40 minutes he was done.  Had a complete meltdown and wouldn't participate.  They assured me he would be put on a team and that it wasn't a big deal.  I know that my attitude was awful.  I'm sure that played a role in his meltdown.  But I was nearly in tears on the way back to Gardendale because I feel like such a failure as a parent.  I really don't care about the baseball, I don't care what the other people think, I just want to raise a polite, kind, caring, child. I have to remember that he is all those things.  But just like myself, I can't expect him to not be cranky when he's tired or hungry.  I can't expect him to have a great attitude when I don't even have a good attitude.  I can't hold him to higher standards than I myself have a hard time upholding.  I'm trying to give him grace (and myself). 

He did pose for this cute picture before he lost his mind.  And hopefully in 10-20 years, that smile will be all I remember.  

After we left evaluations we headed to the gym to workout.  We left there, picked up AveryAnn and headed back home.  It was the first of 3 busy weekends.  We're looking forward to so many fun things this Spring!

Blur Week (The last week of the year)

We were both off the 26th.  I cleaned out the pantry.  We mostly stayed in our pjs all day and it was glorious to not have to go anywhere.

I let Barrett stay out of school this week too since he was still coughing.  So we all went to work each day.  It was super laid back. We just had some cleaning and organizing to do.  They drove me absolutely bonkers.  It was a long 3 days.

On Friday, Barrett was playing with the cardboard tube that the vinyl comes on (after I told him not to) and somehow fell and busted his chin open.  After several texts to different people (some medical, some not) I decided he needed to at least be looked at to make sure it didn't need a stitch.  Plus he still had a terrible cough so I thought if nothing else we should probably get that checked out.  He didn't need any stitches, they put some steri strips on it and gave him some cough syrup and sent us on our way.

Brittany and I had our first annual Goals planning meeting.  We both have worked so hard to reach our goals and we've been great accountability for each other so it just made since to work on our 2018 goals together.  I'm not sure what she expected but I showed up with worksheets and we were both pretty excited about the whole thing.  After our meeting I sat down with my new planner and filled in all that I want for 2018.   I ordered another planner from Ink+Volt this year because I loved last years so much.

Barrett was playing with the light up car and got it stuck in Barbie's hair.  I posted this to Instagram with the caption "at least it was just Barbie". No sooner than I hit "post" Barrett was back over by me...

With it stuck in his hair. Luckily neither of them required a haircut.

This was a fun week where we didn't really know what say it was but we all survived.