Birthday Celebrations & the end of July

July 15th we celebrated my birthday with the Hortons. 

It was a nice afternoon.

These two kiddos love this dog!  Millie gets so much attention all day long.

I was on baby duty one afternoon.

Ally got a much needed haircut.  She was like a new dog.

We finished the Summer Reading Program at our library.  We finished with 77 books and around 2,800 pages.  I'm so proud of these kiddos. 

Checking out the fountain at school.

Friday, July 20th, my friends and I went out to celebrate my birthday.  Jessica wins the prize for most loyal friend.  She is so very pregnant and she sat on the patio in the July heat.  Then she endured karaoke stone cold sober.  Bless her.

We had dinner at Bartaco and it was so good.

Our group had dwindled.  Brittany and I did not care.  We would have sang to an audience of zero.  We love karaoke so much.  I can't sing to save my life but I love it.  We have pretty good song selection and that makes all the difference.  There were more people there this time than last so we didn't get to sing as many songs as we'd hoped.

Saturday we met my sister in law, Leslie at her brother's house to swim.  Her nephew and Barrett are both going to be in Kindergarten together at Bryan so it was fun for them to get to play.

The Sunday afternoon Cassie invited us over to swim and we had the best evening.  Barrett started swimming without his puddle jumper and he's doing so well.

Best I could get of them in their matching swimsuits.

This one let me hold her and then she fell asleep.

We came home and snuggled on the couch until bedtime.

Barrett had his last day at CEC.  He has had a wonderful experience but he's ready for big school!  

So, my parents have this broken down hot tub on their deck and it is a breeding ground for tadpoles/frogs.  We brought a few home to watch grow into frogs.  We've also delivered a few to friends. It's become a thing and we've laughed and laughed about it.

On Thursday, the 26th we went to the Alabama Theatre to watch the Lion King.  Barrett had never seen it and we love the Alabama Theatre so much.  It was a fun morning.

Jessica and Jackson met us there.  

Love these babies so much.  We've had so much fun this summer.

We went to the Big Spoon Truck to grab some ice cream that afternoon.

We've been watching Big Brother and Barrett loves watching the competitions, so he's very into it.  The guys wear these bandanas around their heads and he thinks hes so cool.

This is out of order but the Police horse was at the Alabama Theatre and the kids got to pet him.

For my actual birthday I'd been wanting to go to the lake and spend the night.  Patrick was on call but we were going to chance it.  Until he got to work Friday morning and they told him he had to be there at 7:00 am Saturday morning for an event.  So we cancelled the lake and decided to go to dinner as a family to celebrate.  Barrett decided he didn't want to go to dinner because restaurants are boring.  So we called my parents and asked them to keep them and they agreed.  So we got a little date night and it was perfect.

My dad offered to ride up to the lake with the kids and me for the day if we wanted so we took advantage of that and had the best afternoon.  My mom ended up coming up too and we stayed to watch the moon rise.  It was beautiful!

I loves these two pictures of my parents with the kids. I love getting to watch them be grandparents.

Ally got to go and she loved it too!

On Monday, Anna invited us to tag along with her and Drake to the Cullman Aquatic Center for an afternoon of fun.

We had the best time!

Barrett wasn't scared of anything.  He even went off the high dive!  I was shocked!

Tuesday the 31st, we went to work at the local elementary school putting up vinyl.  The kids did so great. They were pretty good and played together so nicely.  I was so thankful!

That's a wrap for July!  We've got one week until Barrett starts Kindergarten and we are soaking it up!

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!