2/27/14

Anna and Tyler's Rehearsal and some Wedding Prep

The girls and I drove to my parents last Wednesday to help finish up some last minute wedding details. (and to get my spray tan on)
Thursday night (2 days before wedding) the wedding programs came in. The first thing I noticed was that Bob's name was no where on the program. My mom was sick about it. She remembered telling the girl to put his name in there for the Officiant but somehow it was left out. It was a bummer but not a huge deal. But THEN I noticed a few more things. The grandparents they had listed as walking down the aisle were not living and they had the wedding taking place in Houston Texas! What?! It was now humorous how many mistakes there were. We thought we had caught them all until Bob's parents came by to drop my girls off (because they are saints and kept my girls most of the weekend. AMAZING in-laws! ) and Dawn noticed that the bible verse being read was listed as 1 Corinthians 13:48. Thats not even a verse! They left out the dash between the 4 and 8. At this point my mom had written the company 2 emails that expressed her disappointment. First thing Friday morning they called her and apologized and said it would all be fixed. When my dad went to pick the new programs up Friday night before the rehearsal he said they were hot to the touch. They had come hot off the press. Whew. 
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Anna requested a dark nail polish. I went with a charcoal gray and the girls did deep purple. When did McKenna get big enough to sit in a chair all by herself at the nail salon?! 
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Part of my Matron of Honor duty was to save all the ribbons from Anna's wedding showers and make a bouquet with them for the rehearsal. I just poked a hole in a plastic plate and pulled all the ribbons through. I love how all the ribbons were the wedding colors and had peacock feathers too. 
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Jojo helping McKenna get ready for the Rehearsal. So sweet.
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It's bad luck (so they say) for the bride to walk down the aisle before the big day so my mom stepped in to take Anna's place. (how cool does my dad look?!)
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The rehearsal dinner was at La Hacienda Ranch. Tyler's parents had it decorated so cute and it was such a fun and relaxing night.
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I didn't give a speech that night because mine was going to be during the wedding reception the next night. I did give Anna the framed picture from the bachelorette party that she had never seen. I had all the girls write one word that described Anna to them.
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There was going to be 20 kids at the wedding so I made some goodie bags to help entertain the kids during the sit down dinner. I ordered a bunch of junky toys from oriental trading company and filled these cute bags with them. 
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 Another big prep job was the bubble guns. My mom ordered them from some bulk website and they did not come ready to use. We had to pull the plastic off each one, release a tab, screw the bubbles on and then spend about 2 minutes pulling the trigger on each one before bubbles actually started coming out. It was a process! We ended up prepping them Saturday morning in the condo my mom rented for all the bridesmaids. Even though we were running a bubble sweat shop, it was so fun to do with all the other girls while sitting in the sun sipping on mimosas. I love a pre party!
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The condo was perfect because it was across the street from the wedding chapel and walking distance to the salon were we got makeup done too. It was the perfect afternoon before the perfect night! 
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Wedding pics to come soon!

2/25/14

Valentines (way late)

Remember Valentine's Day? Well here is a way belated post of how we spent ours.
The girls woke up to a very hearty breakfast. You can't go wrong if you start your day with pink heart shaped pancakes, candy and a chocolate rose. They loved it.
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Bob was actually off work for dinner so we were thrilled to all go eat together. We took it easy this year and didn't bust out the dance floor like last year. We ended the night at this cute little bakery in Georgetown with cupcakes and chocolate covered strawberries. It was perfect.

The girls got to take Valentines to their school friends and I had so much fun making these. For Ella's, I did the same thing as last year. Since she is in a different school they weren't a repeat for any of the kids.
I took a picture of her wearing a pair of sunglasses and then designed the Valentine on my silhouette.
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After printing them off, I made two slits on the side of her face for the glasses to go through. I think they turned out so cute. It was the first day in a while that the sun actually came out so it was perfect timing.
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McKenna is always with me when I drop Ella off to school so she has a special bond with Ella's teacher as well. McKenna was so excited to deliver her favorite coffee drink.
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McKenna is still with a lot of the same classmates so she couldn't repeat the sunglasses one again. I love how her valentines turned out this year though! I saw this idea on this blog last year. It was so perfect for McKenna. That girl loves apple juice and we rarely drink a juice box without one of these holders. 
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I bought the juice box holders from hobby lobby. I started buying them a while ago so I could use my coupon for each one. It's rare that I plan that far ahead but it was great getting 40% off each one.
Hope everyone had a great Valentines Day!


2/23/14

Shea at 2 months

2 months
Happy 2 months baby shea.  You are crying every night until about midnight but last night you slept 7 hours and then went back to sleep for 2 more.  And you pretty consistently sleep for about one 6 hr stretch.  So, I will take your late night parties.  You have grown so much and we will probably find out you doubled in size at your dr appt tomorrow, where you get your two month shots.  (I am making jeff go because I cant take shots.  It just kills me.)  You smile all the time and it is the absolute best thing in the world.  Sass and aves and ben feed you and talk to you and you just smile at them.  It is my favorite thing.  Last night, you could not have been more excited to watch anna and tyler get married and you danced the night away right along with your brother and sisters.  It was so much fun.
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Happy two months.  It has definitely been the best two months.  I won't say I am not ready for the late night parties to slow down (to a halt), but I know I dont want to wish away this time with you.  As always, just couldn't love you more.

2/17/14

Lately

lately
We have been full of babies in puffy jackets and sitting up in the bumbo, snow days and kids in puffy jackets too, sass and I in matching hello apparel, cuddles, rainbow turban headbands and big sis calming down her little sis while mom was busy.
you know, the usual.
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oh we also went to joanns and with the help of a big puffy outfit, shea got to ride in the cart.  She loved it despite her look of extreme nervousness and "what are you doing to me, mom" face.  She is just hiding her smile until she finds out we did in fact remember our coupon.  we got the app now shea.  dont worry.

2/13/14

HBD NYC Style

Since going to New York City with my family, Avery has been pretty obsessed with it.  She loves Broadway and says that she wants to be on it someday . They never complain when we make them walk all over the city and they love seeing everything.  We get candy at Dylan's, go to central park and the zoo, and have to at least look into FAO Schwartz.  This last time we took the fairy by the Statue of Liberty and she was beside herself.  Really, her very favorite part is the subway (unfortunately that could not be captured very well in our house).  So, when she said she wanted a New York party, I got kind of excited.  Allison is a master at transforming cardboard boxes into a new world and I had never tried my hand at it.  I thought this would be a good time to give it a go.  I didnt really have to cut the buildings into any crazy shapes and could really just paint them and they would be buildings.  I am not very good at transforming something from just a box.  Luckily, buildings are already in the shape of boxes and Jeff was there to help me do all the creatively shaped objects (ie. a taxi).
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We had an apartment building, Dylan's Candy shop that I put a shoe organizer inside and stuffed with candy so there would be candy inside, FAO Schwartz that we filled with some of the kids toys, a building with a needle on top (?), a random building with graffiti, a hot dog and pretzel cart and a taxi.
We sent out these invitations which I directly copied off of this cute lady's that I saw over here.
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I found the brick paper at michaels and it was so easy to wrap the boxes up.  Jeff made the window boxes and the cute taxi.
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The broadway sign is just craft letters from Joanns (and they didnt have any A's so I had to use upside down V's.  And sassy glued them on the foam board so they are a littttllle off...).  The broadway posters are just engineer prints from staples that I glued on foam board and my father in law drilled holes around to put the lights through.  Super easy and cheap.
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On the table I put taxi cookies that I ordered online from the same place I got the statue of liberty hats and the statue of liberty for the cake (that I saw here and copied).  I also got subway maps and put everything on a New York Times paper.
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I got the stickers from zazzle.com and my friend James sent us the fantastic m&ms!
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and these ladies just surprised me and completely MADE the party, because who can even think of a NYC party without lady liberty?!  Just loved love LOVED when they walked in and avery ran over to me to tell me they were dressed as the statue of liberty.  Just couldn't get over it.
oh and who could forget Jessie's?
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We watch too much disney channel over here, so avery wanted to include Jessie's appt in the party.  I mean, actors can be like your friends right?
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Then, we partied until we could not party anymore.  We had hot dogs and preztels and cookies and candy from Dylans until we were stuffed.  The kids were everywhere and it was just a blast. There were multiple costume changes and a lot of performances by the girls on avery's new mic.  (Let's just say we may need to give those singing lessons a try.) I don't think it could have gone better.  (Unless I had taken pics at the party.  I was having too much fun and had to steal all of these pics from everyone else.  Thanks guys for documenting!)  Thank you to everyone who came and hung out and made it the bday girls dream. Friends partying in the big apple? Nothing better.
Maybe if I had had a subway.  Next year...

2/6/14

Catching up

As usual, I am behind on some posts.
This was a couple of weeks ago but I didn't want to forget our actual first snow day here! I wish I had video of Ella as she walked outside. She just kept yelling It's snow! over and over. She couldn't believe it. If the neighbors hadn't known, I'm sure it was Ella that informed them.
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Ella thought shorts was the perfect snow outfit...for about 2 minutes.
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School was cancelled so we spent the next day playing in the snow and building our very own Olaf.
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(our back house  play house is still a work in progress but I can't wait to share it with you guys once it's finished!)
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We were of course playing this the whole time we were outside. It was a dream.
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They were both trying to give Olaf warm hugs.
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McKenna had to let the babies see their first snow too.

McKenna has been hilarious as always and taking her mama skills to a whole new level. It cracks me up and melts my heart all at the same time. She is so funny with her baby dolls. She is obsessed with them but not one in particular. She doesn't have names for them either. She calls them all baby. I always ask her if they have a name and sometimes she will call them all Ella Brooke (a friend from school) or baby Shea. This last week she insisted on the car seat coming along with us. 
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This girl comes prepared. Purse, diaper bag, multiple blankets and a banana to feed the baby. 
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She loves playing pretend with her babies in the house. She takes them to Disney World all the time. She will come and tell me that they are headed to Disney World and will be back later. I have got to get video of all this before she grows out of it. She talks about getting on the plane with her babies and that all her cousins are going too. She will come back and tell me how they rode Dumbo and did lots of stuff. I love when she gets in pretend play mode. 


This last Saturday night was a Father Daughter dance. This was the first year for Bob and the girls to do it and they loved it! I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. I just love that it was such a special night for all the dads to take the little girls dancing. 
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They even took them out to dinner first. Brave dads!
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When I asked Bob what the night was like, he said "think butterfly kisses atmosphere." 
The girls had a blast and every time McKenna talks about it, she calls it the wedding. 

Last Sunday a group of us hosted a baby shower for our friend Suni. She is not finding out the gender so we went with a color scheme that could go both ways.
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I remember seeing these fantastic paper lanterns that Lindsay made a while ago. I followed this tutorial and loved how they turned out. I did not buy my tissue paper circles. I just cut out my own and then sandwiched them between parchment paper and ironed them for a bit. This got all the creases out and made them nice and flat. 
We tried to figure out what she is having by some old wives tales.
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It said boy but I am thinking a girl. Plus, that is what the pencil test said and how in the world could it be wrong?!

Yesterday Ella's school had a field trip to the rodeo. McKenna and I went too and it was so fun! We all wore braids and button down shirts. (or is it button up? I guess it could go both ways) The girls looked adorable in their cowgirl clothes.
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The bull riding was intense but the kids loved it. I was always so afraid for the guys riding the bulls. At the end there was a motorcycle guy that did some pretty insane tricks. He jumped over a truck and was doing all kinds of crazy stuff. The kids were hilarious. They loved it so much and McKenna was screaming to cheer him on. 
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Happy Thursday everyone! 
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