Weekly Recap {8.13.18}

Well hello there Monday! We're coming off a nice low-key weekend which is just what I needed. This week we are going full force with the fun because it's Brayden's last week before school starts!!

Anyway, here's a look back at our past couple of weeks

We went to the Cubs game with friends the weekend we got back from vacation - I was exhausted but it was so much fun!

 

The very next day we had a little birthday party for Avery - it was more like a glorified playdate with a few of her school friends but nonetheless she felt so special and that's all that mattered! She was begging for her own party so I'm glad she got one!

We did some puzzling one afternoon - it was cute because Avery kept wanting to do more and that never happens haha

We saw Christopher Robins with friends - it started out slow so I was worried it wouldn't keep their attention but it was fine and actually a really cute movie!

I took Ella to the library for a Ready for Kindergarten class they had, I swear it made her even more excited!!

 

I took the kids to a pool that I bought a Groupon for earlier in the summer - it was SO packed when we showed up I contemplated leaving but the kids were so excited so I put my anxiety aside, watched them like a hawk and we ended up having a great time! I was in the water with them the whole time and I know they loved that 

We took Ella and Brayden to Dicks for new cleats and Ella picked these fun pink ones!

We've been going on bike rides and it's been so great. Even though Brayden doesn't love riding his bike, he is always game when we go

My three loves!

Friday night we had our families over for all 3 kids' birthdays. I decided doing them all separate a month apart is ridiculous especially since they all have friend parties.  It worked out great and we all had a fun time!

Saturday me and this cutie whipped up some banana bread, it was delicious!!

Meanwhile the boys were outside doing work!

Saturday afternoon my Mom picked up Ella for a sleepover so the rest of us went over to some friends later on in the night and hung out.  We got home a little late and all went right to bed. Sunday I woke up and facetime'd Ella because I missed her cute face then we had a slow relaxing morning. Later we took the kids swimming at my in laws and had lunch over there then came home and got some housework done.


Today I have a physical and have to take all 3 kids with me,  please keep me in your thoughts hahaha!




*linking up with BLovedBoston & The Sirois Family

Avery Jane is FOUR!!

I'm fashionably late with this, but such is life when you're the 3rd kid 😂

My dear sweet Avery, you are now FOUR years old!! Happy Birthday to you!! Just like the past couple of years, we celebrated your birthday on our annual family vacation! Pretty fun way to celebrate your birthday if you ask me :)

When I think that you are 4, that kind of blows my mind. My baby, my youngest child is now becoming a little girl right before my very eyes! All of the sudden you are talking like a mini-adult and you just seem way too grown up for my liking.

Even though you're growing up, I still know you're my baby girl, and the youngest child. Your daily tantrums can attest to this 😜 Girlfriend, you really know how WHINE! We are working on not letting every little thing get to you, baby steps :)

You absolutely play the little sister role to your advantage pretty much all the time. You know how to work your brother and sister and if they don't play in then you come to me or your Dad and somehow you get what you want (not every time, but probably more than you should) What can we say, you're the baby!

Even though you can drive your siblings crazy at times, you have such a unique and special bond with both. With Ella, she is like your little Mama, always looking out for you, trying to teach you new things and just love on you. With Brayden, you two love to play all day - I can find you two running through the house shooting each other with nerf and having a blast, but then there are those times I will randomly find you in his room or him in yours and he is reading you a book. And even though you and Brayden can butt heads, he always has your back too, especially out in public, he is always looking after you (and Ella)

You are so close to writing your name really well. I would say out of everyone, you like learning and practicing things the least hehe. You just want to have fun all the time, and while I love that about you, I do try and work with you things. I am really thinking this year at preschool you are going to flourish.

Your favorite shows are anything your brother is watching, or anything on Disney JR. You LOVE Disney princesses and are super girly yourself. You always want  your nails painted, or to put yummy spray in your hair (as you say it) - you will brush your hair in front of my mirror for what seems like hours. You would pick a dress over anything else anyday. I love this about you so much and it's so fun to watch you become who you are!

Your favorite foods are mac n cheese and pizza for sure. You still aren't the best veggie eater but you are great about drinking smoothies filled with spinach, broccoli and carrots! (and other stuff too) You don't nap anymore and haven't for a while so *usually* bedtime is pretty easy because you are flat out exhausted from the day.

You are such a snuggle bear!! Especially when you're tired. I had the best time sleeping with you every night on vacation!

Avery, we seriously cannot and will not imagine life without you, you bring so much joy to our family and always keep things exciting! We love you so much, and can't wait to see how grow this year!


Love,
Mommy

Happy 3rd Birthday Avery Jane!!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!!

I truly and honestly cannot believe you are THREE! As always, it feels like you both have been in our lives forever, but also I blinked and three years went by SO FAST.

I couldn't (nor do I want to) imagine our lives without you in it. You bring so much chaos to our lives, yet also so much balance.

You play the little sister roll to a T!! You are always insitgiating with Brayden & Ella and everything has to be yours. If they just picked up something to see it or play with it, you bee line it right to them and snatch it away.  I think you do this because you love when the chase you (however, that almost always ends in tears)

We are still working on sharing, we'll get there, eventually.

You have to be included in EVERYTHING now that you are a big girl! Any time we talk about doing stuff you chime in with "WHAT ABOUT ME!?!?!" and if it's something you aren't big enough for or just something we're doing with the big kids you get so upset. I know this is normal and it's kinda cute too :)

You have look at your poop in the toilet after you go, then you scream "Ewwww I don't want to eat that poo!!" and if I don't show you the poop because I flushed too fast you get SO mad at me :)

You are always so busy! You are not my child who likes to sit and have me read to her, you don't really have interest in puzzles or any kind of playing for longer than 2 minutes. Grandma Deb's nickname for you is a Pistol - she has been calling you that for a while because well, you are :)

You LOVE your Daddy!! Every morning you ask for him and cry when I say he's at work. You always want him around, you always want him to put you to bed first, pretty much you just always to be around him. Some of the most common words out of your mouth are "But where's Daddy!?!" You also love your siblings and ask about them any time you don't see them. It's so cute to see how much you really love them (even if you drive them nuts most of the time)

Favorite things:

//When you're naked, you run up to any one of us and stick your butt in our faces and shout "MY BOOTY BUTT!!" over and over again,  you even slap it. It is freaking hilarious!

//You love this song on the Sing soundtrack where the character Piggy Power sings a part of a Lady Gaga song, you walk up to anyone and everyone and sing it right in their faces (and no one knows what the heck you are saying)

//You looooove swimming! You have always been a water baby! You pretty much love anything to do with water. If we have the water table out, you are trying to get in it, or you dunk your head in it, or you are drinking from it. Silly, silly girl you are!

//You love the Disney princess book we have and you even try and "read" it yourself after we're done. Every nap and every night you fall asleep either holding the book or on top of it.

//I would say your favorite food is mac n cheese. You love the Annie's white shells the most and pretty much demand it every single meal.

//Putting on real make up and putting it on me too - you would do this all day if I let you!


Dislikes:

//Going down for a nap
//Going to bed
//Anything that you aren't part of
//Hot dogs & pasta (which still shocks me)


Even though you wear me thin most days, I couldn't love you more. I know one day you'll be calm and I'll actually miss this time in our lives.

Until then, I will keep enjoying you every single day and holding you down so I can give you a thousand kisses!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl, I love you so much!!!

Love,
Mommy

 

*linking up with Lindsays Sweet World & Our Pretty Little Girls

Brayden & Avery's Breakfast Party

Our kids birthdays are all a month apart - Brayden is July, Avery is August and Ella is September. Since Brayden and now Ella are at the age where they want their own friend parties, we still do a little get together with our immediate families. Ella is turning the 5 this year (also her golden birthday) and is getting a big party, otherwise, they would have all been combined together (which is what we plan to do starting next year)

I thought it would be fun just to do a little breakfast party, something easy and simple and who doesn't love breakfast food!? We had fruit, bagels, pancakes, porkies, and I made these amazing crescent breakfast rolls (seriously, make these, they are SO good!!) - Of course I took no pictures of the food, too bad, it was all so yummy!

For their cakes, I opted to do donut cakes since it fit with the theme. They each got their own and we had way too many donuts, but is that really a bad thing?

It was a hot day so we had a bunch of water balloons - thank goodness for these! The kids had a blast running around and it was fun, quick little party!

My Mom got Brayden a mini beer pong (we only call it pong around the kids) because he had so much fun playing at my Aunts BBQ over the 4th - it really is a fun game and I can't wait to play the adult version, without kids :)

 

          

        

Avery being a stinker - she took that little box away from Ella and is beaming with pride #gottalovelittlesisters

And that's a wrap on birthday celebration for the moment! Avery's actual birthday will fall while we are on vacation so we'll make sure to sing to her and probably do a cake. Now I need to get my butt in gear for Ella's big birthday party!

Ella & Avery's Ice Cream Social Birthday Party

Today is Brayden's first day of 1st grade and I really can't believe summer is over for him! I am going to miss being with him everyday so much, but it will be so good for him to get back into a routine (me too!)

Today I'm sharing our gals combo birthday party we had on Saturday.

We decided a while ago we would do a combo family party for the girls since they aren't in school yet and don't really have their own friends. Their birthdays are a month apart so I decided on August 20th, a little after Avery's and a little before Ella's.  Poor Ella though, she keeps thinking she is 4 now...

Anyway, I knew an ice cream themed party would be so cute because they both love ice cream so much! (I mean what kid doesn't!?)  This wasn't a huge party by any means and I didn't go over the top decorating, but what I did do turned out pretty cute if I must say :)

I made the invitations by using my silhouette to cut 3.5" circles in purple and pink cardstock, that was for the back of the ice cream.  I just typed up the wording in Word, printed on white cardstock then used a 3" circle punch to punch them out.  I glued the white cardstock inside the pink and purple and also used my silhouette to cut the cones. Easy peasy!

The only other DIY stuff I did was make the banners, which were a little more intricate that I usually do but still pretty easy thanks again to my silhouette!

As soon as we hung the banners Rick said I should have used black letters - yep, I totally should have! I didn't even think about them being hung up against our white blinds! Oh well, they were still cute, but next time, black letters

Using a giant cupcake stand to hold all the cups/cones was the perfect idea! Thanks Pinterest and Aunt Nancy :)

I bought these little wooden spoons to make it seem like a vintage ice cream social - I still have about 80 of them left, ha ha

I used a veggie tray from the dollar store to hold all the toppings and it worked perfect! Except that I left it out during the party before the ice cream was ready because we were serving food first and there were probably more little grabby hands in here than I could count, but hey, what kid could resist all this!? I barely could :)

I snapped a couple pics of the girls before the party because I knew they would not sit still once it started and would probably get very dirty! (I was right about both of those)

              

My aunt once again made the most amazing cakes!!! Seriously these might be favorite!  I made the 4 and 2 by just drawing free hand and cutting out on glitter cardstock and hot gluing to toothpicks. 

 

Some party pictures - I was kind of bad and didn't take too many!

See - little hands grabbing the candy, and I told you she would be dirty! Ha!

The weather was perfect until about 2 hours into the party it started raining and a huge gust of wind came through taking our tents with them. Everyone helped to grab everything and we moved the party inside.  I would have loved to sing and do cake outside but Mother Nature had other plans!

I love Avery's face in this picture! Both girls sure knew how special they were on their party day!

After singing and cake cutting, it was time for the ice cream social! The hubby said he wanted to be the scooper after shutting down my idea of prescooping and freezing them so they would just be ready. I must say, he makes a cute ice cream scooper :)

       

 Sisters :)

Thankfully the rain only lasted 10 minutes and after ice cream we all headed back outside.

We played pin the cherry on the ice cream and pretty much every kid cheated - made me realize I need to have a blindfold next time!

I made another pinata for the girls' party and it was so cute! Each kid got 2-3 turns and then it broke open.  This one was way less chaotic than the one at Brayden's party :)

Ella and her bestie Ava!

Best attempt at a family picture :)

It was a great, low key, low stress party and most importantly the girls had a great time! 

Source List:

Pink/White Polka Dot Ice Cream Cups 

Wooden Ice Cream Spoons

3" Circle Punch

Girls Ice Cream Tanks

Pin the Cherry on the Ice Cream Cone Game

*linking up with B Loved Boston for Weekending