This One's For the Girls

With my radio blasting and coffee in hand, I took off on Friday morning on my first trip out of town by myself since October 2012! I was, of course, insanely nervous about how Annie would do without me, but I knew both kids were in good hands with Chance, Nana, and Papa. So off I went to meet up with six girls from high school in Fredricksburg! We started planning this trip to celebrate our 35th birthdays about 3 years ago, and we were amazed that it actually came together and we were all able to get away from our families and jobs for a little bit. This group of girls is pretty amazing... some of us have been friends since 1st grade! We used to get together several times a year, but with some moving out of state and many of us having children, it has been more challenging to coordinate our trips to New Braunfels. So, traveling from Portland, Oregon; Charleston, South Carolina; Dallas, College Station, and New Braunfels, the seven of us spent part of the weekend at Jenny's parents' ranch house, and it was wonderful! Most of us clicked right back together like we always do, and it was so fun to hear updates from everyone's lives. We tried to count how many kids, husbands, and pets we had between us, but we stopped at the kids - 15 kids (11 boys and 4 girls)!

When I arrived on Friday, we headed straight to town to do some shopping. I think we spent the most time at the candy store! Then we went back to the house for some crafting, led by Melissa, who is a distributor for Stampin' Up. It was really fun to be creative and make a picture frame and some cards.



Jennifer and I took this picture near the end of our crafting adventure. She and I have been friends the longest, and it was such a treat to see her. She is a stay-at-home mom of 3 boys, and plans the most amazing birthday parties for them. They all seem to have her sweet spirit!



We all contributed to "favorite things" bags. Jenny and Melissa had the great idea that each of us should bring 7 of our "favorite thing", and we would all exchange them. My contribution was personalized tote bags. I love bags and have way too many, so I thought I would give the girls one more bag that we all "need"! It was really fun and not too hard to make the bags. I used canvas tote bags from Hobby Lobby, and a doily and stencils for the decorations and letters (thank you, pinterest!) Once again, I'm so thankful to have some time off work for projects like this. Here are a few photos of the bag making process. Mine was the first one completed, so I developed a better system after that. Little brushes are slower, but result in less paint globbing than sponge brushes.



Other girls brought coffee, nail polish, lip balm, painted signs, stamps, and kinetic sand. It was fun to hear everyone's ideas!

Friday night we got dressed up and went to dinner at the Cotton Gin restaurant. It was lovely! (And we look pretty lovely, if I do say so myself!)



Thank you, ladies, for a weekend filled with laughter, learning, snacking, a tiny bit of sleeping, and more laughter!

As much fun as I had with my friends, I was very ready to come home and see Chance and the kids on Saturday. They all did very well at Nana and Papa's house, and when we got home, we enjoyed the nice weather by doing some work in the backyard. Annie did her "work" at the sand table, and Chance and Cade laid bricks and spread mulch. I took pictures :)

Family Photos 2014

Waaaay back in March, Thom and Megan of T&M Photography took our family photos for the kids' birthdays. Life happened between then and now, so I am finally catching up with posting pictures on the blog. I included a few of these photos on the kids' birthday posts, but here are all of our favorites!

One Blessed Mama

Mother's Day was a fun and busy weekend for us! Chance and I were able to see both of our moms, and I was blessed to be with the best kids and husband in the world!

The Mother's Day celebration started early with Mommy Makeovers at Cade's school. This was one of the most precious events I've ever been to, and I'm so thankful that he attends a school that hosts activities like this. I'm also so thankful that I'm at the end of my semester and I was able to go! Cade's classroom had "spa stations" set up at the desks, and we were offered services including hair, makeup, manicure, pedicure, and massage. All the moms were asked to bring our own products, and let our kids make us beautiful. Since Cade is a boy, I didn't know what he would think about all of this. He started with putting random clips in my hair, then painted my nails. I think he would have stopped there, but there was plenty of time left, so he started on my make up. I am proud to say that this was his first time to apply eye shadow, blush, and lipstick, so I was not surprised when the application wasn't.... perfect! Some of the kids were surprisingly good at this!



Here we are with other coaches' wives and kids!



We had Mother's Day lunch on Saturday with my parents and Oma, and we also celebrated my Dad's birthday. We had Mother's Day dinner on Sunday with Chance's parents. It was the most Chance and I have cooked on a weekend in a long time, and he was very sweet to make sure I didn't have to wash a single dish! I really wanted a picture with the kids at church that morning, but time got away from us. So we tried to quickly snap one in the garage before everyone changed out of their nice clothes. By this time, Cade was ready to shoot baskets and Annie was ready to walk around the driveway!



I am unbelievably grateful for Chance, Cade, and Annie. Being a mom is the most challenging but most rewarding job, and I am so excited about this summer when I can be a full-time mom. Sleepless nights, constantly wondering if we are doing the right thing, disciplining, trying to find healthy foods they will eat, and never ending cleaning are gloriously overshadowed by powerful hugs, big smiles, stories, snuggles, splashes in the bath, and wonderful memories. I love these people, even if they are crazy enough to get in the pool when it was freezing that weekend!

Pink Ladybugs for Little Lady's First Birthday

Party #2 of our family's fun day was celebrating our sweet little girl's first birthday. This was a much smaller party than Cade's, but a perfect gathering of family that all loves Annabeth very much!

I had lots of fun with the pink and green theme. The food we served was appropriately colored finger foods - strawberries, green grapes, graham crackers with strawberry cream cheese dip, chips and guacamole, and a strawberry bundt cake. Annie's smash cake was a large chocolate cupcake with a lady bug drawn on top. I also did some more decorations than I did at Cade's first birthday party, because, well, Annie is a girl and needs pretty decorations! The favors were bottles filled with assorted pink and green candies.



Annie loves being outside, and the weather cooperated, so we spent lots of time on the back porch. We are so thankful that all of her grandparents spent the day with us!



Cooper was the only other kid at the party, so he got full reign of the swingset and got to find all of the bugs in our bug search game! Garrett came over to play with Cade, but those two boys played too hard and moved too fast to be in any pictures.



"Uncle" Russell came to both of our kids' parties! He has come to almost every one of their parties and we are so thankful for his longtime friendship! Another college buddy, Mike, was also in College Station for a conference, so he stopped by the party too.



And now for the highlight of a one year old's birthday party - the cake!! She liked it much more than her big brother, and was so happy that she clapped her hands and sent cake and icing spraying all over the dining room!



Annie got some cute books as one of her gifts.



And about 2 hours after the last guest went home, our baby girl was worn out!



Thank you so much to all of our friends and family that supported and loved us and Annie during the past year. It has gone too fast!

Ninja Training for Cade's 6th Birthday Party

We hosted Cade's 6th birthday party at the studio where he takes karate, and it was AWESOME! The husband and wife that run the studio do an amazing job with parties... they offer a high-energy warm up, a mini-karate lesson, a ninja training obstacle course, and board breaking practice at the end. We were so happy that friends from many parts of Cade's life were able to attend - preschool, kindergarten, karate, church, and neighbors. And it was so fun to socialize with the parents and grandparents that were there to watch too. This was the first birthday party where other people really handled all the details once we got there. Amazing! I really enjoyed chatting with everyone, so I wasn't as good about taking pictures as I should have been. But I really enjoyed getting to watch!

A few words about our preparation:

In keeping with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme, all snacks were appropriately colored to match the Ninja Turtle headband colors: Purple grapes for Donatello, orange cheese puffs for Michaelangelo, pretzels in a red bowl for Rafael, and blue capri suns for Leonardo. We also had a cookie cake decorated like a pizza since it was too early for the real thing. After an epic fail attempt at making homemade slime for the favors, we decided to give the kids orange, red, blue, and purple Gatorade on their way out. It was a hit!

Here are all the little ninjas


Since this blog is really my only method of record keeping, I'll list the kids names here. As much as I feel like I will always remember them, I'm afraid that if I continue to get so little sleep that these precious memories will fade. Front row, l-r: Carter, Lorelai, and Kayla; back row, l-r: Jackson, Carlos, Will, Luke, Jake, Davis, Cole, Gavin, Cade, Garrett, Calvin, Weston, Conner, Jace, and Jaden.

Singing Happy Birthday



Developing their ninja skills by listening to the instructors, doing crunches, punching, kicking, jumping, and balancing.




And our littlest guest had fun too... she even had a Ninja Turtles shirt!



Cade grinned from ear to ear during the entire party, so it is safe to say that it was a success. We absolutely love seeing our boy have so much fun. Happy 6th birthday, buddy. May this year bring you your heart's desire of fun, adventures, learning, and love.