A "few" Summer 2013 Pics

Here comes an instagram dump!  Our summer has been full - and we've been trying to enjoy every bit of it we can.
********
Cady went to Baylor Music Camp in June so we all road-tripped it down to Waco to take her & pick her up.

She was nervous about her audition but she did great!  The best part was the final concert that we all got to attend on her last day of camp!  Those kids are talented and I was so proud!

Milo likes road trips... sorta...

He likes hotel pools...

but he's not a fan of sleeping anywhere but his real bed...  We don't get much sleep on road trips.

********
We've spent lots of time this summer in the backyard/on the patio! (I spy 3 people in a baby pool)

********
and we've spent some time at the park...

********
We've also had our fair share of playtime/vedge time :)

********
We even had a visit from the Mississippi Grandparents last weekend!

********

Cheers to summer so far!  School starts in less than 3 weeks!

The 4th of July - 2013 Edition

My sweet friend Chelsea moved away last year... I was sad... real sad.  But she moved back to her hometown where her fabulous family and fiance live.  She is getting married later this year (I'm pumped about the wedding!).  So I forgive her for moving away, since those are good reasons - but they don't make me miss her any less!  Anyhoo, one of our favorite things we used to do together is hang out at her family's lakehouse.  I've got tons of awesome memories from the weekends we've spent there, so when she suggested getting together this year with her family and mine I said yes in a heartbeat!  We actually brought our camera and took pics but I have no idea where it is so iPhone pics will have to do.

We took this pic just after telling Milo we were going on a 4 hour car ride - he's thrilled. LOL!  He's got his "What you talkin' about Willis" look on his face.  Priceless!

I would say we spent 99.9% of our time that weekend swimming/floating...

Cady and Chelsea

Jumping off the rope swing...

Matt

Cady (I don't have any of the pics of Gage on the swing but he jumped about a million times!...)  :(

Hanging on the dock...

Milo and Chels

Me trying to keep the two of us cool!

Walking around the neighborhood while Milo enjoyed wagon rides...

And we also spent lots of time playing yard games... Ladder ball, corn hole, washers, frisbee.  We had so much fun with ladder ball that we bought our own set when we got home!

It was a fun, exhausting, sunny packed friend-filled weekend!  We can't wait to do it all over again!

Happy First Birthday Milo! (Ice Cream Party)

We decided on an ice cream themed party for Milo's First Birthday.  And I was determined to have this party on a bit of a budget.  It's hot here in Texas during the summer so ice cream, cold drinks and a kiddie pool were a necessity.  I ordered the invites off zazzle for super cheap.  I had spent over $50 on invites when we had our Christmas party last year so I knew I would be going the cheap route this time... i.e. I ordered 15 invites for under 10 bucks.  I don't have a cute real pic, but here is the crappy computer pic I took to send Matt for approval.  The actual ones turned out adorbs!

********
Quick pic of the ice cream table (click pics to enlarge).  We've used that silver tub for just about every get-together we've had.  It's great for icing drinks, but this time I packed it with ice and loaded it up with a few types of ice cream.  I bought a few toppings like chocolate syrup, fruit and some sprinkles.  Colorful plastic bowls, plastic spoons and yummy cones were pretty much all we needed.  The table cloth is a remnant from a sewing project.  The napkins and bowls were on clearance at Target.  Cady and I made several garlands out of scrapbook paper and string we already had - so cute!

********
The biggest splurge was probably the Nothing Bundt Cakes for an extra special dessert!  We love Nothing Bundt Cakes!  Everything they make is fabulous.  We bought the mini cakes for everyone and a mini bundt for Milo to eat.  We used the same scrapbook paper to cut out circles and put stickers on them with "1" and "Milo".  We then stuck them in the cupcakes with a toothpick.  A mini garland made out of the scrapbook paper topped Milo's smash cake.

********
There were tons of friends that stopped by to say Happy Birthday to Milo.  We weren't sure how he'd react to everyone, but he was great!

********
First Cake!  The excitement from the visitors and sugar rush from the cake caused this kiddo to crash just as the last person was leaving.  He couldn't even stay away to open presents so after a long nap, he woke up to a living room full of gifts to open!

Milo was blessed with clothes and games and toys and water toys.  What a great birthday!

********
And because we weren't spending a ton on this party, we made our own Thank-You cards.  Everyone loved them and I wish we had made a bunch more just to send out in the future.  We took some pics of Milo playing in the pool, used our photo editing program to add some text and then printed them at Kinkos on a light card stock.  We had four different cards.  These are the pics we used, I had them printed and then cut them out of the paper leaving enough to fold behind creating a card (I was able to get 2 cards on each page of light cardstock).  I picked up a box of colorful envelopes for $5 (We only needed like 20 but it came with 50 so we've got left over for the future).

It was a fantastic First Birthday!  And it proves you don't need to spend a ton of money to have a cute kid party.  

Still here!

I was just trying to remember the last time I wrote a blog post... Well, it's been almost 3 months! Yikes!

Milo will be 11 months old this week.  Where has the time gone?  I need to go into supersonic mode and plan his first birthday party!  We do have a theme, but that's about it.  I need to order stuff and and get some good lists going.  Speaking of Milo... What's he been up to lately you might ask?  Lately he's been:

Listening to Daddy play the guitar...

Driving...

Standing...

Eating my laptop cables whenever possible...



Learning to play the drums...



Grocery shopping in his PJs (While his Sis dances in the background)

Yelling at Mama to get out of bed...

Relaxing while watching the ceiling fan...

Eating with a spoon (sorta)...

What's Cady been up to?  She finished up basketball and started track.  Then she finished track and is now finishing up her last month of 7th grade.  She has field trips and concerts and all sorts of fun stuff coming up.  We also signed her up for a week long music came this summer.

Running the 800 meter...

Posing at the start line...



Napping with the dreaded cat...

Being silly with Matt at the Winspear (we were there to see 2Cellos)!

Winspear...

Winspear with Mama!

Getting 2Cellos autographs - the show was fantastic!

So that's a quick synopsis of what's been up.  Gage has been away at school and won't be home until end of May.  He did come home for a few days at Easter but I don't have any pics of that!  Oops.  He is finishing finals this week and heading to Belgium next week for a mission trip.  We are SO proud of him!  I'll be glad when he gets home for the summer so that we can all spend some time together!