Leighton Turns SIX {Party Time}

This precious baby girl has turned 6.

It's weird.
She is just growing up so fast.
Full of life and passion.
I still have a hard time believing I am a mom. Let alone a mom to two kids.
I remember when she was born thinking when are her parents going to come pick her up, this is the longest babysitting job evah. No one was coming. I was it.
And here we are 6 years later. We have all survived. It is just astounding how one or two little people just change the way you do everything. Being a mom to her-- well it is really all I ever wanted. I prayed so hard for a daughter and I got her.

Moving on...

For her party we kept it low key. I have never really liked big birthday parties too much pressure for me. HA!

The invite also had to be pink with flowers and butterflies.

Leighton may have a future in some kind of design. She is always designing something. She had big dreams for her cake and I think I pulled it off. Her requirements were as follows: Pink, purple, flowers and butterflies. The cake could not be butterfly or flower shaped. I had to have butterflies and flowers on the cake. Tall order for me who has zero cake skills.

So here is the completed cake. She loved it. It was ombre pink flowers with purple sparkle butterflies.

In lieu of a big party, we have been letting the kids pick a fun activity to do as their birthday fun. She choose a trampoline park. The kids and I had a blast. 1 hour of jumping will wear you out!

 Mommy may have had too much fun. Note: don't wear skinny jeans to a trampoline park...yoga pants are a must. :) you are welcome.

 Still got it...mostly...made those little pre-teens take notice. hA!

Then home for pizza and cake...and of course presents.

You would have thought that it was Sarah's {aka the "AG" doll's} birthday. Thankfully since she got some big ticket items the gifts stayed to a minimum. I am so over gifts at this point. The playroom is full and they need nothing.

 The "AG" doll haul!

 Mommy and daddy got her a new gym bar since the one at Christmas was a fiasco. Of course the head monkey has to test it out. Best investment ever. Wish Santa would have just trusted his big ole jolly gut and did that in the first place...

So there's her party in a nut shell.
Now I just need to get her 6 yo interview loaded...but that would require me to download my phone first. Stay tuned.

Trick or Treat Smell My Feet {2014}

Pace yourself Michele. Two blog posts in 1 week. Slow down, don't want to pull something.

So I am a room mom. A room mom. That means I have a kid, in school. Wow. Still weird to me some days that she isn't around all the time. Some mornings it can be a long 3 hours without her.
On Halloween they had their class party. I was in charge of cookie decorating station. Of course sugar is always a big hit.

Snack break. Because eating sugar wasn't enough.

Games for more candy.

Isn't she cute?!

Daddy dropped by...he was a fork in the road. They all dressed as idioms.

Her buddy during the Mummy wrap.

Class Pic. Isn't her teacher the cutest?! She is due anytime...

For Halloween instead of trick or treating the 'hood we go to a local church and play games and jump on bounce houses. I guess I don't really get Halloween. What's the point? To dress up and beg for candy?! What are we celebrating or doing here?! Please, don't mis-understand I know some are against it b/c of the "dark side" of it's roots, I am against walking around in the cold...HA! But that aside I just don't get the holiday...I know I could do with a few less snicker bars around here.

However, before we went out we had to go get our annual Papa Murphy's Pumpkin Pizza. During which time our city biz district hosted early trick or treaters. ALL my kids wanted, and I do mean ALL they wanted was to trick or treat the fire dept. They were so thrilled they were out and got to meet them. My kids are OBSESSED with the fire dept. We can't drive by there without a full 15 minute commentary on what they may or may not be up to.

 

Then off to the church for fun and games.

They both were firefighters. Grandma Rachel got them these cute Melissa and Doug costumes.

And that folks is our Halloween!

May Round-Up

Let's play catch-up shall we...I am good about taking more photos, but organizing them and blogging them are a lost art at this point, unless it has to do with my project life that is. :) Priorities, priorities....Let's see what I can cover without boring you. :)

Memorial Day Weekend par-tay.
Our friends' have a BEAUTIFUL property and invited us and a bunch of other people over to BBQ and hang out.

They had this cute pool, only problem is I asked Lo to pack MW swim trunks...she did but apparently didn't realize they were 2-3 sizes too big! Thank goodness we live close and daddy is awesome...but I couldn't leave the night without capturing the cutest tush at the party. :)

Ah, these girls. Just chattin' it up like "old" friends. Presh.

Awesome daddy! He always hangs out with the kids and plays so mommy can talk to adults. You have no idea how refreshing that is, unless you are a mom of little people.  God bless you Chad!

I don't remember why the tears...he ate his cupcake too fast?! Who knows...really I was testing out a friend's fancier than mine DSLR. It was nice! If only I would learn how to shoot mine, maybe one day I could upgrade. :) Nah, I just want a better lens at this point!

Said friend's pictures off her camera. Awesome daddy photo #2.

And another. This captures me and my besties at best. This is totally us. HA!

Trip to the zoo. Just mommy and the kids. I love the ages my kids are, they are so independent and easy to handle on my own without losing my mind. They both were so good at the zoo, well until the end when mommy couldn't find the "baby Jaguar." {like on Deigo}. They were so mad at me. I promised in a few weeks when daddy was off school he would bring us back and help us find "baby Jaguar." Boy did they hold me to that! :)

 I am starting to trust Lo with our point and shoot camera...so I actually got in 1 picture of our trip! :)

 Checking out the map so we can find the hippos! They both chanted "ipBOs, ipBOs" over and over until we got there...weird kids.

The bear was just pacing around and around his area...so bored. :)

Elephant training. So cool how the elephants do these tricks like dogs! HA!

Daddy at his 5th grade kickball tourney. One of their end of the year fun days!

The kids are thrilled spectators. HA!

I am an RD who works in assisted livings, therefore each May I get the pleasure of a TB test. This year, after 4 years of testing I have this HUGE reaction. I started freaking out and googling. I thought for sure I would fail it, even though I wasn't sure how?!?! Thankfully the next day I had to go to work and had a nurse there read it "early" and she told me I was fine, it was just a reaction, but not a positive result! whew!

Last day of swim lessons...Lo was doing so well. I was glad it was over though. Both kids had swim lessons back to back. Crazy me I thought it would be okay for Lo when she was done to put on her coast guard approved puddle jumper and hang out in the zero depth pool WHILE I was right over that wall with MW and WHILE 2 Lifeguards were on duty! Silly me apparently that wasn't considered safe enough!! I mean really isn't that your JOB lifeguards to keep an eye on her as she swims. I am right there, I was keeping a close enough eye on her and when I wasn't you could...weird, just thought that was in your job description to protect life...anyway, so Lo had to sit on the side of the pool bored for 30 minutes...I hated it for her.

 The only photo of MW from his swim lessons...if water wasn't involved I probably would have let Lo take our pictures...

On May 19th storms in our area turned tornadic. As in for the first time in 20 years one of our local news stations asked their meterologist to LEAVE the air and take cover! This never happens, unless their safety is in severe jeopardy. Sirens blazing at the end of nap time {praise Jesus for that!}, so we got the kids up and put their helmets on and took them to the basement. Now days it is nice that you get a time stamp on when to expect the storm so at 415p we headed to our safe room aka closet and waited.  Praise Jesus again the storm/tornado jumped us again. This happened last April too, I don't know why these tornadoes play hopscotch, but I am glad it missed us...again. Unfortunately the next day Moore, OK was not so lucky. Just heart breaking to know you could have been them just 2 days earlier! This tornado that jumped us was probably just as devastating in force, but the news reports I heard said it just had trouble maintaining contact with the ground.

Daddy really struggles with tornadoes, you can see the fear in his face as he watches the radar on our iPad.

 Me while I would be devastated to go through one, I don't fear those kinds of things--believe me I have plenty of other "crazy" anxieties, but this is not one of them. Which is good b/c I balance out his fear and he balances out my fears. Perfect match.

 And I will conclude with my awesome neighbors driveway art. Can you believe I have to live next to this?! ;) She is amazing. I am really just jealous.

So that is just SOME of the catch up....just wait for round 2. :)