Rees' 3rd Birthday Party ~ The Family Party

I just can't let the actual day of Rees' birthday pass without having him a little party at our home. I only invite his grandparents and his aunts so it's a small event, but nonetheless it still needs to be cute! He is currently obsessed with Go Diego Go as Rees says "He's my best friend mommy". As much as I do not like character parties I gave in to this one. He just begged to have a Diego party so who was I to argue? After shopping at Birthday Express and grabbing up all the plates, table clothes and hats I just had to add a few personal touches. I made the birthday banner on my Cricut (or as mommy says "her best friend") then I made the cute pom pom balls that I hung on the fan and in the entry way. All and all it was fun and Rees couldn't have been happier!

My Birthday Boy

Welp, it happened. As much as I dreaded it and prayed that the day would not come ... it did! I have a really hard time with my one and only child growing older. I want to keep him tiny FOREVER. I realize that it's not possible, but I just can't give up on it :) I think that's one of the reasons I like to throw huge birthday bashes for him, to keep my mind off of the aging process. So this year the theme was Cowboy; did you really expect anything less? My little man is so obsessed with cowboys that there really was no other option. So I started a month ago gathering the cutest collection of western goodies I could find. I am really happy with the result. This year we had around 25 kiddos! Yep you heard it right 25!!! But, we had several games, great food and pony rides! It went of without a hitch!

Here is Rees making his grand entrance, how else does a cowboy get to his party other than by horse?

Awww look how happy he is!

Our big summer project.

This summer sure has flown by. Between the store, a toddler and my hobbies there's not a lot of time for much else, but my wonderful husband finally gave in to the idea of a pool!!! So the fact that it's the end of summer didn't even phase me! I look at it as a fresh start for next summer! We got the pool in now we're (my husband, I try to help but you can imagine how well that goes) building the deck and it is ginormous. It's such a slow process working on it after he gets home from work and on the weekends when we don't have other stuff going on, but we'll get done eventually!

Rees' new obsession

For months Rees has begged for paint. Every time we pass the craft isle at Walmart he says Rees needs that mom (the paint) and I have avoided it for this long, but he caught me in a soft moment and I said "sure" so that was all he talked about all the way home. We went out to the patio and away he went, he had most of his Toy Story book colored by the time he was done. I must admit it wasn't actually that messy, I should have gave in sooner :)

Summer Fun

We're having an amazing summer. I have dedicated my summer to my little man and making sure we get plenty of quality time together (he is growing up too quickly) and we have been pool rats this summer. He is doing great at learning to swim. The 99 cent swimmies have been such a blessing. Those big bulky suits with the floats in them are nice, but the swimmies give him so much more freedom to actually swim and he has no fear so he's well on his way. Just thought I would share a few of my favorite pictures! 

Columbus Zoo trip

We had a great weekend. Mat, Rees and I went up to Columbus for the weekend to visit my best friend from high school and her new baby, which by the way is absolutely perfect! She is too gorgeous for words. After our visit we headed out for some late dinner and then went back to our GREAT hotel! Rees had a ball playing in their bathtub ... weird that's the least enjoyable part for me when I stay in a hotel but it was by far his favorite! The next morning we all got up early and headed to the zoo! By like 10 am it was 90 degrees it was unbearably hot. Rees had a great time and Mat and I did too minus the drenching wet outfits we were wearing, Mat had it worse than I did he had to carry Rees on his shoulders most of the day lol! Good thing mom's not strong enough for that :)

In the hotel opening the $4 bottle of water after he was warned not to. 

Our little elephant! What is it with my boy and funny hats?!?

Picture share!

I LOVE summer. We swam most of the day today. Rees is lovin' the .99 swimmies (orange ones that go on your arms) He can swim so well with those he just paddles all over the pool without a problem! then we came home and he took a nap and my sister and I watched a mediocre movie, Remember Me with Robert Pattinson (Edward from Twilight) and then we went out and swam some more well Rees did in his little pool I finished Eclipse! Yep I actually finished a book. I am super proud of that because within my 30 years on this Earth I have NEVER finished a book. I hate to read, but if anything could motivate me to read it is Twilight. I know I sound ridiculous but I don't even care those movies ** and books live up to all the hype. I can't wait until the movie comes out next week!!!

So I got some cute snaps this week and I wanted to share a couple of my little guy...time is passing by so quickly he is so big aghhhhh!

Our first family vacation... Pigeon Forge!

It has been so long since I have blogged. I have so much to share that I don't think I can get all of it into one post so I think I'll make this a series. Over Memorial Day weekend we took Mat, myself, Rees and Mat's mom and dad to Pigeon Forge for a long weekend getaway. We stayed in this cabin

  

click HERE for more information on the cabin

I can't tell you how much fun we had. Rees was an angel during travel and he LOVED the cabin which was perfect for us. It had 3 levels. The first floor had an adorable fully stocked kitchen and a great living room along with a game room, which Rees had a wonderful time in. The lower level had an indoor pool and a deck with a hot tub on it. Then the upper level had two bedrooms with bathrooms in each. Not to mention a wrap around porch that we bear hunted from each evening. Rees was really into that LOL! The cabin was only a mile away from Pigeon Forge so we didn't have a long drive which was really nice. Our first day there we went to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. I had been there before and really enjoyed it as a matter of fact I dug this old picture of Mat and I from 6 years ago up and it was the exact same spot that we took our family photo 6 years later!

 I can't tell you how much fun we had. Rees was an angel during travel and he LOVED the cabin which as perfect for us. It had 3 levels. The first floor had an adorable fully stocked kitchen and a great living room along with a game room, which Rees had a wonderful time in. The lower level had an indoor pool and a deck with a hot tub on it. Then the upper level had two bedrooms with bathrooms in each. Not to mention a wrap around porch that we bear hunted from each evening. Rees was really into that LOL! The cabin was only a mile away from Pigeon Forge so we didn't have a long drive which was really nice. Our first day there we went to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. I had been there before and really enjoyed it as a matter of fact I dug this old picture of Mat and I from 6 years ago up and it was the exact same spot that we took our family photo 6 years later!

 
Rees really enjoyed the aquarium. He liked the sharks more than anything else so we had to chase them around the aquarium. If your ever in the area I highly recommend the aquarium it's hours of fun for the kids and is entertaining for adults too!

Then we found a place in the parking lot of Tony Romas Restaurant to ride camels and Nan took Rees for a spin!

We visted the Dixie Stampede and Rees' mouth was open the whole time. That was by far his favorite thing we did. He was in amazement of the show. It was a great time, but if you ever visit don't forget to take your own silverware! they think it's funny to make you eat with your fingers.

Back to the cabin. It was a lot of fun to have a place to call home away from home. Rees would wake up every morning and head outside to hunt. This particular morning it was a squirrel him and Paps spotted.See the  "bullet"  in the air. He was pumped about hunting the whole trip and he tried to convince all of us that there were bears off the porch (which could have been possible, but we really didn't see any) Rees + his raccoon hat = the cutest hunter ever!

Here are some other photos of our wonderful vacation.

This pool was in the bottom of our cabin! It was great, although no one got in it :(

I'll end with this cute little fella' that we met at Ripleys Aquarium. I have a lot more to share but I think I'll finish the rest up tomorrow!

Cousins

I had this ready to post the other day and my internet went down. We recently stopped by to visit our family the other day. Rees has 6 (well 5 mobile) cousins to play with there so he was in heaven. But even then with all the other kids cooperating for pictures he still has to be "difficult" for me. Check it out.

New baby cousin in the middle baby Xander! He is so cute as are all the kiddos. Rees is pouting because he had to stop playing to get in the picture.

And then this. LOL? Who is he giving the fist too?

I love these gift baskets

My best friend from high school is having her first baby in a couple months and guess what... It's a GIRL!!! I have had the time of my life buying for her. Little boy stuff is cute, but little girl stuff is out of this world cute! I can't help myself. I'm so glad I have a boy or I would be bankrupt LOL! For Easter I made these cute CANDY BUCKETS so I had the idea to try it out with baby stuff and I think it turned out adorable. I have a matching laundry basket with a liner to embroider the babies name on and it's filled with the cutest outfits I have every seen! I threw sensible out the window when I was shopping and strictly went with outlandishly cute instead :) I am so incredibly happy for Linds & Jon I know they will be amazing parents and I wanted her to have a special gift from us so I think I'm on the right track!

Okay now I'm off to embroidery land I'll be sure to share the outcome of that in a few days. LOTS to embroider wish me luck!

Rain rain go away...

The rain is good for a couple of things... taking long naps in and playing outside with adorable rain boots and other matching gear! We didn't get to nap today, but we definitely got the adorable boots thing in!

This is one of my new favorite pictures.

I loved it so much I made a scrapbook page just for the boots...

Stubborn as a mule

I am really trying to practice photography everyday and my very favorite subject is my baby (toddler) boy Rees who despises having his picture taken **by me** But I found this great spot off in our back yard that I wanted to practice with for some upcoming outdoor sessions and here's what I got...

Seriously what is going through his mind right now? I have promised him the sun and moon to smile. Seriously things he's never allowed to eat, drink or play with I had promised (is that bad lol?) and still NO smile. I just don't get how a two year old can be so stubborn.

Then I got this. He was just coming off of a laugh from a fall that our cat took (it was hilarious) but by the time I picked up my camera he had managed to turn it into a smirk. Aghhh

The there's this one. I just love his big beautiful browns in this one!