Parker's 3rd birthday!

Parker's birthday fell on a Saturday this year so that made it super fun to celebrate with his party on his actual birthday!  I made cupcakes for his class that week and they were a big hit! 

They day before his birthday, since all my family was coming into town, it all worked out to finally lay my Nano's ashes to rest.  My pop's family has two burial plots that his parents bought him and all his brothers and sisters when they were all alive. I didn't know this until recently, but he had two siblings that were already buried there as infants.  One was a stillborn and another died shortly after being born.  His parents are also buried there and a lot of his other family is buried there as well.  It took my pop awhile to get the tombstone made and put in place, that is why we are burying my Nano's ashes 4 months after she passed away.  I didn't take any photos because 1)I wasn't sure if that would be weird and 2) There were 6 kids under the age of 4 running around the cemetery.... enough said.  After we buried her ashes, we all headed to Slopes for a very early dinner.  THE. KIDS. WERE. CRAZY.  Running around like wild animals the entire time.  I began to second guess our decision to have a "family-only" party... this was seriously wild!

Nana bought sweet Caroline a precious hat at a consignment sale!  I LOVE it!  Perfect for our beach trip coming up!

On the morning of Park's birthday, Hoppy made him homemade waffles and we put a candle in for fun.  he thought it was pretty awesome!

Daddy had some work to do outside before the party and Parker was HAPPY to help out!

After naptime, the party began!  Here is Griffers and Park riding his truck... they are so sweet to each other when they ride around.  They very happily take turns and let each other drive for awhile. 

We borrowed this awesome jumpy house from a friend's neighbor! 

We had Moe's cater the party and it was AMAZING!  However, we ate Moe's leftovers for about 4 days!  This is actually a picture of the leftover food I took with my phone the day after Parker's party and texted it to all our Life Group - and within 10 minutes, we had the Markhams, Marchmans and Berlins join us for a Moe's Lunch!  Ha ha!

 Back to the party!
Park and Griffin - again - playing so sweet together!

My sister, Ash, and Caroline - I think they look SO much alike!  And there are several baby pictures of Ashley that look JUST like Caroline!

Cousin Campbell fits RIGHT in with all her boy cousins!

Kayley and Miller jumping!

Garrett doing is favorite thing with his nana - eating!

More jumping!  It was hard to keep these kids out of it!

Park's party was considered "family only" however, Jon and Robin are only 2 doors down and Parker considers them family since we eat about half of our meals with them and see them more than anyone else!  Ha ha!  So we were happy to have the join us for the fun!

Singing happy birthday!

Publix does such a great job with their cakes!  Parker talked to the baker at Publix and completely picked out his own cake on his own!  Thomas on top... writing on the side... vanilla cake... buttercream frosting... strawberry filling!

Our backyard was a great location for the party!  So glad we built this great swing set last summer.

Cousins Jac and Camo swinging!

Cousin Catherine joins in!

Catherine was determined to get some of Parker's quesadilla!

I have no idea.... :)

Us with the birthday boy!

Jack the dog was ALL ABOUT finding food scraps underneath every one!

My entire family and Chris' entire family!  And now you know why we had a family-only party!
15 adults and 10 kids!

Park's big gift was his bicycle from my parents!  It's a REAL big boy bike with training wheels!

He had lots of help opening his gifts!

Mimi had no problem helping Caroline have her nap....

Everyone was getting a little sleepy by the end of the party!

Chris' brother Jeff and their little girl Morgan.

Park hopped on his bike and rode like a pro!  Made us a little sad to be honest.... he's growing up so quickly.

After everyone left the party, we decided to take advantage of my parents being in town for a free sitter and we went on a double date with Whit and Doug!  We went and saw the Hunger Games - GREAT movie! SO - after I posted this the first time today, my sister so sweetly reminded me that I completely forgot to mention that Parker's birthday was ALSO Chris' and my 5th wedding anniversary!  Ha ha!  So - yes-  our double date was also our Anniversary date! But we didn't mind one bit because my sweet sis and bro-in-law bought our movie tickets, popcorn AND coke!  Pretty sweet deal, huh? 

5 years of awesome-ness.... notice I didn't say PERFECTNESS - because c'mon now - that's not possible and I try to be real here y'all.  :)  I do love this man more than anything (except my Heavenly Father - I love Him #1) and I am pretty darn proud of our amazing marriage we've built.

We took this picture when we got home... our dog was LITERALLY so tired he was sleeping with his tongue hanging out of his mouth!

5 months and other random pix!

Baby girl turned 5 months on April 16!  She's a mobile little one - rolls ALL over the place.  She still isn't sitting up yet on her own, but she is close if you prop her up on her hands between her legs.  She rolls and scoots all over the room.  Chances are, if you lay her down, she will NOT be in the same place if you leave the room and come back a few minutes later.  She is also a BLABBER MOUTH!  The girl "talks" constantly.  She can't stand for the room to be too quiet and will start chatting just to fill the room with noise.  (NO idea where she gets that from!  Yeah right!)  She is also a SMILING queen now!  After 3-4 months of NO smiles, she's making up for lost time now.  She smiles the most for her big brother - he can get her to smile and giggle when no one else can.   She also knows NO stranger... she'll give the sweetest smile to every stranger who looks her way... she can work a crowd that's for sure.  We get comments every time we are out and about about two things - the same since she was born.  1) her hair and 2) her huge eyes!  Literally - we have never left this house without these two things being observed by strangers!  I make a game out of it now and try to guess how long it will take after we  go somewhere until we get comments!  :)

 Her favorite toy right now is Mr. Giraffe!  They have lots of conversations and kissing sessions.

 She has also found her feet!  And loves to talk to and kiss them as well!

 And she LOVES to grab noses!  She'll grab anyone's nose if you give her a chance! 

 Parker gets sweeter to her every day.  He truly loves to hold her, play with her, giggle with her and talk to her.  He raises his voice about 5 octaves every time he talks to her - calls her baby girl and sweetie and he often tells her "You're so cute!". 

 A few months ago, this pose would have had to of been bribed with a bunch of lollipops!  But not right now - he gives he kisses all day long!

Sort of hard to believe these two kids came from the same parents!

 C-Line would much rather stand than sit any day.  She has super strong legs and will push herself up to stand any chance she gets!  She only needs two fingers and she's UP!

 The weather actually was cold for one day!  It hasn't really been cold at ALL this winter so she has barely had a chance to wear all her precious winter clothes she got at her SipNSee.  This little outfit is a fave - my sweet neighbor got it for her!  And the bow couldn't match better!

 I got these hats before Caroline was born!  I had planned on getting their pictures in them at C-Line's newborn session, but that day was so crazy, I was in SO much pain and Parker was NOT cooperating... so it didn't happen.  When it was finally cool one day, I figured I should get a picture of them since they are both about to outgrow them!

 I babysat all the kiddos for our Life Group one night and this little booger actually fell asleep in my arms!  I was in HEAVEN!

 The night it got so cold  (mid 30s) we didn't turn on the heater - because it really hasn't been on at all this winter - we just didn't think about it!  Well, the next morning we paid for it!  Poor Parker cried the entire time I got him undressed and dressed because she said he was "FWEEZING" and after we brushed teeth, he RAN downstairs and asked to be covered with a blanket while he ate his cereal bar!  Poor kid!

Easter Weekend!

After a LOT of debating, we finally decided to stay at home this Easter weekend!  Chris had his porch project to work on, we had lots of fun Egg Hunts and friends to hang out with near home, and we ALSO would have the privilege of dog-sitting our horse/dog of a nephew, Tanner, if we stayed home!  My entire family was in Savannah for the weekend and I thought I would have a hard time being the only one left out, but it was totally fine and we had a FABULOUS family and friends weekend at home!  I love starting new traditions with our little family.... more on that in a minute.  Below is our dog/horse nephew, Tanner.  He is not allowed on the couch at his house, so he takes full advantage of being allowed to get on ours.  Spoiled.  Rotten.

This was him while I was trying to nurse Caroline... he likes the Boppy more than she does!

Another wonderful thing about our sweet nephew is that he likes to wake up at an hour I didn't know existed.  Caroline has been sleeping through the night since she was like 5 weeks old  (thank you Moms on Call) so I truly forgot what it was like to wake up when it's still dark.  I was HAPPY to text this picture of the clock to Whitney (hoping to wake her up) when Tanner woke us up to go outside.  At. 4. 0. 7. A. M. Then, I didn't even really get my satisfaction because Whitney and Doug were up with a teething baby at that point as well.  Oh well.

 We keep Jack's pillow upstairs so when Tanner visits he is very excited to have a pillow downstairs, too! Thankfully, Tanner doesn't mind sharing!

Chris and I have been visiting First Baptist Church in Cumming and were so excited that they were having a fun family day for all the preschool-aged kiddos on Saturday!  They had an egg hunt for all the different age groups, face painting, cookie decorating, jumpy houses, and fun praise music.  

This kid LOVES jump houses!

He was NOT too sure about the bunny!

But he was happy to take a picture as long as daddy was near by!

Waiting for the Egg Hunt to begin!

GO!

Park has been ALL about daddy lately! He couldn't wait to have his picture taken with daddy!

He was NOT as excited to have a picture with me though...

When we asked Parker what he wanted painted on his face, he so excitedly said, "A FLOWER A FLOWER!"  Chris shot that down pretty quickly and said, "How about a tiger!"  He said that would be OK!  The lady painting his face asked if he would sit still for long enough - and we said we'd find out!  He did fabulous!  Sat still the entire time!

I promise he wasn't being tortured.

 Checking out himself in the mirror!  He even gave the artist a little ROAR!

Enjoying his cookie he decorated!

I should have taken this before the face paint!  Oh well!

Just the GIRLS - the area around the church is absolutely beautiful! 

One last picture before nap time when I washed it all off!

Saturday, after nap time, we invited Sisi and her family over to make Resurrection bread!  Park's Sunday School teacher gave me a hand out with this idea on it!  You take biscuit dough and put a marshmellow inside... you explain to the kids that the marshmallow is Jesus' body after he died on the cross.  THEN - after you bake the biscuits, the marshmallow OOZES out and fills up the inside of the bread!  It actually leaves a big, giant hole when you open up the bread - which represents the empty tomb after Jesus raised from the dead!

Park and Sisi enjoying their yummy bread!  After our bread fun, we enjoyed a yummy pasta dinner Amy brought over for us!  We literally were laughing the entire time, because there was NOT more than 1 minute where all 4 adults were sitting at the table together.  Between SiSi potty training and announcing she had to PEE every few minutes, Parker running around, Caroline crying or Dylan fussing... we all managed to finish our meal in about an hour! 

I promise Caroline loves Sisi - this girl can give a LOOK though - watch out!

Easter morning was lots of fun!  We had both kid's baskets hidden and there was a trail of eggs leading from Parker's room to his basket!  A few eggs were demolished before Parker could even get to them thanks to Tanner stepping on them and crushing them to pieces...

 Aunt Whitney came to the rescue with monogrammed Easter baskets for the kiddos!  She did a great job picking them out for me!  She's the best.  Thanks Aunt Nit-ney!

We let Parker have one piece of candy from his basket before church/breakfast!  He was way excited!

 

We had an amazing time on Easter morning at First Baptist Church!  We have recently started to attend there after attending Mountain Lake for nearly 3 years.  We have been looking for something a little closer to what Chris and I both grew up with.  We both grew up in a southern Baptist church that had Wednesday night activities for the kids and adults, Sunday School, and a little more traditional-styled worship.  Easter was our second time visiting and we loved it!  After church, we had planned a BIG lunch with all our closest friends from Mountain Lake who were in town without family visiting.  I was so excited to finally use our dining room AND I used my Fine China for the first time ever!  (5 years... about time, right?)

Our family on Easter!

Kristin and Tyler couldn't join us for Easter dinner but they were able to stop by before meeting their family for a "kid and mommy" photo!  Here is one of our last "baby belly" pictures...

Yes - I'm wearing the same dress!  Yay for being able to use non-maternity dresses during and after pregnancy!  :)

Caroline - 4 months.  Tanner - 5 months.  Caleb - 6 months.  Dylan - 7 months!

After lunch, we had a fun Easter Egg Hunt for Parker and SiSi!  This was Park's 3rd hunt and he was a little "over it".  A few minutes into the hunt, he said he wanted me to pick up the eggs.... Ha!

 So I, of course, did.  Who could resist these baby blues!