Photo Story Friday: One Last Hurrah!

Yesterday, my friend Karen and I took Grant, Eli, and her little girl Lana to Chuck E Cheese for one last hurrah before Grant and Lana both start preschool on Tuesday. We had a ton of fun and after our last trip to CEC {with 6 kids} this one seemed like a piece of cake! It is amazing how much easier it is to deal with 3 kiddos as opposed to 6!

Grant and Lana had a great time playing games and they both ended up with almost 250 tickets...which is a lot considering last time each kid ended up with about 20!

Here are some pics of our SUPER fun day at Chuck E Cheese! Eli wasn't too impressed with Chuck E!
And Grant hid under the table pretending he was scared!
Grant playing a game...
and riding on a ride!

Eli had fun {sort of} on the train!

And they both loved playing basketball.

We all had a great time, and now we are looking forward to starting preschool on Tuesday!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Yuck

THIS is what happens when you give Eli a handful of cheese bunnies and assume that he will put them in his mouth one at a time!

I will have to keep this in mind in the future.

{Sorry for the gross picture....it's just chewed up cheese bunnies though!}

Wordless Wednesday: He May Have a Future in the Plumbing Industry!

For more Wordless Wednesday check out 5 Minutes for Mom!

Awards For Days...

I am SUPER lazy about receiving, posting, and passing on awards! I hate that I am...but I can't seem to keep up with my awards or post them in a very timely manner. So I went searching back to see what awards I had so rudely ignored and I am doing a MASS award post!

Emily over at Powell Power has passed on "The Queen" award to me. Thanks so much Emily!! I can use any little bit of girlyness in my life that I can get living in a house with four males...even if it is just a picture of a crown!

I am passing this award on to Julie at Foursons, Shasta at Crackers and Chaos, and Tracy at Simply Smith,who all also live with all BOYS!

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Emily also awarded me the Honest Scrap Award....about two months ago! The requirements for this award is that you have to post 10 honest things about yourself. Kind of hard....which is probably why I procrastinated this award for so long! But I guess I will give it a try now! 1. I am a very aggressive driver. I can't stand to be behind someone who is going under the speed limit or doesn't know how to go around curves without hitting their brakes!

2. I only had one other boyfriend besides Jason, and that was when I was 16. I guess since Jason and I started dating when we were 17 that kind of makes sense though!

3. I am a huge perfectionist...

4. BUT I am also a huge procrastinator which kind of interferes with my perfectionism a little bit!

5. I really don't like to cook. I LOVE to bake....but I don't think it would be very healthy for my family to live off of cookies, cakes, brownies, and pies!

6. Ohmygoodness....I'm only halfway there and I am SO out of ideas!

7. I LOVE the sitcom Friends and I have at least 6 of the seasons on DVD. I really could sit and watch old episodes all day long!

8. I hate to clothes shop for myself....mainly because I have a ton of "baby" weight to lose. Can you still call it baby weight if you youngest is about to turn one?!?

9. I try to eat healthy, but I have very little willpower when it comes to junk food. I have a huge box of Weight Watchers ice cream in the freezer that I will reach right past and grab the good stuff {Blue Bell is so good}!

10. The car dealer that we ordered my car from just called and said the car should be here in about a week! I am SUPER excited {and I know that I cheated a little on this one...but this was really hard}!

Nichol over at Kiddie Corner Deals awarded me with the Meme Award.

Nichol is SUPER fun and she always has awesome giveaways going on {I won one this month}! So, the requirements are to:
Thank the person who gave you the award.
List 7 personality traits about yourself and pass it on to 7 other bloggers with dynamic personalities

THANKS SO MUCH NICHOL! I am being SUPER lazy today and not really following the rules though....I may come back later and add my 7 traits and 7 bloggers!

Kimber over at Day in the Life of a Girl Named Kimber has passed on the Splash Award to me.

The Splash Award is given to alluring, amusing, bewitching, impressive, and inspiring blogs
The Rules:
When you receive this award, you must:
Put the logo on your blog/post.
Nominate & link up to 9 blogs which allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire you.
Let them know that they have been splashed by commenting on their blog.
Remember to link to the person from whom you received your Splash Award.

I am passing this award on to

Emily at Powell Power

Lisa at One Hip Mom

Alicia at More Than Words

Carrie at Martin Manor Happenings

Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessings

Kelli at Outside My Kitchen Window

Kate at Kate's Creations
Jennifer at The Life and Times of Mommy
Mimi at He & Me + 3

Monthly Craft Challenge

Heidi over at Blue Eyed Blessings has announced the theme for this month's Craft Challenge.
It is all about Fall and Halloween this month, and I can't wait to start working on some fun holiday themed crafts! Go check out Heidi's blog to get more information about the Montly Craft Challenge. You'll have one month to create and we'll all "meet up to link up" at Blue Eyed Blessings on Thursday, October 1st. I can't wait to see what everyone crafts up this month!

Out the Window

That is where my computer almost went yesterday!

For some reason, I was having trouble loading blogger yesterday....and I think it was my cookies. How sad that cookies could cause that much trouble! The strange thing was that it was ONLY blogger that wouldn't load. I could check my email, browse through facebook, and do my banking but for some strange reason I could NOT get my blogger dashboard to load. Every time I tried to open up blogger my computer started to have a virtual seizure! Seriously, I have never seen a computer screen do that before....and it did it all day long! I played around with some of setting trying to fix it, but nothing seemed to help.

Then yesterday after dinner, soccer practice, baths, and bedtime Jason sat down at the computer, clicked a few buttons and VOILA he fixed it! I was SUPER excited to see my dashboard {which I hadn't seen all day} but a little aggravated that he was able to fix it so quickly after I spent all day dealing with it! Oh well, it is fixed now and I have a ton of blog reading to catch up on....

While my computer was being uncooperative yesterday, I did manage to get a few things {and a nap} done around the house. I made Eli a cute John John to wear in his first birthday pictures, which we are going to take today! I spent about two hours yesterday cutting our fabric and sewing his outfit. Then I spent another two hours sewing on the buttons {not really, I just hate sewing on buttons so it seems like it takes that long}! I also made all three boys some SUPER cute shirts with some SUPER cute material that I picked up earlier this week.

Besides trying to climb on everything in sight, here is what Eli has been up to this week:

Grant had his 4 year old shots on Monday and then had to be quarantined {at least from me} at my parent's house for three days. Because of the medicines that I am on, I could not be around him after having live vaccines....a little crazy....and probably not likely that I would actually get sick from him, but we played it safe anyway. So he got to spend the first part of the week being spoiled by grandparents and great grandparents.

Today Henry got to dress up like a doctor for school. They have been learning about community helpers all week, and today they are learning about people in the medical profession. So Dr. Henry went to school today all ready to "nurse" his patient back to health!

We are off to get haircuts and take pictures today....wish us luck that Eli's birthday pictures turn out SUPER cute, and that he doesn't make too big of a mess with his smash cake!

Wordless Wednesday: Bump and Jump

For more Wordless Wednesday check out 5 Minutes for Mom.

The Keeper of the Paci!

The other day {after Jason had to search for Eli's paci twice during the night because his two current paci keepers had gotten old and lazy} I decided to make a few new paci keepers for Eli! These things are a life saver, and I love that I can make them any color I want....as opposed to being stuck with just the blue ones you buy at the store.

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PACI KEEPERS 101

AKA The Easy Baby Gift You Could Ever Make

Gather your materials:
Fabric
Covered Button Kit
Rick Rack or Ribbon
Badge Clips {found in the office section}
Hot Glue Gun

Lay the fabric over the covered button kit, then add the button and gather the material.

After you gather the material, you snap down the covered button kit.

With just a little snap, you end up with a SUPER cute covered button!

Next, you add a little hot glue to the back of the button and attach the ribbon or rick rack. Then add a little more glue to attach the clip part of the badge to the back of the covered button.

Then you take the other end of the badge clip and thread the ribbon or rick rack through the hole in the plastic piece. Fold over the edge of the ribbon and hot glue it into place. And you end up with the cutest and easiest baby gift ever!
Eli modeling his new SUPER cute paci keeper.

Fun and Fantastic Four!

We celebrated Grant's 4th birthday this weekend with a SUPER fun POOL PARTY! Grant's beach ball birthday cake
Sunbathing bears....cupcakes for the kiddos!
The birthday boy is all smiles before he opens his presents!

Hmmm....I wonder what this could be?

Lots of presents and cards to open!

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For some reason I never get any good pictures of the kids actually in the pool, but there were about twenty kids splashing, playing, and having a great time!

Grant had a great birthday! He was so sweet and so excited about his party, and more than once he said that he really liked his party and all of his presents :)

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Happy 4th Birthday Grant!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

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This week was NOT a SUPER stressful one for me! We did NOT have a ton of things going on that almost drove me to insanity by Saturday afternoon. I am NOT feeling just a little better today,and I am NOT hoping that this week is a little more calm {yeah right!}.

Jason did NOT have to go out of town for three days before Grant's birthday party...leaving me with the lovely task of making sure that everything was ready for the party! This did NOT stress me out beyond belief, forcing me to turn to a big tub of ice cream! I did NOT eat the entire tub of Blue Bell ice cream by myself during the three days that Jason was out of town. Ice cream does NOT make me feel better...and does NOT seem to make stress just a little easier to handle:) {It's okay to eat ice cream for dinner after the kids are in bed, right?}

I did NOT let my almost one year old climb up the stairs this week because I was just a little distracted on the phone. I did NOT attempt to get Henry to save my escaped child only to have him 'help' by letting him fall down the stairs! I did NOT freak out just a little thinking that my child could have some serious injuries from falling down 6 steps! He was NOT fine and only had a few little marks where he rubbed his back on the carpet on his way down the stairs!

We did NOT attempt to buy a car this weekend....and I did NOT get SUPER mad because things just didn't seem to work out timing wise for us! We did NOT finally get things straightened out, and I will NOT be getting a new car in two or three months.

Despite all the stress of this week, we did NOT have a great time at Grant's 4th birthday party on Saturday....and he was NOT the happiest four year old around!

Things That Make Me Happy...

Baking

Boys Being Boys
{Outside!}

Baby Boy eating Butter Beans
What B things make you happy?