Happy 3rd Birhtday Landry!

The weekend of October 2 we had Landry's 3rd birthday party. It was nice having friends and family at our house to celebrate what have been 3 amazing years. Landry is and continues to be such a blessing in our lives and a true gift from God. Can you believe she's 3 years old now?! Planning for this party started a while back. Landry wanted a Hello Kitty party. I was great with that theme- it's very easy to make Hello Kitty anything...or so I thought. The cake was a little trouble. Everything else was perfect. The party wasn't Hello Kitty overkill, there were pops of H.K. here and there. Landry's birthday party was third times a charm!

The cake at 11:00 the night before. I wanted to cry. Landry's wonderful daddy went to Wal-Mart and bought another box of cake mix. He stayed up and made her cake. Yay Daddy!

I woke up the next morning, made icing and iced the cake. Brad and I make a pretty good team. I can't take credit for the black, yellow and hot pink icing. The nice people at Kroger decorated the cake on the spot that morning.

One of our very crafty friends, Tamaron, made custom white chocolate lollipops just for Landry. Thank you Tamaron.

The sweets table.

Pizza anyone? See the pop of Hello Kitty below the clock? It says "You can never have too many friends".

Strawberry cupcakes with homemade buttercream icing.

A quick family picture before singing Happy Birthday to the birthday girl.

Lighting the candle...

Landry listening to about 50 people singing Happy Birthday to her.

Blow the candle out and make a wish!

Yay!

Aunt Bug and Uncle Duhduh made it to the party. Jack is taking a break from bouncing.

It's safe to say the bounce castle was a hit with the kids.

The girls must have run the boys out.

Landry's school friend Eden and Dustin.

Bouncy, bouncy.

Friends enjoying the beautiful weather.

There are some of the boys! Gavin and Tyler taking turns on the scooter.

Yay Katie!

Megan, Katie and Tyler.

Emmy smiling for the camera.

Caitlin getting ready to leave.

Gavin giving the birthday girl a hug.

Eden thinking about having another cupcake.

Party girl Ellie.

Tyler's turn to give Landry a hug.

There was plenty of food and fun thanks to everyone. Thank you Laure for making the yummy Crunchy Asian salad, Robin for making the cheese dish and Tamaron for making lollipops. We continued eating these the rest of the weekend. Thank you to everyone that ate pizza so that we weren't left with a week's worth of pizza. Thank you to all, whether you were here or not, for making Landry's birthday party such a special occasion!

How many of you remember...

Light Bright! I think the toy was spelled Lite Brite. Landry enjoys playing with hers. We all enjoy playing with her l.b. It takes me back to when I was a kid.

The pegs are still the same.




I don't know what was said or done to get this reaction.

The puppy pencil sharpener glows too. Smart kid :)

...but it's not going to hurt my eyes.

I'm smiling and thinking of how I don't want to stop playing at the same time.

Patricia Polacco

This past Saturday at Barnes and Noble we went to see Patricia Polacco. She writes and illustrates children's books. Each one of her books is based on something that happened in her life. This is one reason I like her books. You may have hear of some of stories: The Keeping Quilt, Thank you, Mr. Falker, Thunder Cake, An Orange for Frankie and The Junkyard Wonders are a few. One of my favorites is Thank you, Mr. Falker. I am so glad we were able to hear and meet Patricia Polacco.

Telling us a little about herself.

This is the actual quilt her book The Keeping Quilt is based on.

Me, Patricia and Landry.

Custom Cupcakes

A week ago today one of the Whole Foods downtown was having "Create your own Cupcake Day". Landry and I almost didn't make it. It wasn't until around 4:30 that afternoon she confirmed she really wanted to make her own cupcake. Brad happened to be downtown. We made it to Whole Foods and met Brad. Landry and I made our custom cupcake. Brad didn't want one. Landry chose vanilla cake with cream cheese icing and orange sparkle sprinkles. I chose banana nut cake with a caramel filling and cream cheese icing topped with almonds. It may sound like a weird combination. Both cupcakes were very tasty.

Trying to decide on a cake flavor.

Cake: check. Icing: check.




A cupcake wouldn't be complete with out sparkle sprinkles.

Yummy cupcakes exactly how we want them.

Bon Appetit!

If you've never been in a Whole Foods or Central Market (they're similar to one another) and you get the chance, walk around in one.

Happy Birthday Bradley!

Not this past weekend but the weekend before one of Landry's friends, Bradley, turned 3! We went to Bradley's after church for some pizza, cake and fun in the sun. Bradley, Gavin, Katie and Landry had so much fun splashing in the pools and running around in the yard. I think splashing in the pools was Landry's favorite part. My favorite part was the cake. It was so yummy!

Gavin, Landry, Bradley and Katie.

Off roading...

Gavin's turn.




Katie and Bradley keeping cool.




One pool, two pools...back and forth.

Time to sing Happy Birthday and eat some cake!

Gavin and Katie are into their piece of cake.

Landry was enjoying her cake too.

Bradley the Birthday boy and Landry.

Thank you Bradley for inviting us to your party.


We continue to ride the Birthday Bandwagon...and we are thoroughly enjoying it.

Labor Day weekend in Louisiana

Labor Day weekend this year we went to Louisiana. We have a new niece, Audrey Claire (love the name), who was born August 19 that we hadn't seen yet. The 3 day weekend was a perfect time to go in (it's only a 5-6 hour drive which is nothing to us). Pops, Meme, Uncle Duhduh and Aunt Bug were able to come in too! Because we're all in different places and stages of our lives the times we're all together are few and far between. When we are able to all get together it's very special.

Landry called her Texas friends to let them know we made it in safely.

Landry getting a little one-on-one time with Pops.

Rylan showing Landry how to drive the four wheeler (it wasn't even cranked).

Thank goodness we brought Landry's floatie suit. Pool time before heading back to Uncle Blake and Aunt Morgan's house.

Meme with 2 of her 3 1/2 (the half is for you Piper) grandkids.

Nothing is sweeter than a baby's smile.

Landry and baby Audrey ready for bedtime.

Two very sweet girls.

Hair: there and everywhere

Babies are born with hair, that's pretty normal. Most of the time you can see their scalp because their hair is thin. Not so in our case. Landry was born with a head full of thick and dark hair. She has had 2 haircuts in her life and each time we cut about 2 inches off. We are about a month short of Landry's last hair cut being a year ago. She would never miss 2 even 3 inches. I just have to convince her she'd never miss it.

Landry at 2 days old.

Landry a month short of being 3 years old.

Her first french braid. She is pretending to put mascara on with a clean mascara wand.

We definitely have a girly girl. Yay!

So see, she would never miss about 2 or 3 inches.

Demolition Derby (toddler style)

I really wanted to get a video of Landry riding the car down the slide. I asked her to wait while I ran inside and grabbed my camera. She didn't wait. When I got back outside she was on her side with the car at the bottom of the slide. It's why she tells me "It will hurt me" when I ask her to ride the car down. It didn't hurt so much as I think it scared her. She walked away without any marks whatsoever.