William's 3rd Birthday

My dear sweet baby boy has turned three! I don't say sweet lightly, he really is sweetest three year old you will meet. I kept waiting for the "terrible twos" to come, but they never did. 

 Out of all my kids he LOVES cuddles, hugs and kisses. He will come up to me multiple times throughout the day to hug and kiss me. He melts my heart and I can't stop from smooching his chubby little cheeks 100 times a day. 

We had a lovely party to celebrate his birthday. William loves anything that screams BOY. Trucks, cars, trains, dinosaurs, boats... I can go on and on.  It is like he is programed to love this stuff. 

Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of girl toys around the house, but he could care less for dolls,  play food and anything else that isn't a “boy” toy. 

He is fascinated by fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. I am sure it has something to do with their  loud sirens. So this year we threw him a fireman party. He loved it! and I loved planning it.

People ask me why I throw big parties for my kids every year. Well, coming from a large family, I never had a birthday party as a child.  I never had a day to celebrate me. A day to be showered with attention.  It is something I vowed to myself I would do once I had kids of my own. So as long as I am able (financially) I will celebrate my children by showering them with attention, love, cake and presents. They will have a day that is all about them. 

Heres a peek into William's special day:

 -Happy birthday my sweet boy!-

brick back ground paper AMAZON

fire hydrant cupcake stand AMAZON 

check table cloth AMAZON

fire cake pics AMAZON 

Birthday banner AMAZON 

fire fighter candles AMAZON 

fire man party hats AMAZON

fire center piece AMAZON  

Fire truck paper plates AMAZON

cookie cutters AMAZON

fire man costume AMAZON  

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Christmas 2016

Hello my dear friends, I hope you all had the merriest of Christmases!

We had a very quiet and low key Christmas at home. After opening our presents, we stayed home all day playing with our new toys (ahem.. meaning 90 % of my time was spent putting the toys together and 10% playing with the kids). 

I then prepared a delicious Christmas dinner and the rest of the evening was spent watching Christmas movies, I couldn't have asked for anything more. 

On Christmas eve we attended church and the kids were in the Christmas pageant, which was the cutest thing ever. I wish I had my camera to record Nico bowing and blowing everyone kisses at the end. Seriously, that kid thinks the whole world revolves around him :) He certainly made the congregation laugh.   Later that evening, we ate takeout and watched the Nativity Story. 

I love watching the Nativity this time of the year, It gets us thinking of the real reason for this Holiday. I feel humbled and thankful for the greatest gift this Christmas, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ.

Wishing you many blessings this season,

Lumberjack Birthday Party

The year has flown by and my older kids are both turning another year older this week. 

How is my oldest 9 already? It seems like it was just yesterday when we brought her home from the hospital, but that was almost a decade ago!!

 We can't stop the time from flying by, the only thing we can do is live every moment to the fullest. 

Love each other, cuddle our kidos while they still like to be cuddle, read aloud to them while they still love bed time stories and spend as much time with them as possible. 

We celebrated their birthdays this weekend with family and friends. It was a such a fun day.

 At the end of the day, my son told me that he wished it was morning again and he could have his party all over again. I agree with you my dear, it went by way to fast. 

This year our theme was lumberjack inspired, both boy and girl friendly. 

Felt boys crown and the girls berry crowns are DIY. The supplies are from craft warehouse

Lanterns are from amazon

Trees are from amazon 

Table runner is from amazon 

Straws are from amazon 

Happy Birthday banner is from amazon 

-Love this years theme, it ties in with my christmas decor so well :)-

-Dessert Table-

Cakes are from our favorite bakery (I just put some animals and trees on them)

Cookies are home made. You can find the recipe here 

Weekend Happenings..

We had a wonderful weekend, we went to church on Saturday, cooked a big family dinner on Sunday, and just spent the rest of the weekend resting, and enjoying our time together. 

The kids loved their Easter baskets, and kept hiding their easter eggs all over the house over and over again with their cousins. I am still finding eggs everywhere. But thats part of the experience, right? Stepping on plastic eggs, trying to hide all the chocolate from your two year old. He is extremely energetic, and I didn't want him wound up even more. But it was unavoidable, his face covered in chocolate and dirty little hand prints everywhere happened more then once. 

I had a moment this weekend. I looked at all of my kids individually and couldn't believe they were mine. They were all once tiny little babies and now are so big. Each child is so different and has their own little personality and I wouldn't change anything about them. I love being their mama, I love being the one they run to when they have something they want to share, the one who makes holidays special for them, the one who kisses their boo boos away. I am not saying that motherhood is a field of flowers, but the good moments heavily outweigh the bad moments. 

I pray that God blesses my children and I am excited to see what He has in store for them. 

Oh, I went out of my comfort zone, and made lamb for dinner on Sunday. I have not made lamb before, I personally don't like it. I am not a huge meat eater, which is why I made a whole bunch of sides and veggies. The thing is, it actually turned out pretty good. Which just goes to show that anyone can follow a recipe :)

Here are some photos from our weekend, we had a great time and made lots of memories. 

Kids Easter Baskets-

Can you believe that it is nearly the end of the month?! This month has been a blur, we were sick with the flu for 3 weeks, so the days seemed to all blur together and I was in survival mode most of the time. However, we are all so much better and all have recovered. I feel like a brand new person and am happy to get back to my "mommy tasks".  

One of the things I wanted to do was "springify" (Is that even a word? LOL, my spellcheck certainly doesn't think so)  my house and get the easter baskets done for the kids. Well atleast one of those tasks is done, I am still working on my house :)

I tried to stay away from too much candy, since we still have valentines day candy hanging around the house from our party. Instead, I included some of their current favorite toys, bubbles, books and off course a hollow easter bunnies. 

Rather then buying the "typical" easter baskets which will later end up in the trash, I chose these simple straw baskets at Michael's. I think they will be great to pick our vegetables in our garden this summer. See how practical I am :)

I can't wait to surprise the kids with the baskets. 

-for my 2 year old-

-for my 5 year old-

-for my 8 year old-

Do you have any easter basket traditions? Share a link to your easter baskets, I would love to see them. 

Valentines Day 2016

I have always loved valentines day, ever since I was a kid in elementary school. I loved buying or making cards, and handing them out to all of my classmates and friends. I remember coming home and trading cards and candy with my sisters. It was such a fun time and something I think back to when I think of valentines day.

Valentines day means different things to people, for some people it is all about the romance. For us, it is about family. Me and my hubby never really got into the whole "valentines day celebrations" because our anniversary is just 2 weeks later and we were broke in the first few years of our marriage.
Now that we have older kids, I find myself making an effort during the holidays. Its not about expensive dinners, or gifts, its about letting them know that they are really special to me and I love them.  Hubby and I exchange cards, chocolate, and he also gets me flowers :). I pick out a card for each of my children and write them each a special message---they keep their cards in their memory box, one day they can look back and read them all.

We had our "romantic" date a week ago,  on Super Bowl Sunday of all days, but the restaurants were practically empty and we had an amazing time. We went to a little Italian restaurant and then to a cafe in downtown portland for drinks and dessert. So on Valentines day,  we had a family date at home. The kids love to be included and like to help out with setting the table with special plates, napkins, and lighting the candles.

We had a fun playdate/party for the kids and their cousins on Monday since there was no school, they made their valentine bags, exchanged cards and candy, ate lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon playing. Here are some pictures from our day-

William's 2nd Birthday

My little boy has turned 2! It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated Williams 1st birthday, but here we are a full year later. I went back to look at his new born photos and I still find it hard to grasp that this little itty baby turned into such an energetic toddler.

William adores Curious George, so naturally we went with George for the party theme.