Happy Birthday Maddox!!!

Sunday, February 26, 2012


To Our Little Maddy:
I've been thinking about all the words I want to say to you after such a love filled first year of your life.  Every time I think of you, see your smiling face, watch your little booty as you crawl through the house, all I feel is adoration.  You have blended in effortlessly with Channing and Jaxson, and they love you as if you had been here all along.  Your hair is wild, your cheeks are chubby, and your teeth have grown in about 3 feet apart.  I love every inch of you.  You love to play, and your favorite thing is for me or Daddy to sit in the floor with our legs out, and you crawl in and out of our legs over and over and just giggle the entire time.  You plow through whatever Chann and Jax are doing like a bulldozer, and thank Goodness they are so patient with you.  You have had some ups and downs with your sleeping, but finally you sleep all night again, and we are all much happier for that!  You have eaten dog food, and loved it (yuck!), dumped over very heavy humidifiers full of water, ripped pages from books, broken expensive sunglasses into pieces, and so you have earned the name "honey badger" in this house.  It is pretty fitting based on what I saw on YouTube!   But no matter what you do, little honey badger, we love you more everyday!

About the party:
I truly tried to keep this party very simple, and all about Maddox.  I also tried to keep it small.  However, the house we are living in has such a little kitchen and living room, and even though the invite list was short, it got very crowded very quickly.  It was a cold, nasty day so we were all stuck inside.  I'm so thankful for the giant playroom we have because that saved us.  Maddox is my little monkey (when he's not being a honey badger!), so a monkey party was perfect.  I found a cute fondant cake topper online, and cute little banana cupcake toppers, and just got a yummy cake and cupcakes from Kroger (they make a good cake!).  Target sells the paul frank napkins and plates, but they were running low, so I had to mix with solid colors.  Laura made delicious and cute cookies, and Allyson made little monkey labels for the party favors.  For the favors, I stuffed cellophane bags with bananas and banana flavor candy.
Maddox ABSOLUTELY loved his cake.  Not that he ever once smiled while he was eating it, but based on the fact that he devoured the entire thing, I'm guessing he was a fan.  The party only lasted an hour, and we were so happy to have our sweet friends and family celebrate with us!  Happy Birthday Maddox Gray!



























Before School

Monday, February 20, 2012
For the most part, weekday mornings are kind of rushed and sometimes a little stressful.  It seems that all 3 kids wake up at the exact same time... one needs a bottle, one needs a wet pull up taken off, and one needs to hurry to make it by 7:45 (yikes- not being tardy is hard!).  But this particular morning, everyone was happy, ready ahead of time, and Channing looked so sweet with her new puppy shirt on playing with our new dog, Lady.  Meanwhile, I found Jaxson back in Channing's room playing dress up!  A few minutes later, he was sitting in the kitchen floor playing with his super hero stickers in a tutu!  Maddox finally got some teeth just before he turned a year old, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture of those cute little bottom nibblers while he was eating breakfast.






















Happy Birthday, Paxton!!

Monday, February 13, 2012
The kids always like having little parties, and the oreo cookie cake was definitely a big treat.  Not sure who liked it more... Paxton, the kids, or me.  Anyway, we love our daddy/ hubby!




Visit to Vernon and Guthrie

We went to Vernon for Caden's birthday on January, and had a great time seeing all of my family there.  I also got the chance to do Harper's 6 month pics.  She is like a cute little cabbage patch kid!  Anyway, we had a good time, and they even surprised me by singing happy birthday and giving me some really nice birthday gifts.  We then headed to Gurthrie to see my best friends from HS, Kelly and her husband, Justin, and Carey and her husband, Alan.  It was the first time all of our kids were together, and they had a blast!