May 17th - 23rd, 2021: Haircuts, tantrums, and crushes

Well, I guess right now it's just slow and steady wins the race. Last week was a both a busy week and a fun week and I had no time to blog at all. With summer break in full swing, the kids have been staying up way too late. It seems like they end up wired and incapable of settling down just because we let them stay up a little bit later than we did during the school year. So now we're rethinking letting that happen, cause let's be honest, it isn't fun when your kids are still not asleep and coming out of their room multiple times until 10pm... 🤦‍♀️ ANYWAY, here we go on another weekly update, rewinding to 5 weeks ago:

Monday, May 17th:

The whole month of May was so fun for Maeve at school, with lots of different fun activities and dress up days every day of the week. On this day, Maeve had show and tell day at school and after her coming up with a number of ideas of items to bring that seemed a little too lame to me, we settled on her bringing a little stuffed ballerina bear that used to be mine when I was a kid. She LOVES the pink tutu and thought it would be special to share that it used to be her Mommy's and now it's hers. She was about to just bring an LOL doll, so I'm glad she ended up liking that idea that I came up with. 😅 The best part about this is that after school she told me that when she showed it, her teacher asked if her bear had a name and on the spot, she came up with the name Pinky Pie!! 😂😂 Oh man! Totally cracked me up. What a name. 👌

Other highlights of the day include: 

~Rowan dumping water down the WHOLE front of Nolan's shirt. The shocked look on his face when that cold water hit him was priceless. You could tell it took his breath away, poor boy! 😂

~This is more of a lowlight, but I had an endodontist appt that morning for what I thought was going to be an appt to get my root canal done, but it turns out I sat and waited for AN HOUR for the doctor to come in and tell me that she was just evaluating the tooth and making sure the root canal was going to work. 🙄🤦‍♀️ I always get a little bit nervous before these kinds of appointments, so it was super annoying that I sat there with my nerves getting the best of me for an hour to find out I had no reason to even be nervous that day... 😑 Geez louise. The whole time I was waiting I was watching the reboot of Gilmore Girls with no sound - kind of comical that they offered me a remote to watch whatever I wanted on the TV while I waited, but there was no sound and turning up the volume did nothing. There were subtitles, but who likes reading subtitles?! Laaame. ANYWAY, the small silver lining was that she did say the tooth wasn't cracked and so I'd be able to do the root canal. So that was at least good news to hear, I just wish I could have gotten it done that day, especially since I sat there for an hour. But what can you do! 🤷‍♀️

~Nolan did something naughty that day and Rowan said, "He's a stinky maker! ...No! A trouble maker!" 😂 Such a funny mess up, but cute that he was able to correct himself. 

~We went on a family walk and saw Bella out, so she came over to play at our house until it was dinner time 

Tuesday, May 18th:

Man oh man, did Maeve have a terrible morning getting ready for school. There was SO much know it all brattiness and I literally almost lost my mind. Not so sure I'm gonna survive the 6 year old sass. Figuring out how to navigate motherhood sometimes feels like a full time job, I swear. 

I also planned out meals for the week and made a grocery list that morning and may or may not have spent an hour looking up ONE new recipe to make for the week that sounded good. Usually I fall upon something new that sounds good pretty quickly, but it seemed like every recipe I looked at either required some odd ingredient, was too complicated, or just didn't sound good. So annoying when that happens and it kinda feels like you're wasting too much time and the clock is ticking and you've gotten nowhere. Not to mention, doesn't help when you realize after you're done and come back to real life that your boys have been eating and throwing pretzels all over the stairs. 🙄😏 Yaaay. 

And for a couple funny moments of the day: 

~This one is an ongoing funny moment because it's happened so many times lately. Rowan's new thing every time we go to the grocery store is to say very excitedly as we're getting out of the car to walk in the store, "I have a surprise for you!!" and the every single time the "surprise" is to show me that there are car carts to ride in. 😂 It is too funny and too cute. 

~This is actually another ongoing funny moment because it's been happening a lot lately too, but it's about Nolan. He is so obsessed with shoes that e is always asking me to put one shoe on him, and only one, that belongs to another family member. It cracks me up to watch him walking around with one shoe on and one shoe off, whether it's Maeve's Nike shoe, or one of Adam's huge shoes. 😂😍 Cute, silly boy!

Wednesday, May 19th: 

Well I wrote down that we went to Target and if you asked me now what that was for, I have no idea. All I know is that we went. 🤷‍♀️ We also finally took Rowan to get a haircut to fix the haircut job that my sister gave him that went south because he wouldn't stay still. Took us long enough! 😅 He did great and was one handsome little boy afterwards. 

Once the kids were in bed, I disciplined myself to clean our nasty rug in the living room. After I finished, I decided it was a waste of time and I should have skipped the cleaning and looked for a new rug instead. It is just ridiculous that that rug looks dingy again 2 weeks after we clean it! It has been a lesson learned for me to not get a microfiber rug that is higher pile. It's just gotten matted and kind of impossible to really clean well so that it will stay clean. So this time around I need to get a low pile rug made of a better, more durable material aaand probably one that has as little white/cream in it as possible. Hopefully that will help us not end up in the same annoying situation again!! 🤞

And for the funny moment of the day: Rowan got some stickers out and decided to draw directly on the stickers and kinda mess them up, so I asked him why he would do that and he said, "Cause it's appropriate!" 😂🤔 I don't know if he meant inappropriate or if he really thought it was appropriate, but it was pretty funny. 

Thursday, May 20th: 

Oh my dear gracious. A couple days prior we got new internet installed and of course it didn't take long for Nolan to rip some of the wires out of the wall. 🤦‍♀️ SO after school, an AT&T guy came over to fix it and Maeve and Rowan just HAD to cause the embarrassment of a lifetime. Wanna know what caused them to spiral and go COMPLETELY insane over in front of this dude? The color of a freaking bowl for their cheerios. They both wanted purple and we did not have two stupid purple bowls. I was hoping the fact that a stranger was in our house would cause at least Maeve to handle it a bit better and be flexible enough to pick a different bowl, but nope, the whining wouldn't stop so I told them if they were gonna act like that neither of them would get cheerios. Which unfortunately caused Rowan to REALLY lose his freaking mind and I had to get him upstairs quick before he caused a TOTAL scene - meanwhile he's screaming bloody murder, flailing, and trying to kick the crap out of me as I carry him. 🤬🤬🤬 WOW. I was so mortified that they'd behave so badly with someone they didn't know in our house and over something so tiny. It was embarrassing and frustrating and everything in between, but the dude was nice about it and said he totally gets it cause he's got kids too that are quite capable of similar meltdowns. I just hope he really meant that! Man oh man. 

The only other thing worth mentioning is that Maeve cracked me up after school when she told me this: "Emery told me Ben has a crush on me. But I already picked Jonah as my crush, so I think Jonah should be my crush because that's fair..." 😆 The intricacies of Kindergarten romances! She has no idea how it all works and it kills me. 

Friday, May 21st:

Our Friday morning took a way different spin than normal when Adam texted me to say that he forgot his insulin at home and was gonna need me to bring it to him. I decided if I was gonna head that way, I would make it worth my while and pick up Pancake Pantry for breakfast. We drove past that place every stinking Thursday when Rowan used to have his Hematology appts and even at 11am on a Thursday the line was out the door. It is super popular and has been recommended to me before and it's kinda crazy that we still hadn't tried it yet! I figured since Adam is trying to be healthier right now anyway, I might as well just try it out on my own and treat myself. 😋 So I may have had to stop my workout in the middle of it to get his insulin to him, but at least I got to pick up some breakfast out, which is always a treat! I went with some crepe style pancakes that were filled with chocolate ganache and topped with raspberry compote. The raspberry element was definitely tasty, but I do sorta regret my choice since I had crepes for Mother's Day. I have a hard time passing up anything with chocolate in it, but given the nutella crepes I had, I should have picked something that would have felt more different. Kind of a bummer that I wish I could have gone back in time and ordered something else more unique, but what can you do!? Story of my life to be honest -- I feel like every time I'm torn between some options on a menu I always feel like I pick the wrong one and regret it. 🤦‍♀️ Guess I better not go with my gut from now on, and then I'll probably pick the right one! 

After doing that, on our way home as we got close to home and I made an impromptu decision to stop and get a new kiddie pool since the last one we had broke and it was a hot day. Little did I know they'd be sold out basically EVERYWHERE and I'd have to call/drive all over kingdom come to find one. It was so crazy! I ended up lucking out at Tractor Supply of all places. Rowan was pretty excited that it worked out because I was a little nervous there for a while that we just weren't gonna be able to get one. So once we got home, I got the back patio all cleaned up before setting it up and filling it so that he could play in it. He sure loved it!

After school, Maeve had her 6 year well check and at the same time, we were able to remove Nolan's stitches. All went well, although for some reason I felt super nauseous the whole time we were there so that wasn't fun. My anxiety always ramps up when I don't feel good and I'm not at home, but luckily I ended up being alright and it passed.

Aaaaand, last but not least, Nolan may or may not have dived into the kiddie pool with his clothes on after we got home and I may or may not have backed into a car when we left Maeve's curtain call dance rehearsal later that night.... 🙈🙈 I wasn't gonna tell Adam and just wait till he noticed anything, but of course Maeve had to let the cat out of the bag. Luckily, the lady was chill about it and said it was fine cause the damage was pretty minimal and it's not too bad on our van either, but I still feel dumb!! Been a while since I've done something like that...

Saturday, May 22nd: 

In the morning, in lieu of dance class Maeve just had to go to the studio for dance pictures in her recital costume. She got all glammed up by a couple ladies at the studio and took some shots with her class and also on her own. It was pretty cute to watch. She looked too cute in her costume and of course she LOVED having the make up on. Meanwhile at home, the boys had some fun playing in the kiddie pool together. 

We ran a long string of errands in the afternoon including Kroger, Home Depot, other little pop ins to return stuff, and Walmart. It took so long we ended up getting Chinese food for dinner and ice cream from BK since the kids did well. We bought some cheese its while we were out and cracked them open in the store cause Nolan was begging for him and that boy was very possessive of them. Don't mess with him and his cheese its! 😜

And for our laughs of the day:

~Rowan was tooting and while running through Walmart on the way to the bathroom he yelled, "I tooted a lot!!" like he was so proud of himself. 😂🙈 Oh dear. I let him know some things are better when kept to himself, haha. 

~Maeve was asking me way too many questions at bedtime and so I left and said, "OK I'm going now to be with Rowan since you've asked me like 7 questions now" and her rebuttal was, "No, I asked you 8 questions!!" 😂🤔 And even MORE reason to leave!! 

Sunday, May 23rd:

It was pretty much just a typical lazy Sunday, other than the fact that I made some homemade crescent rolls, which is always a good idea!! That's all I wrote down so that's all I got. 

And now for pictures from the week!!:

😂😍

This kid lives for any chance that he can sit in the backseat in Maeve's booster seat. I only let him when we go to Kroger, but he certainly asks me if he can allllllll day everyday. 🤦‍♀️

Yep, he's that excited 😂😍

Rocking out trying to be like Daddy 😂

I'm sorry, but the arms folded while sleeping was totally killing me! Had to take a pic 😂

Wondering how many photos I'll get of him sitting here when it's all said and done.... 😂

He's trouble! 

Yep... TROUBLE!! 

I'm sorry, but it doesn't get much cuter than him toddling around in that helmet! 😍

😍😍

Oh my. He is way too perfect! 😍😍

His little feet!! 😍😍😍

Just a boy with his hammer basically doing the splits. He is sooo flexible it's crazy! 😂

Guess I wasn't paying close enough attention. Next thing I know he's going to town on the cake scraps! 😂

Yep, I'm at that mom that lets her boys ride around in the cart like this. 😂🙈 As long as they're alive and on it somehow.... 

She is looking way too old and sophisticated these days!! 😭

Getting ready for make up after getting her hair done! 

Love this smile! 😍

😍😍

Get it girl! 😘

He loves carrying babies around now and I swear I could die 😍

Gotta love the squat 😂

Oh my 😂

Pretty killer when I get photos like these from Adam! 😂😍

I didn't even realize Adam was smart enough to snap this when he made Maeve her 6 pancake the day after her birthday! Got it from his phone. Too cute. 😍

Don't mess with my cheese its! 😆

From our trip to Rach's house the very end of April, guess I snapped this on Adam's phone! Too cute. 😍

Not even sure when Adam took this, but it's so pretty! A shot from our neighborhood street. 😍

Peace and blessings. ✌️

May 10th - 16th: Another week in the neighborhood

Oh man, I only have FOUR weeks to write about before I am caught up. Yikes. I am attempting to discipline myself a bit more often lately to get the job done, but with school out for the summer, the kids are staying up later than normal right now and the motivation is close to non-existent by 9pm. But I'm here tonight so GO ME! Here we go. 

Monday, May 10th: 

Leave it to Maeve to have a major tear fest on a school morning in the LAST month of the school year over the fact that she's going to miss me at school. I'm sorry, what?! Are we playing opposite day? Cause I thought that's the kind of thing that just happens at the beginning of the year, but nope. Not sure what spurred that on, but it was hard to have lots of patience considering she had months of being TOTALLY fine. 🙄

It was a monumental day at our house too because we OFFICIALLY ran out of conditioner and I had to buy some from the store for the first time in 8.5 years. Our Nuskin back stock lasted for 6 more freaking years once we stopped accumulating it and moved away from Utah. SO crazy!! 🤯

In the afternoon, I went to the dentist and found out I have an abscess at one of my roots. Ugh. It had been feeling kinda weird and puffy and I noticed a purple spot on my gums, so that's what led me to get things checked out. The dentist said I will hopefully just have to get a root canal, unless the tooth ends up being fractured, at which point I'd have to get an implant. Anyway, I got started on some antibiotics to clear up the discomfort and get rid of the infection. Never a dull moment when you've got my set of teeth!! Yaaaay. 🙄

At the dinner table, we had a stellar round 2 of Knock Knock jokes for quite a while. These kids sure know how to crack us up!

Tuesday, May 11th: 

Not much to note, other than the fact that Maeve's friend Sarah came over in the afternoon and they had a fun time playing together. I'm happy that for the most part Rowan still gets included in these little play dates. That will be a sad day when he becomes an annoyance and they don't want him around. Glad he can still tag along for now! 

In other news, I did drop a big bag of frozen strawberries on the kitchen floor and spilled like 50% of the bag. They went allllllll over the place. Luckily, the boys were nice to help me pick them all up, so it wasn't too time consuming. I'm such a klutz. 

Wednesday, May 12th: 

We've made great strides in the potty department with Rowan given that he is much more independent now, but the biggest struggle these days is that he does not always push down his penis sooo half the pee gets on the floor sometimes. At one point during the day, he told me he accidentally got some pee on the floor and I asked him how much pee there was.... maybe not the smartest question for a 3 year old considering his response: "mmmm, like 3 pees" 😂🤔 I guess he thought it was a good long pee! 

Before heading out to run some errands, Rowan and I were talking about how he needed some new sunglasses. He told me he really wanted to get some with cherries on them, because Maeve just got some new ones with cherries on them. I told him that cherries are kinda girly and he said, "Ah ha! I KNOW! Carrots!!!" 😂😂😂 It's basically the only vegetable he eats, so not a surprising suggestion. I told him I wasn't so sure that we could find some with carrots on them, so he said he could also settle for basketballs. 😂 Turns out, Walmart wasn't cool enough to have carrots OR basketballs on their little boy sunglasses. Such a shame. 🤷‍♀️ He had to go with some paw patrol ones instead. 

Our day took a turn for the worse after school when Rowan kept stealing Maeve's lemonade cup so she got frustrated and NAILED him with a ball! A screaming match may or may not have ensued between her and I when she didn't immediately cooperate when I told her to go to her room. 🙈 Not my finest parenting moment, nor her finest moment, and it put me in bad mood for a while. It sure would be nice if life was just a game and there was an escape button you could press when things get too crazy. I would have pressed the escape button for sure in that situation. 😅

Nolan stayed up waaaay too late because he just wouldn't settle at bedtime. He's so cute though, I can't complain having him around after hours. Turns out he's pretty good at watching TV. 😂😉

Thursday, May 13th: 

Nolan is a total mastermind and somehow shimmied out of one of his poopy diapers in the evening before we could even start changing him. 🤢 Yikes. And in other news, Rowan's new thing is to constantly vacuum with me with his pretend vacuum whenever I pull out the real vacuum. It's kinda the cutest. 🥰 

Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse just before bedtime when Nolan gashed his mouth on the corner of Rowan's bed. He got a good gouge in his upper lip and I had to take him to the ER to get some stitches. Maeve was so cute before we left, I could have died. She came over to him to give him a hug and kiss and then said, "Sorry you cut your lip! I love you a lot." *😍🥰 Such a sweet, concerned sister. Poor little dude was pretty upset for a little while after it happened, but did so well waiting at the hospital. We were there for 2 hours and all but 10 minutes of that time was spent waiting. He was being so cute and silly for a good while in the stroller, but eventually wanted to be free and spent the rest of the time just walking around. It reminded me so much of my days with Rowan at the hospital during his ITP craziness because he was just a new little walker during all of that too and we just walked up and down the hallways killing time during a couple of our hospital stays. Luckily, it was just stitches this time around, though a first for us with our kids so far!! Poor little dude was not a happy camper getting it done and it was pretty sad to watch, but he did as well as he could all things considered. It only took a couple stitches so that was nice. He was happy to get outta there! 

Friday, May 14th: 

I had my first zoom appt with my new psych lady to figure out what medication to try to battle this throw up fear. Turns out it's called emetophobia. She was really nice and personable and suggested I try Prozac, but also do some cognitive behavioral therapy. She gave me some recommendations and I still need to get something set up with one of those therapists. At least I'm on the right track now to getting the help I need. I've been taking the Prozac and so far so good. My biggest concern is that I might end up gaining weight, but so far I haven't noticed anything crazy so let's hope it stays that way. 🤞

Other highlights of the day include Maeve getting her first loose tooth (she's growing up! 😭) and also giving Zoey a much needed haircut, so now we're back to a nice short summer cut. I always loooove how soft she feels when her hair is nice and short. Apparently getting stiches is not enough to slow Nolan down either, because he was more that ready to keep toddling around outside with his police car and in fact was SO mad when Rowan was tired of being outside and it was time to go back inside that he threw himself on the ground and got a nice big goose egg on his head. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ Here we go, bring on all the injuries! That little boy could play outside all day long if I let him, I swear. 

Maeve played with Bella in the afternoon at her house and got lucky enough to stay for dinner since her mom decided to order pizza for her girls for dinner and was nice enough to include Maeve. I picked her up in time to go to her curtain call rehearsal at her dance studio. Lots of excitement for this little girl! 

Saturday, May 15th: 

I took Maeve to her dance class  in the morning and then Adam went off roofing. Rowan put me in fantastic mood when he charged at me from behind and knocked me into the cabinet, while I was putting away some tupperware. All fun and games for him, heaven forbid he think about how that might feel for the other person who isn't even EXPECTING it!! 🤬 To make matters worse, after passing some time playing board games, a couple hours later he jumped on me with all his body weight when I was least expecting it and I totally snapped! It was like my defenses kicked in to protect myself and it took everything in me to not just punch him. Whew. I turned into a bit of an emotional mess and poor Maeve and I were supposed to go on a date once Adam got home. I knew I would have a hard time immediately flipping the switch for her so we could have a fun time, so I suggested we wait a little while and eat dinner first so that I could cheer up and we could have the most fun time possible. She was so mature to understand even though she was so excited and the poor, sweet girl made me the most heartfelt card since she knew I was sad. 🥰😭 She really has the biggest heart and gives me so much love when I need it most. I truly love and appreciate her for it! 

Our little date did not disappoint - we had planned to get custard from Culver's, but since that didn't take very long we last minute decided to hop over to Barnes and Noble and read some books together. It was so nice to have some fun one on time with her and I think she really ate it up. The Barnes and Noble parking lot smelled like fries as we were walking back out to the car and she said, "It smells like fries and that makes me hungry for fries..." totally hoping I would offer to go get her fries, the little stink. I told her Culver's was enough of a treat. 😉 Unless you're me, which in that case the kiddie sized cup of custard is not enough, and you end up getting Crumbl cookies in the same night. Yep, I'm fat. But at least I'm happy too. 😂😏 I just had to try the blueberry crumb cake flavor and it did not disappoint! 

Sunday, May 16th: 

It was a momentous day because we started up the second hour of in person church again, so Rowan got to go to Primary for the first time as a sunbeam!! Kinda can't believe he's old enough for Primary - seems like the time didn't really pass because of this weird covid break with all the home church and no nursery. Pretty crazy! He was super nervous the night before, crying that I couldn't leave him alone there and that he would need me with him the whole time. Then when he woke up on Sunday morning, it was like a switch flipped, and he insisted as long as he could hold Maeve's hand and walk into Primary hand in hand and sit next to her the whole time, he wouldn't be nervous. SWEET boy!! That Maeve means everything to him and I couldn't love it more. She was so cute holding his hand and making sure he was okay and ready to go in. I hope they'll always look out for each other! He did great and loved it. 🙌

The kids were begging me after church to play with Zoey, Zia, and John, so we invited the Pylant's over for dinner, but she was so excited for what she was planning on making for dinner that we ended up just going over there instead. She made breakfast for dinner - eggs, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy, and bacon and it was all delish!! We hung out and played some bananagrams and had a good time as always. So nice to have good friends that we're totally comfortable with! 

Well that wraps up the week! Here are pics from the week: 

Cute boy passed out 😍

He's ferocious. Look at that face!! 😳

Just pulling his weight 😂

Child labor at its finest 🤣

He's a mischievous one 😂

His gash! 

He was totally hamming it up in the following shots 👇👇

😂😍

All stitched up and happy to be home! 

Trying to be one of the big kids 😊

Date with Maeve! Had to show off our matching masks. Of course I can just barely pull off a kids a mask 😂🤦‍♀️

Love my girl 😍

Ready for his first day in Primary! He's looking so old to me all the sudden these days! 😭 Such a handsome boy. 

Here's a couple videos from the week too. I could watch Nolan play basketball all day long and he could play it all day long! He is always begging me to put the rim on the chair so he can reach and play. 😍 The video of him walking around with the water cup totally cracks me up! 😂

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZtC581_mZ1I?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/LpiCnhS662U?feature=share

Peace and blessings. ✌️

May 3rd - 9th, 2021: Birthday party planning is not for the faint of heart

Too many posts have started this way lately, but it's because it's true.... I STINK. Not sure why I ever allowed myself to get behind because once you're behind, that little devil on your shoulder says "what's one more night of not writing?" aaaand here I am, so many nights later not having written because I listened to that little devil. 🙈 I'm not even sure how many weeks behind I am, but it's time to be as brief as possible so I can just get caught up!! 

Monday, May 3rd:

While Maeve was at school, I spent most of my downtime doing some birthday/birthday party planning. But then the real party started after school! As kind of a last minute thing, we went over to the Pylant's house for some slip n slide fun. Amanda's sister was still in town, so the 3 of us got to enjoy playing some bananagrams while the kids had a ball with the slip n slide. We were having so much fun that we ended up staying for dinner and it was DELISH! It's not everyday I get to eat salmon and Amanda made us some goooood salmon with baked potatoes perfectly done in the instant pot. Who knew you could make baked potatoes in there!? I didn't until that day! Ya learn something new everyday. While we were in the kitchen working on dinner, I overheard Rowan talking to John (her son that is his age) saying, "I live in America. We live in America." 😂 I didn't even know that he knew that because I feel like I haven't even mentioned the word America before to him. Usually I'm just talking about how we live in Tennessee, but I guess at one point or another I have talked about America and I just don't remember it! 🤷‍♀️ It was too funny and so random. Then I got another laugh on the way home when I was telling the kids that something they should probably start doing now that they're getting older is to say thank you to whoever the cook is if we have dinner over at someone else's house. Maeve's response was, "I think we can do that when we're a little bit older, because we're still kinda too shy. She's (Amanda) still a little new to me..." 😂😏 I suppose she has a point considering when we're over there, all the kids are upstairs usually while us moms are chatting downstairs. So really she does just know her kids and not her so much if we're being honest. I guess I can cut her some slack... 😜

Tuesday, May 4th: 

I wrote nothing down for this day so that must mean that it was just a same old, same old kinda day with school and youth activities and yada yada. 

Wednesday, May 5th: 

We spent a good few hours out running lots of errands hopping around to get allllll the birthday party stuff we needed. I kid you not, planning a friend party for your one of your kid's birthdays is not for the faint of heart! I don't even feel like we planned that elaborate of a party, yet somehow so much of my time and energy was sucked away this particular week planning it all out and buying everything we needed and of course the cake making and set up, etc. Whew! We'll see how many friend birthday parties I end up doing over the years, because I certainly won't be up for them every year unless they're super low key. 😅 Anyway, of course the errands were made extra fun when Rowan pooped his pants in Walmart. That was a fun clean up and Maeve was left outside of the bathroom to "watch" Nolan because heaven knows it would not have worked well to have him in there with me toddling around probably getting poop on his hands! We all know you can't keep baby hands away from anything, no matter how disgusting it is. I wasn't really thrilled at the idea of them being out of my sight, but I felt like I kinda had no other good option. Luckily they were both alive and well still when we came out of the bathroom. 🙏😅

Unfortunately that wasn't the first poop fiasco of the day, because I should rewind and also mention that before I went to hop in the shower with Rowan (he's kind of obsessed with showering with me or Adam any chance he gets now 😂🤦‍♀️), Nolan started getting fussy in the playroom. I had this thought that I better check and make sure he was fine before getting in the shower and it's a freaking good thing I did, because lo and behold I found him with his diaper off and to make matters worse, the diaper had poop in it! Sooo there was he was with an exposed poopy bum, but by some miracle not much had gotten on the floor. 🙌 That boy clearly cannot be trusted anymore with just a diaper on his bottom and no pants or shorts over top.... 🤦‍♀️

I got a text from my Aunt Deb while we were out and about saying that she was in the area. So once we got home we were delighted with a brief stop in from her. She was so sweet to drop off a little surprise birthday gift for Maeve - some candy and a McDonald's gift card - which of course Maeve was giddy over. It was even sweeter that she also gave me some pretty flowers as an early Mother's Day gift! She knows how to spoil us!! The kids just love her and it was SO cute to see Nolan reaching for her a few times and walking over to her for a hug! And then Rowan was putting on a little show for her jumping around like an excited little maniac. 😂Pretty sure she was just eating it all up that they loved seeing her! So fun that we live close enough to each other that they can have a relationship with her too. 🥰

And for my laugh of the day: not even sure what the problem was, but in the evening Maeve said, "it's a girl problem!" to Adam, signifying that she wanted me instead and then a few minutes later, Rowan was also having an issue with something and said quite confidently, "it's a girl problem!" 😂🤔 Leave it to him to always copy his sis, whether it makes sense or not. 😏

Thursday, May 6th: 

Somehow after spending hours out the day before, we still managed to need to go out to almost all the same stores AGAIN to either return stuff, or keep looking for other things... I don't even know, but I'm just glad that on the second go around we ended up with everything we needed. 🙌 Hallelujah. I'm just proud of the boys for doing so well with all our running around so many stores. It was a lot and they were little troopers and had fun looking at all the birthday party stuff! Rowan had me laughing big time when we were in the pick up line after school and he saw the no phone sign in the grass and thought it meant you aren't allowed to be on the phone while in that grassy area. 😂😂 He said, "It's probably because you might drop them and lose them in the grass..." Can't blame him for his logic on that one! It also doesn't help that he sees me on my phone all the time anyway while waiting in that line, so why would he think it's a rule for me to not be on my phone...!? 😅 Oops. I might be discreet, but I am guilty. I'm obviously not the only parent doing it though, considering they put those signs out halfway through the year. Sadly it probably has not changed a thing....

Thursday night I got my first stab at making one of those balloon arches that always look awesome! I had no idea that you make those with a kit, which does mean it's less complicated than you might think, however it's not totally fool proof! I got through stringing on half of the balloons before Adam pointed out that it was looking wonky and that's what I realized it does indeed matter that all balloons go on facing the same direction. 🤦‍♀️😩😭 Soooo long story short, I had to start over and it took me waaay too long to get that thing done and then even longer to get it hung up right on the wall. It took way too much tape and finagling that Adam and I both swore to never make one of those again. 😅 Of course we also wrapped all her presents too, so she could feel the magic of her birthday first thing in the morning. It was kind of a late night... no rest for the weary! 

Friday, May 7th: 

Hard to believe Maeve woke up a SIX year old!! I must say, even though it takes a lot of work to put on all the fun for birthdays, Maeve is one of those kids that makes you really feel like it's worth it!! She was smiling ear to ear and so stunned to see how awesome the rainbow balloon arch looked all put together. She was also super excited that on her birthday it happened to be a dress up day for school and she got to be a little 80s chick for the day! So much fun. Also sent her off with the packaged rice krispy treats that are birthday themed and she said that all the kids in her class said they were soooo good and that she should bring those every year. 😂 While she was at school, I had a hay day at home making her Zombies themed cupcakes and a couple batches of homemade frosting to use for those and her rainbow cake. I made the first batch and it didn't taste good AT ALL and it was quite the fiasco to try and overcome the extra sugaryness and keep it the right consistency. It wasn't thick enough by the time I fixed the flavor, but luckily I made a better second batch and decided to just mix the 2 in the end and that worked out well. It certainly looked like a bomb went off in my kitchen for a while, but Rowan had a fun time helping me along the way! 

Maeve's birthday request was to leave school early, so I picked her up an hour early and was shocked to see cars already lined up at 1:30pm. 😳 Who has time to sit there for an hour!?!? Good Gandhi. We had to go inside to get her and I got to watch her little legs walking as fast as they possibly could down the hallway to get to us and it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. 😂😍 Her fast walk when she gets excited is just the best! When we got home, Maeve and Rowan were both excited to help put all the Zombies 2 cupcake toppers on top of the cupcakes. Then of course part of the festivities was watching Zombies 2 with popcorn. It was certainly a day devoted to Zombies 2! After Adam got home from work, we headed to Culver's for dinner and then had cupcakes and opened presents back at home. She was so pleased with everything and was being super cute saying thank you after opening each of the presents that were from us. We got her a cool pink snake flashlight and a glow in the dark fort building kit and then Rowan got her a pink light up monster truck. 😂 Cute girl was excited to open and see it, but truth be told it is getting played with more by Rowan and Nolan since then. 😏 She got a bunch of doll clothes and accessories from Gram and Gramps and a couple activity books from Grandma and Grandpa. She also loved that she could read all of her birthday cards mostly by herself! Little girl is growing up. I feel like it's been a big jump from 5 to 6 - she just looks so much older, skinnier, and is so much more mature! It kinda kills me that my little girl is starting to slip away. She's not seeming so little anymore! 😭

We actually had to rush to her dance studio after cupcakes and presents because she had a curtain call rehearsal for her recital from 7 to 8pm. I actually didn't know that until like 5pm, but luckily it worked out and we had just enough time to do all the celebrating! She had fun getting to dance for the last hour of her birthday before coming home and getting ready for bed. Lucky me, I spent the rest of the night making all the rainbow cake layers for the rainbow cake for her birthday party the next day! All I wanted to do was sit on the couch and finally relax, but I had to grit my teeth through the final party prep. Rainbow cakes are also no joke to make!! I almost thought it was going to be a failure in the end, but somehow it all worked out and turned out great, thank heavens!! The lady who posted the recipe I used suggested freezing layers of frosting to make the cake assembly easier. So I had them in the freezer, BUT then I found out from a friend who is majorly talented with cake making that that was a weird recommendation so I scratched it, but in the end I wish I had stuck with it just because I had already layered them up to freeze like that. It kinda made extra work for me in the end to get all the frosting off the parchment rounds I cut... 🙄🤦‍♀️ At least I gained some knowledge in the process and know what to do better next time! 

Saturday, May 8th: 

It was an early, hectic morning to get all the final party preparations done before the party started at noon. And of course it didn't help that we had Maeve's dance class thrown in the middle of that at 9:30am. It was kinda hard to just sit still waiting for her class to be over just thinking about what was left to be done once we got home. But it all worked out and we got the rainbow fruit skewers made and the rainbow cake finished and then Adam left to go grab the pizza once the girls started showing up. 

It was a cute, fun little party and so cute to see the enthusiasm and excitement from a handful of giddy like 5 and 6 year olds. I was totally cracking up because the first activity that the girls did as they came in was to guess how many skittles were in a jar that I had on the entry way table and whoever guessed closest got some unicorn tattoos. There were 152 in there and one girl guessed 30 something 😂 and then legit the other 3 ALL guessed 100 - which is funny because none of them knew what each other had guessed, since they wrote their numbers down. 😳 Like what are the odds? SO I had them guess again to see who would get closest the second time around and I did let them know there were more than 100. Then, no joke, they ALL guessed 200 (again without knowing what each other was guessing).... 😂😂 It was killing me! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they were stuck on whole numbers like that as 5 and 6 year olds. The third time was a charm when I told them that all 3 digits they wrote down needed to be different, and that did the trick! They were all so giddy with excitement when I told them we were gonna have skittle soda with their pizza and fruit skewers. Thank you pinterest! Cutest little idea I found to put some skittles in the bottom of a cup of sprite so that the sprite would turn that color. They totally loved it! After eating, they all made rainbow bracelets with their names on them, painted some cute little wooden boxes that had a rainbow on them that they got to take home, did a marshmallow toss game with rainbow marshmallows, and then of course we had a rainbow pinata! The girls seemed to enjoy all the activities and one of them even said while making her bracelet, "I am just having the best time right now!" 🥰 So stinking adorable. Unfortunately, right after that when I went to tie her finished bracelet onto her wrist I accidentally let go of it when trying to tie the knot and all the beads went everywhere. 😳🤦‍♀️ Luckily, she rolled with it and remade it and did not make me feel terrible by following it up with "...and now I'm having the worst time ever" 😅Phew, dodged that bullet. Ironically, when I was pouring some paint onto a plate for this SAME girl, I somehow knocked over one of the other little jars of paint and spilled some paint on her box. 🙈🙈🙈Poor girl probably thought I was out to get her!! Some seriously great luck on my part though, like what in the world!? It was one of those "is this real life?" moments for sure. 😂 It would have been helpful if my second mistake could have at least impacted a different girl, but nope. She took it all like a champ and I give her major kudos. Luckily, I also had an extra rainbow box so I at least redeemed myself there and she didn't have to take home a ruined box. ANYWAY, after all those activities, Maeve opened presents and then they finished off with cake before getting picked up. She got some fun little presents, her favorite of which was a few more LOL dolls to add to her LOL doll collection that I swear she barely even plays with, but somehow is still in love with them. 🤔 Doesn't compute for me, but whatevs. She also got a wearable unicorn blanket and thought that was pretty legit. We quickly learned that you can give some pretty dang cozy hugs wearing that thing. Nothing like being enveloped in a blanket while being hugged! All in all, it was a major success and an hour after the party ended Maeve told me she wished she could have another party starting right then. 😂 If only life could just be a non stop party! It was music to my ears though considering all the work it took to put it on! #worthit I must say that I was quite happy to veg the rest of the day and have all that weight off my shoulders!

Sunday, May 9th:

It was pretty awesome to have a complete shift and be the one celebrated and pampered following such a busy couple of days for me, with it being Mother's Day! A big party weekend at our house for sure!! Maeve had some cute school gifts to show me and I about died laughing when she gave me a fill in the blank Mother's Day note. She wrote that I was 12 inches tall and weighed 11 pounds. 😂😂😂 I'm just a fat, squatty newborn I guess. 🤷‍♀️ She also wrote that I don't like to clean, which made me laugh because I basically clean all the time and I don't operate super well without a clean house. Turns out, she said that because her teacher asked her what I don't like and she "had to pick something!" that I don't like. I'm just glad it wasn't easy for her to think of things I don't like - guess that means I'm a pretty happy person. 😏 She also gave me a little plant and a cute little picture of herself on a little tile with some ribbon on it to hang it up somewhere. Too cute! Maeve helped Rowan make a cute little card for me too, so that was adorable. Adam made me some crepes filled with nutella and strawberries for breakfast that were delish - our new Mother's Day tradition - and then he also made some chicken and cheese stuffed breadsticks for dinner - another new tradition cause they're that good!! Yum. Adam also got Maeve and I a matching necklace set - they're both dainty gold short necklaces (just longer than a choker) with little circles on them. Mine has a full dandelion on it blowing in the wind, while Maeve's has just a piece of one on it like a piece of mine went to hers. Super cute mother daughter set! He did a good job. 👏 He even altered them both to be shorter, because they weren't quite as short as I was hoping. It was awesome to end up with it being the perfect length! 🙌

It was a nice low key day spent with my people at home. We skipped church cause Maeve wasn't feeling great in the morning - she was fine, but was seriously so mellow and lazy ALL day. Apparently all the birthday festivities just wore her out! I call it the post birthday hangover. 😂 It didn't help that she didn't get enough sleep Thursday or Friday night because she was just soooo excited for everything. I think she only came alive once during all of Sunday when we randomly got going on some Knock Knock jokes. I kid you not that her and Rowan were spitting out the most random, not even for real knock knock jokes for like an hour straight. They thought they were soooo funny, which was pretty hilarious because most of them didn't make sense at all. Adam and I were laughing pretty hard at times. The best might have been when Rowan did the Banana one where you say that one repeat and then he finally ended it with "Orange you glad I didn't say orange!" 😂😂🤔 Too funny. They also loved throwing out "Knock knock. Who's there? Door. Door Who? Dora the Explora!" 😂

Other than that, the only other major excitement was pulling out Maeve's new fort building kit and making a legit fort in the living room. Her and Rowan had fun with it, but we quickly learned that Nolan should never be allowed near a fort and all future forts must be made when he is not present. 🤦‍♀️ That kid simply destroys anything and everything in his path, he might as well have Destroyer as his middle name. 😂 Trouble! 

Wellllll, that about does it!! A busy fun week for sure. And now for lots of pics!!

Rowan's face! 😳🙈 He's crazy!! 

Nolan surprisingly loves this game 😂

Trouble!! 

Walmart shenanigans. These boys are too much sometimes!! 😂😍 They were being pretty silly and it was cracking me up. Poor Nolan basically gets put in headlocks and still laughs. 😂

😍

Braided her hair before bed so it would be crimped for 80s day! 

700 hours and swear words later... 😂

Used the cupcake toppers to make the presents look more clearly zombie themed too! Nailed it. 

My 80s birthday girl! 

Opening presents! She picked out an LOL doll from Gram and of course that was her favorite gift 😂🤦‍♀️

Her haul 🙌

She's so pretty! Love that pretty little face. 

These turned out pretty great! 

Slaved over this thing and I was pretty pleased with the end result! 

The set up! 👆👇

Leave it to Ivy to wail on this thing and have enough strength to break it open! 😂 She did eat 3 pieces of pizza, so she's clearly no joke! 

With her party presents! 

From left to right: Bella, Ivy, Maeve, Sarah, and Amira. Sarah and Amira are from her Kindergarten class. She invited a couple other school friends that couldn't make it unfortunately. 

Look at that inside!! 😍

I put these on him 57748374 times 😂

Love that she fell asleep like this with her unicorn blanket 😂😍

Her cute drawing on her gift bag that she gave me from school! 

How's that for fancy?? 😍👌

He literally stole my whole dinner off my plate. Happy Mother's Day to me! 😂 Such a scoundrel. Thank goodness he's cute! 😍

Peace and blessings. ✌️