Birthday Party!

Yesterday was Jacob's 1st Birthday and we were excited to get to celebrate on his actual birthday. We had a little party and invited a couple neighbors, special friends and our family. We were super excited that my BFF and my brother were in town to celebrate with us! We planned to cook out and figured that the kids could just play on the swing set and run around in the yard. The weather was looking a little iffy in the morning but thankfully by noon the sun started to come out and it turned out to be a beautiful afternoon!

I made Jacob his own little cake and I made a cupcake cake in the shape of a 1 for the kids and other party guests. Paul did a great job grilling for us and Auntie Erin made the best baked beans. Jacob wasn't quite sure what to think of the cake. He ate a little bit of it - more frosting than anything I think! He certainly enjoyed playing in it! He had frosting everywhere..and I mean everywhere - his hair, his nose, his ears! Messy...but oh. so. cute!!! I know my kids had a great time and I hope others did too! Here are a few pics:

Happy Birthday Jacob!

I can not believe my little baby boy is one! Seriously..he's one! The past year went so, so fast. Now it didn't really feel like that when he wasn't sleeping through the night. But, overall the year flew by. It's amazing how much they change and grow the first year. Just amazing. We feel so blessed to have this precious, smiley baby boy in our family. So blessed.

It's been a really fun birthday weekend. My bff, Erin, came Friday. We got to have a girls night out on Friday at Scrapmania. Saturday we did the Ovarian Cancer Awareness Walk. Saturday afternoon was a girls shopping trip and last night Gagi babysat so we could have an adult evening. Today we went to church and then prepared for Jacob's birthday party. More on that tomorrow. The weather turned out awesome and we had a great time!

Relaxing

Setting: The other day...kids are playing in the yard. I'm sitting on the porch playing with Jacob. Emma runs into the porch...

Emma: "I'm so tired, I just need to take a minute and relax"

Then she sits on the loveseat and does this:

Where do they get this stuff from?

Family Movie Night

Every few weeks we try to do a family movie night. We pick out a movie just for the kids and usually have a array of appetizers and snacks for dinner that we get to eat in the family room (!). It's big fun. Saturday night we had our most recent movie night. We watched the Jonas Brothers Concert Experience. The girls really got into it. They love music and they love to dance. So they got out the Rock Band and Guitar Hero guitars and started jamming away. Too cute. Here are some pictures of their jam session to the Jo Bros concert.

VMA's

I channeled my inner teenager last night and decided to watch the VMA's on MTV. It was the promised Michael Jackson tribute that got me and the fact that the VMA's never disappoint on drama. Of course last night was no exception. I figured I wouldn't know any of the music since the only music I usually hear is Radio Disney but I was pleasantly surprised. I actually knew most of the artists and most of the songs! Made me feel young I tell you.

The MJ tribute was pretty cool though I'd have liked to have seen Justin Timberlake or other famous people dancing instead of random people in the beginning. (Of course, I'd always rather be watching JT) I thought it was really cool when Janet came out and danced with the Michael video in the background. She can still move - it was impressive.

Then came the first award - I think it was Female Video of the Year. By the way..there actually weren't that many awards handed out and it seemed like the same videos were nominated in lots of categories. Honestly I didn't know many artists still made videos since you, know MTV and VH1 don't really show videos anymore. Because, you know, music television is all about college age kids drinking too much and trying to win money doing cheesy reality shows. And of course with the first award came some drama with Kanye West jumping up on stage and stealing poor little Taylor Swift's thunder. Bless her heart. I wish Kanye would have kept his promise not to come back to the VMA's since he never wins. What a jerk. Anyway that cutie Taylor Swift went on to give a great performance and in the end she got her moment.

I would normally have stopped watching after that but MTV kept sucking in saying things like "Beyonce in 5 min"..."Who will win video of the year in 17 min" ..."New Moon trailer in 7 min." Darn MTV. Beyonce totally rocked her performance of Single Ladies. She can dance. Well. It was very impressive. And..she's a total class act. When she gave her moment away to Taylor Swift after winning Video of the Year I thought that was so cool and kind.

I think my favorite part of the VMA's could have been the New Moon extended trailer. I can not wait until Nov. 20th when New Moon opens. It looks so, so good. Full of action and romance and Edward and werewolves. Fun times to look forward to. So thank you MTV.

Late Summer Reading List

I've been reading a ton lately. I love to read but don't always have the time (imagine that) to read. But lately I've been making the time 'cause I've found some great books. So..I thought I'd share...lucky you....

Southern Vampire Mystery Series - This is the Vampire series by Charlaine Harris on which the HBO series, True Blood, is based. I think the first one is "Dead Until Dark". They are fun, quick reads about a telepathic waitress, Sookie Stackhouse and her interesting encounters. The first time I picked up the book I couldn't get into it but my bff insisted they were good. She got me watching the HBO series so then I felt like I had to read the books. And the second time around I really got into them. I will warn you these vampires are nothing like the Cullens but they are a fun read and I think the books are getting better as the series progresses. I just finished the 4th book.

"Ties that Bind" by Brenda Jackson - This was my book club pick for book club. It looked good when I selected it but I didn't realize it was pretty racy. So warning..there is a lot and I mean, a lot, of sex in this book. So..if you don't mind a little soft core porn read it. It's a good summer read - meaning it's light and you don't have to use too much brain power to digest it. It has a good story with some compelling characters. I am looking forward to discussing this one!

"Hedge Fund Wives" by Tatiana Boncompagni - Jen Lancaster had this on her summer reading list and since I have a mad girl crush on Jen Lancaster I put it on mine. It didn't disappoint. Another fun, light read - which is pretty much all I read unless book club has chosen something else - and entertaining.

"The Memory Keepers Daughter" by Kim Edwards - This was our August book club selection - I know it's been around a while but I hadn't read it. I'm glad it was our book club pick because I don't know that I would have read it but, I really, really liked it. It was sad in parts but a good, compelling story.

"Best Friends Forever" by Jennifer Weiner - I love this author and try to read everything she puts out. This was a good story about two childhood friends who reunite. I don't want to give anything away so I'll leave it at that.

"The Beach House" by Jane Green - Another author that I really like. I admit I wasn't sure about this book. Even halfway into it I wasn't sure I wanted to finish it. But since I don't typically not finish books I kept reading. And I was glad I did. I really liked the twist at the end.

Now I'm compiling my fall reading list which will definitely include finishing up the Sookie Stackhouse books. How about you? What are you reading?

Great News - Times 2

Saturday morning my brother called and asked us to gather up the family - he had some news to share. His girlfriend got on the phone too and they revealed they are engaged! We are so, so excited for them!! He's been dating Ginnie for a while now so we've been wondering if/when it was going to happen and it did. They haven't set a date yet but did say it would be sometime next year. They will either get married in "the City" (that would be New York City for those of us who don't live there) or "some exotic location." They already said they hoped that the Potter girls would be flower girls and Emma could hardly contain her excitement. I guess we'll see how that plays out as they plan their wedding.

Then...on the way to Ikea that very same my adorable cousin Emily called to tell me she and her boyfriend got engaged on Friday!! She was so, so cute telling us all about her proposal..which involved a Scrabble game - how fun is that! They don't have a date yet as they said they just wanted to enjoy the weekend and then start talking about it. We are thrilled for them too! So much excitement! I just still can't believe they both called us on the same day to announce their engagements!

We haven't had a family wedding since Paul & I got married nearly 10 years ago and now we have 2 coming up! I'm just going to go ahead and call 2010 the "year of weddings" for us! Yay!

Julia's First Day of Preschool

Today was Julia's first day of preschool! It's hard to believe that she's old enough for school! My baby girl is growing up! She's in the 2 1/2 year old class so she'll go two days/week for 3 hours. It's the same preschool the other girls went to and we love it there. She felt very comfortable this morning and seemed to have had a great day! No tears for anyone!

Two Wheelin' & Summer Fun

Emma casually mentioned that she wanted to learn to ride her bike without training wheels back in July. We put her off a few weeks with the move and all but now that we're settled I decided it was time. I had hoped Paul would take on this task but he never got around to it so one day I grabbed the wrench and off came the training wheels. Lily had decided she wanted to learn too and so she decided to go first. She screamed for the entire minute and a half she was on the bike so I made her get off. She can try again when she's feeling braver. So it was Emma's turn and though she wasn't entirely comfortable she did well. We went out the next night and she tried again and this time she actually rode some on her own. That was about 2 weeks ago and though she's no expert she's doing great. She has some trouble steering and using the brakes -she'd much prefer just to run into the grass, anyone's grass that is. So..we're working on those things. The other night she and Paul took a bike ride together..so cute! Here are some pictures of the bike ride and some random pictures of the other kids playing on the swingset.

Ikea is NOT the New Black

We had plans to hang out with our good friends the Dickey's today and Frances had a fabulous idea that we should load up the families (there would be 4 adults and 7 kids between us) and take a road trip to Ikea. I was all about it since I have been dying to go to Ikea since I heard it was open. Dying I tell you...in fact I've mentioned to Paul about 10 times that I was sure we'd find our playroom storage solutions at Ikea if we'd only go. He was a little less excited than me and I think her husband was even less excited than Paul but whatever..they agreed to go. So, we packed some snacks and loaded up the kids and off we went. The trip down was uneventful and we got to Ikea with only one potty stop. Excellent. We grab some carts, check out the childcare area and planned our attack. Since we could only leave the kids for an hour (we later (much later) found out you can leave them in more than once as long as there is 30 min between hours) we decided we'd keep them all with us until we couldn't stand it any longer. The older 4 kids could go into the area, leaving the little (but loudest) three. Not bad.

Ikea was just as I remembered it - big, lots of people and oh so many things that I just have to have. We headed upstairs to the showroom and began to look around. The main things on my list were storage solutions for the playroom and a computer desk. Right away I found some bookcases I liked but kept looking. We made our rounds upstairs and managed not to lose any kids (a big win) and actually found a storage system that would accommodate our needs in the playroom. Score one for Ikea! And it was reasonable priced! Score two for Ikea! We proceeded downstairs dropped the big kids off and set out for the Marketplace. Oh, the Ikea marketplace..so full of junk you don't need but is so cheap that you feel like you do need it. I was looking for some storage baskets for said storage unit so I hunted. And hunted. And couldn't find. Then we went to the self service area to check out our storage units. And they were out of stock on two of the shelves we needed. What?? Our time was up so we had to grab the kiddos and since kids eat free this weekend (!) we decided to eat before picking up the big stuff. After dinner and depositing the big kids back in the child care area we head over to get the big boxes. We find out the storage boxes are out of stock and "have been for a while now" and that the 2 shelves are also out of stock and will arrive in 8 weeks. Great. Just great. So much for getting the playroom organized this weekend. We decide to go ahead and get the big shelving unit that is conveniently packaged in 3 boxes. We grab them, check out and go to load up the truck (did I mention Steven has a truck - yay!) As Paul is loading in the boxes he notices one is damaged. This is not good. We have 10 min to get new boxes and get the kids. Paul takes all the boxes back in and of course they have no more on the shelf and "even if we had some up high, we don't get them down until 9pm..you can come back tomorrow to get one" is what we were told. What? Even if you had it you wouldn't get it down for us? Apparently that's how they roll at Ikea.

I'm so, so bummed. I loved this storage collection and to order it online would cost me $160.00 in shipping. Yes, $160!! I get that they are going to be out of stock on some things but they should put something on the displays in the showroom if they are going to be out of something for 8 weeks! Anyway..now I'm so over Ikea and I don't know if I'll be going back in 8 weeks to get my shelving system..maybe I'll find something better. So there Ikea.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Last night we took the kids (& Gagi) to a Durham Bulls baseball game for some old fashion family fun. One of the local chapters of my mom's nonprofit was getting some of the ticket proceeds so she suggested we go. I have been thinking all summer it would be a fun family outing so I was definitely in when she suggested it. The weather couldn not have been more perfect. We even got to wear hoodies when the sun went down! It happened to be Carolina night at the game so the girls were thrilled when the UNC Dance team and Cheerleaders performed between innings. We didn't eat beforehand because, you know, you have to have hotdogs at baseball games, right? Except that the kids just wanted pizza so we ate that. And snow cones. Whatever. We sat in the outfield (seats 2 for 1!) but we were pretty close to the field. And close to the playground. Which was a hit - especially for Julia.

The girls had a great time. They didn't really get what was happening on the field but they did like the atmosphere. There were a lot of people to watch and music and cheerleaders and all that. Jacob, on the other hand, not so fun. We talked about one of us staying home with him and we really should have done that. He is at a super difficult age to take to events like that. He is so busy and won't sit still at all. Plus it was close to bedtime. Thankfully we could take strollers in but it was still a tad difficult to take him. Next summer I'm sure he'll be better and we'll definitely go again. It really is great family fun! Pics to follow....

Oh and I learned that if you don't have tickets just hang out by the ticket booth. We had no less than 3 people either offer us free tickets or discounted tickets!