She's a little firecracker

A little over a week ago, our little miss Lex turned 3!

She's a bit of a firecracker that one. Alot spunky, alot stubborn, and alot cute. Thank heavens for that cute part, I don't know that I could handle her otherwise. So, we decided to do a firecracker themed birthday party.

It was very colorful, very bright and lots of fun...except for the whole fireworks party without fireworks. There's a ban here in houston this year due to the drought. How great is that timing?

I think we had tons of fun despite of that little fact.

There were cupcakes with curly Q toppers, lollipops, and lots and lots of candy.

There are lots and lots of party pictures ahead.

I got to use my homemade cupcake stands again, love those things!

The whole set-up minus the cake. It was a little warm out and I didn't want the frosting to melt too much.

There it is, a very tall, white cake, kinda stands out amongst all that color.

The kids were all in heaven and loved grabbing some treats. Lexie especially loved the dessert buffet, talk about heaven for her!

She was in and out of the pool all night and always had candy in hand.

Thank heavens for inlaws with a large pool.

I put a little banner up behind the pool too.

The kids all had so much fun, I love watching these kids grow up. Kinda bittersweet.

My little sisters water broke at 32 weeks, and my mom flew out to help. The baby was actually born the day of the birthday party, talk about a full day for grandma! Since the new mom and dad were at the hospital, my mom was able to bring the new big sister with her too.

Lexie and her wonderful daddy who, although he doesn't necessarily encourage me to go all out like I do, at least he doesn't try to stop me!:)

I just thought this picture was cute with the water splashing as they high-fived.

Lexie had some of her best buddies there, these are such cute girlies, love them all!

Izzy, Lexie and Brookie

My sister-in-law and her baby adelyn, such a sweet little girl!

We loved getting to have the Kirkhams at one last party before they moved to Chicago, the girls are going to miss their little friends!

Little miss LaNea, another niece who, I have to keep reminding myself, is younger than she looks! I always think of her as being Lexies age, when in fact she's closer to JJ's.

The only fireworks of the night were on Lexies cake. I had planned on having an evening swim party followed by fireworks once it got dark. Due to the ban, that didn't happen, but we had to have a little somethin'!

Make a Wish!

Underneath that plain white frosting were six layers of super fun color! I love colorful cakes!

We had such a fun night, and loved celebrating our little lexie with so many of our friends and family. I don't know what we'd do without this sweet munchkin in our lives. She sure does keep things interesting!

Our big ol' baby boy

JJ's a big boy, and a pretty sturdy boy too. He's crawling everywhere, (always on his left knee and right foot, so dang cute!), he's cruising on the furniture, climbing up the stairs, and standing on his own quite well.

He is pretty super mobile, unless he needs to roll over from his back to his tummy. For some reason that little manuever has never caught hold.

This makes bedtime pretty dang simple. I lay him in the crib on his back and the poor little man can't move. Nice for me though!:)

The funny thing is, when he gets upset, and he's sitting down, he tends to throw himself backwards...so he's laying on his back, and he gets even more upset cause he's stuck. He doesn't throw himself hard or anything, but he has smacked his head on the furniture.

Someday he'll get the hang of it, and I'll have to teach him how to lay back down and go to sleep. The girls won't have to keep helping him sit up when he falls over...they'll like that.

But for now, I think it's kinda funny that he just won't do it. It's not that he can't, as you can see by the picture below, it's just that when he has done it, it's usually been on accident then he can't figure out how to do it again!

Oh wait, right back to where he was. Thank goodness he had those little trees in his hands, there's no way he would have stayed there that long without screaming if he didn't!

He's so big, but still very much my little baby...I don't really want it to end!

9 super groovy years

9 years ago yesterday, I'm a little behind, I got to marry the man of my dreams.

I mean really, who wouldn't wanna marry a guy that looks like this?

These pictures are actually from a disco party we went to for a friend of ours, and they're the most recent pictures we have together.

We have had our difficulties, and each child we've had has had their own scares, and joys, and personalitites that they've added to our little family. But in the midst of it all I can honestly say that we have had so  much fun!

I love that my man knows how to play, and loves to play and have fun both with me, and with his kids. Hopefully I can always keep up with him...he kinda has boundless energy.

But on top of all that, Kevin is super disciplined when he needs to be, and always amazes me with how well he stays on top of everything that he has to do. He's got a pretty full plate between, work, real estate, being the YM president, and having me for a wife.:) But somehow he manages to get almost everything done when it needs to be done. I say almost, because there are times when things naturally have to slide, but man, he really does amaze me, and I don't tell him that enough.

Hopefully we'll still be playing and having fun together, and also working hard for our family for a very long time to come. I am so incredibly blessed that I not only found, but married the perfect guy for me.

Lemonade & Sunshine

What better way to kick off summer than to have a pool party the day after school gets out?

You invite all your besties, take over your inlaws big ol' pool,

and spend WAY too much time making it all look cute...cause 1st and 2nd graders and their little siblings totally care about all that stuff, right?:)

I'd wanted to do a lemonade party for awhile, cause that's what I do, and this was the perfect opportunity!

It was SUPER fun to come up with tons of yummy lemon-y treats. Allie helped me find a few new recipes too. Luckily, since these were all recipes I hadn't tried before, everything turned out delicious!

There were boxed for the kids to take home with some treats inside. Most of them ended up soaking wet by the pool though, the kids just needed that treat NOW!:)

Everything was pink and yellow, and the lemon sugar cookies were so very yummy, like a lemon snickerdoodle, I should make those again soon I think.

There were lemon cupcakes (the small ones), and pink lemonade cupcakes, (the big ones). The pink lemonade cupcakes were so incredibly good! The recipe can be found here, and I give it 5 stars! In fact, I'm using the same recipe, minus the pink lemonade, for Lexie's birthday party this weekend.

There were super cute mason jar cups for all the moms

and cute personalized plastic cups for all the kids.

And when you have a lemonade party, you musn't forget the lemonade.

or the pink lemonade.

We had about 21 kids there that day, and all these little fish were in heaven!

I mean, what's better than jumping into the pool with all your buddies?

suprisingly, no one was hurt that day...at least not seriously.:)

JJ had his buddy Lauren there to keep him company.

and Blake somehow found time to meditate among the madness. Apparently Halli, Maddie and him were doing it earlier and I missed it, but saw him doing this alone on top of the wall and thought it was hilarious!

JJ pretending he's a big boy, thank goodness for Lauren!

These four waterbugs are the floatie crew. Doesn't Mr. Cole look so excited to be grouped with all the girls. Well, he's probably used to that by now considering he has three older sisters. Someday Cole and JJ will have lots to talk about.

We had SOO much fun, and I am so incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and women in my life. They are all such wonderful examples to me in so many ways, and they all have awesome kids. I mean, when can you get 21 kids together and have them all get along?

Summer is off to a good start, and with all the kids birthdays coming up soon, I'm just starting party mode at my house, so this was good practice!