will turned 7 this month. after the blast we had at our little mud party earlier this summer, he decided to carry the theme over for his birthday. see invites here we had so. much. fun. it was seriously the best time ever. there's just something about seeing kids splashing, and rolling in mud that makes you feel all is well in the world. anyway, i've had several people ask me, what one exactly does at a mud party in the city so i thought i'd give you a little picture outline. :) enjoy the mess!
our mud pit isn't extremely large. half of this area in our yard grows our squash and pumpkins, so handyandy just laid a huge beam in front of the veggies to create a boundary line. then he dug a couple pits on either side and filled them up with water, to get the mud a cookin.
we told the boys to wear old clothes so they could get as dirty as they wished. they built reservoirs, canals, floods and then when it was almost time to hose off, the bucket dumping began. it was the best part for sure.
Happy 7th Birthday! we love you will!!
then we ate pizza, had dirt dessert and then let the boys have a clean water fight with water balloons and sprinklers until their parents came. super easy, lots of fun.
and a great big shout out goes to handy andy for embracing and loving such a crazy messy party even though the neat and tidy OCD part of his personality was freaking out a little bit. good work, babe! you made the day super fun!
today is the MUD PARTY! thought you might like to see the invite Will and i made last week.
will artistically smeared the invites with mud. awesome effect, i'd say.
we're all pretty excited around here. even my {slightly OCD} handy andy is letting go of inhibitions and embracing the mess. i'll post pictures soon. :)
have a happy friday!
7 years ago i got the best birthday present ever- a little baby boy! And it was a gift that keeps giving- this year i asked for a 7 year old with blonde hair, who loves ninjas, climbs trees and plays with legos....and i got it!
Love this little guy so much and we're both super excited for "our" mud party next weekend.
one of our favorite little buddies turned 3 this week and we had the privilege of going to his adorable race car themed party- complete with sugar cookie race cars and tracks and absolutely fabulous chocolate cake.
for his gift i embellished this little cotton hoodie from target. really easy, not super fancy but still fun.
just felt and buttons. oh, and handy andy would be bummed if i didn't acknowledge that it was his idea to make the track continue through both pockets. {you're so crafty handy andy}
put in some hot wheel cars and we were good to go. ;)
speaking of embellishing hoodies, i just sawthese adorable ones sold on etsy. her shop is super cute. happy monday everyone!
the thought came to me spontaneously as i was writing out our summer list this year. i wasn't really sure how, when or where we would do this, or if i reeeeally wanted the mess, but it just felt like the right thing to do so i wrote it up there anyway. :)
and then one afternoon it just happened. out came the hose and puddles formed, sticks started mixing the gooey goodness, toes got splashed and i realized that today was the day! off came shirts and madeline's fancy dress and in they went.
squishing fingers and toes in the fabulous mud...
smiling and splashing...
building canals, dams, bridges and pools...
throwing out inhibitions...
and looking more and more like amazonian natives...
then ben woke up from his nap!
oh joy! oh bliss! he could hardly contain himself! his little baby dreams were coming true!
it was a great, great day! we recommend everyone having a mud party of their own...in fact there's talk over here about a birthday mud party for a certain soon-to-be 7 year old. so, so fun.
my sister in law and i hosted a bridal shower for my other sister in law, bethany. we all had a great time!
her wedding shoe- isn't it just like Cinderella?! and lucky for her, she has a teeny little foot to match. :)
my wonderful mother in law and 2 sweet sisters in law (the lovely bride-to-be is in the coral dress).
isn't she cute?! we couldn't be more happy for her!
sister and i have been dreading this move for months. yet mixed with that dread is confidence that God's best is working itself out...whether the hows and whys are obvious or not.
i'm grateful for the rare and unlikely blessing of living around the corner from each other for these past 3 years. when we were little we would daydream about living next door to each other (and marrying brothers!).... now, i just have to get used to the rather heartbreaking reality that she's not there anymore.
i think it would be an easier adjustment if she had even lived across town...but as it is, we pass by her old house every evening during our walk and i have to remind the kids to not run through "Aunt Deedee's old bushes", not pick "her old lavender", not climb "her old tree"... its sad.
i have to remember things too: i can't run over to her house to ask her opinion on a new shirt or to borrow chocolate chips and a couple eggs, or a dress for the shower this weekend, or a few of her blue mason jars and white cake plate for a party next month.
or when andrew is flying, i have to remember that she's won't be able to slip away after her kids are in bed to have a little chat, or help me move furniture or craft while we talk out the highs and lows of life. and when the mornings are endlessly long, we can't walk around the corner and let the kids run around together while we give each other pep talks.
instead we have to be brave and thankful for the time we had to live life so close to each other....and for all the fabulous technology that help make living far away a bit more manageable.
tonight during a thunderstorm, sophie exclaimed, "i hope our cousins are ok!" and a short time later will commented, "we need to make sure at the end of every letter we write to our cousins that we always say, 'we miss you a lot'."
i love this song we sang at our church a couple of weeks ago. i know its kinda dramatic to apply it to my little situation especially when true and horrible suffering is going on in so many people's lives, but if i didn't believe that jesus cares about the "little" things, life would feel bleak and sad indeed. so, i thank Him that he does care, and that He is working out a beautiful plan in all things.
p.s. these pics with the letters on them were part of a little ABC book i put together as a going away gift for our sweet cousins. thank you picmonkey for being in business and making editing so easy :)
My little nephew just turned one last week. He and Baby Ben are exactly 9 months apart. Andy's sister and i planned very hard to work that out.... hee hee. But we are super thankful for this little guy and have big plans for he and ben to be best buddies.
That said, he had a party this weekend and i kinda scrambled to think of a gift.
MADE had just posted a great tutorial on how to make boxed-out totes so i started with that.
Then i decided he needed his name in felt on the front, another pocket on the inside and some cheater lining.
Then i wanted to add another color so i sewed on the yellow cinched up tie on the top...
and BACK PACK straps to the back. Everything was done extremely randomly and probably more complicated that it needed to be but i was happy with the result and can't wait to see a toddling little eric stuffing treasures into his pack soon.
and to get him started i made sure this {most adorable} Eric had a new title to add to his collection of Eric Carle's books.
Now, i have to spend a little time on the star of this post. This baby (i mean BIG boy, sorry joelle! ;) is the most expressive and interesting little guy i've ever known. He is full of fun and sweetness but he also has the most extensive collection of absolutely hilarious little faces. He entertained a group of at least 10 adults at his party for nearly 15 minutes with his expressions alone. And those brown eyes with the longest lashes i've ever seen...well, i guess i've seen some like them on his lovely momma.
Anyway, he's just too much cuteness to take.
We were delighted to celebrate his birthday and even more delighted to have him in our family.
well, since today is officially the first day of summer i thought it would be a great time to post our summer list. a week and a half ago we got our little family together and had a summer list brainstorming meeting. here's our list last year
i finally wrote it up on the chalkboard yesterday and now we can begin crossing stuff off...just in time for Target to put out school supplies. does anyone else feel a tad robbed of their summer when this happens so early? grrrrr. maybe i'm just overly sensitive to the big blank spot in the bottom corner which should have written on it: "PLAN SCHOOL". oh well, for now i'll just focus on the fact that today is "make ice cream" day. woohoo ;)
i'm linking up with sweet Alicia for her "happy day project." go check her happy challenge for today. :)
Happy Father's Day Handy Andy. We love you "yots".
i love that i was able to capture the filth that is stained onto my children's sweet little feet. They're hard-core "bare-footers".... and well, their feet show it but they make their daddy proud. ;)
**here are 2 of about 20 outtakes. sheesh! these kiddos make it hard to take their pictures. although hats off to big brother Will who put himself in charge of keeping Ben's legs down so i could snap a coherent picture! bless his heart.
