Father's Day Gift

I just wrapped Eddie's Father's Day gift and wanted to post it on here in case any of y'all are thinking of some last minute gift ideas. 

I, ever so smoothly, backed my car into Eddie's this past weekend (sigh), so his only request for a Father's Day gift was to not spend a lot of money....

Here is what I did:

And the final product:

Pretty cute, huh?  And I didn't even find this on Pinterest! Thought of it all on my own....

I bought the letters from Michaels and then returned them, so I didn't spend any money there and the frame was on sale at homegoods.  Good stuff!

Hope you all enjoy your father's or your baby daddy's this weekend!

Play Dates

When Cal was a wee one, we joined a little play group filled with kids right around the same age.  Most of the moms did not know one another (or know each other well), and were staying at home with kids (not everyone stayed home, but many did).

This little play group saved me, I am convinced.  Being a stay at home mom is HARD.  Being a working mom is hard too, I know...but I can't speak from experience about that one...

In the beginning of staying home with your baby, you have so many crazy questions about what he is eating/non eating, sleeping a certain way, what to try when.... and on and on and on.  I bonded with these other women (and their sweet kiddos!) and I am SO grateful they came into my life almost three years ago.

It has been really hard to get the group together again for a play date since kids go to school on opposite days, or people have work obligations, or other commitments, but the other afternoon, as many of us as could met at the park for a little play date.  And honestly, I am not sure who had more fun- the kids or their mommas!

Here is a look back....

Brad, Cal, Owen G. Henry, Owen P, and Sadie

Cal has always been a fan of Brad's

 And then again, this past summer...

front: Owen G, Jack, Avi, middle: Katherine, Sadie, Kaylee, Cal, back: Brad on the far right

 And this past week:

Owen P, Brad, Cal, Bea, Henry, Bodie

 Oh yeah... and this little nugget was there too.... doesn't he just look like trouble??? But ohhhhmyyyygah, I love him sooooooo much!

 Cal loves his playgroup buddies and gets so excited when he sees them.  I love watching these kids grow up together... I can only hope they stay close buddies!!!

Pictures

Taking pictures of the boys has become increasingly difficult. I can sometimes snag a good one of them individually, but together, it is next to impossible to have BOTH kids with BOTH eyes open, BOTH smiling, and BOTH looking in my general direction...

fail.

fail.

fail.

extreme fail.

fail.

fail.

fail.

fail. (but winning with that attitude)

When Cal was six months old, I took him to Portrait Innovations for some pictures and I thought they turned out great, so I decided to try it again with both kids.  I was nervous, but I knew if it was a total disaster, I didn't have to buy anything.  My mom went with me for added backup (THANK YOU, MOM!), and when we left, we had a ton of great pictures and two sore backs.  The boys were busy, but they were able to get some good pictures!

We are really happy with the pictures... now it is time to start updating some frames around here! If you have little ones, I would so recommend taking them here.  Honestly, we can't believe we paid as little as we did for as many pictures as we got!

We will be taking them back again before too long...it might become more challenging though- ha!

Life, according to the iPhone

Time for yet another iPhone dump...

 Andy is still not a full time walker, but he is taking more and more steps and gaining more confidence-- this picture is blurry, but I love how big he is smiling to be standing there all by himself! This picture happened before I took about 6 videos of him walking all over the kitchen.  Pretty cute stuff!  I will spare you all my squeal though...

Last Friday afternoon, Eddie came home from work early to keep the boys so I could head to Asheville to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday with her! I have said all along that I wanted to be WITH my mom on her actual birthday.  Her mom passed away before she turned 60, but I know if her mother was still alive at 60, my mom would have done everything in the world to be with her.  I feel so blessed to have my mom in my life and I realize how lucky I am to still have her.  Each birthday spent with her makes me feel even luckier.

 Mom was in Asheville with her senior tennis team, who was playing for the STATE CHAMPIONSHIP! They won last year, so they were back to defend their title.  They didn't end up winning again, but they had fun trying...

We all went out to dinner Friday night and had a blast celebrating my mom!

sitting next to the bday girl

 Of course I had to start chatting with some police men and had to get mom's picture with them.  I sent this to my dad and he wrote something back about letting her sleep it off over night in jail...haha

 I was gone less than 24 hours and Eddie did GREAT with the kids! This was really his first time with both of them over night.  I knew he would be great, but he really did a LOT with them...more than I thought he would! He took the boys to dinner on Friday night and then out for frozen yogurt (!!!).  Then on Saturday morning, he took them both to the pool and then to a birthday party in the park...!  Let me just tell you how impressed I was by all of this!
Just makes me realize that I should probably do this more often... ahem...

The next morning, the house was in some kind of a mess so I spent a lot of time cleaning and putting things back together.  I walked into the play room to see Cal playing with this trains...in this stance...

As I was changing the sheets on our bed, Andy's little head popped up-- haha

 I picked this day to do a TON of laundry: sheets on the guest bed, our sheets, guest towels, our towels, Cal's sheets, Andy's sheets, the boys' towels.... on top of ALL of the laundry that I failed to do last week... it was a LOT of laundry!

The brothers had fun watching Mickey together:

This is my water bottle I drink every day... Eddie's sister wanted me to get her one at the store so I took a picture of it for her.  It is 74.4 ounces of water... I was SO not drinking enough water before...

I always give Hank the peanut butter jar when we are done with it.  He loves to lick the thing clean.  Andy came over to inspect Hank while he was doing this... he knew he was guilty so he acted like he was just giving him a little pat pat pat....

 And then he had to get closer for a better look...

Cal asked me to sit with him so he could hold me and snuggle.... melt my heart.

 I can't breathe, but whatever....

Andy, the busy one, helped clean out under the bathroom cabinets....

Who me??

Cal really wanted to sleep in his slippers-- refusing to take them off.  I had to take a pic...

 And the little nugget, wearing the same pants as the big nugget was trying to suffocate himself with his doggie-- blurry picture though...

And again, the busy one decided to rearrange furniture.... he moved the printer/scanner and crawled into its spot:

 And then realized that the printer made a much better stepping stool to reach all of the papers on the table, which he then proceeded to throw on the floor...

And finally, my favorite video of the week... Cal and Andy's most favorite song.... I should perhaps be embarrassed...but I am so not.