birthday...birthday...birthday...big party...and...soccer?!

The season is upon us.  

It begins with the start of school.  It's followed up closely with one... two... THREE birthdays (not to mention 3 cousin birthdays and 2 uncle birthdays as well!).  And it's punctuated with Chad coaching football and therefore being gone all. the. time.

    So, if you're wondering about my lack of blogging for the past month, there you have it.  This mama is just tired.

But I now feel the need to take a few minutes and post some pictures of all our birthday celebrations from the past few weeks.  Bear with me folks, it's gonna be a doozy.        

Let's start on August 24, when Tate turned... wait for it... you're not gonna believe it.... 

 2!  

I know!  Seriously, seems like just yesterday that he "popped out of mommy's tummy" (as his sisters would say).

And let me explain the lack of big cakes for their birthdays.  We have a big combined birthday party for all 3 kids (which you'll see below if you don't tune out before then) which we have their real birthday cakes at.  So, on their actual birthdays, we have a little family celebration with cupcakes, which the kiddos like just as much!  Especially since they get to pick out what rings they want on their cupcakes.  I know... store-bought... I'm a terrible mother.  Think what you want, but during football season, store-bought cupcakes are a God-send in this house.  And don't worry, there are some homemade cakes at their big party.  :)

Anywhoo, back to this guy.

Made a mess then got to open presents!  What an awesome night for Tate!

Two days later, on August 26, came Emilia's birthday!

4 years old already?!

And lots of presents awaiting her!

The Olivia house was one of the favorites (and one of mine too, since I picked it up at 75% off in the after-Christmas sales!)

Then 8 days later, on September 3, Adeline turned 6!

Don't worry, there really are 6 candles on her cupcake.  2 of them are just itsy bitsy (I had to save the rest of the big ones for her real birthday cake!)

Can't wait to tear into those presents!!

We saved the best for last!  I think she was pretty excited.  :)

Then after all the birthdays were celebrated, we took the kids to Incredible Pizza!

I highly recommend going there anytime, but especially for birthdays!  Adeline just happened to mention it was her birthday and they gave all three of our birthday kids a bag full of goodies and a spin on the prize wheel!  And they each got to wear a sticker saying, "It's my Birthday!" so they were constantly being wished Happy Birthday by everybody.

This little 6 year old took on 3 big boys in the bumper cars all by herself!  :)

Our big party was scheduled for September 4, or "Labor Day Sunday."  There were many preparations to be made, like making Addie's cookie cake.  Millie and Tate were big helpers while Addie was at school.  Here, they're putting a little love for their big sister in the cake by blowing kisses into the batter. *Awwww* ;)

Nothing beats licking the batter.  YUM!

When Addie came home from school, she got to decorate it!

And finally... the big ol' party.  Lots of cousins.  Lots of fun.

After playing around for awhile, we started the festivities with Adeline's cake as an appetizer.

We stuck with the Wizard of Oz theme for Addie's part of the party.  Remember, this party... a whole month ago?  Hmmm... That might be part of my exhaustion too... ;)

Here they are... the 7 cousins.  

Clara, Kaiden, Ruby, Millie, Adeline, Taryn and Tate!

Then we opened presents!

First Tate...

Then Addie...

Then Millie!

Next we had dinner with the main course being pulled pork sandwiches.  However, I neglected to get a picture of anyone actually eating dinner.  But trust me, we ate.

Then we had our "dessert."  Tate's ice cream cake...

Can you tell it's a soccer ball?  I was going to pipe on black lines, but ran out of time.  And this was super easy.  Just freeze a glass or metal bowl for 30 minutes.  Line with saran wrap and scoop in ice cream.  Then freeze it again until it's completely hard.  Take it out and smooth it and it's ready to decorate!  We did this last year as a lady bug for Millie's cake.

And then Millie's princess cake!

Yes, this is store-bought.  Straight from Target.  But it was delicious!  I really wanted a special cake for her.  She had been feeling a little down about not getting to have her own "friend" birthday party like Addie did (we don't start those until they're in school), so I decided to give her the cake of her dreams.  And she loved it!  :)

"Let them eat cake," we said.  And so they did.

Birthdays - DONE!

And since we were missing the busy-ness of birthday season, we thought we'd replace the hole with... SOCCER!

Yup.  Addie started soccer this week.  It's just through the city league, so fortunately it's only 6 weeks long, with one game every Saturday and 1-2 practices a week.  I think I can handle that.  I think.

But she LOVES it!  And I must say, she's really good at it too!

 And this is how I feel right about now...

Think I can sneak a nap in this afternoon?

how we do back to school... and our new dog

This is an expensive time of year for our family.  As many of you know, all three of our kids have birthdays between Aug. 24 and Sept. 3 (a 10 day span!), plus two nieces, a nephew and two brothers with birthdays in these few weeks time too.  Phew!  It feels like Christmas in August around here with all the wrapping going on!

And now with Addie in school, there's the back to school expenses too.

Ugh.

Since we can't afford to do the traditional "back-to-school-shopping," and I still want my kids to experience the fun of having fresh clothes to start the new school year, we just do it a little differently here.  And our wallets thank us tremendously.  

So, what do we do?  It's not really that novel of an idea, and I'm sure some of you do it too.  I shop all year round, picking up clearance items (especially targeting the huge sales in January and July) and also hitting up garage sales with like-new clothes for great prices.  As I buy the clothes, I store them all away in the back of my closet (don't tell my kids) and then about a week before school we have... 

"Back To School Night!" 

I put all their clothes in gift bags and it feels like a birthday party!  The kids love it!  I even do it for Tate and Millie even though they're not in school.  It's fun for them to get new (or like new) clothes too!  

 

The best part is the price I pay for these clothes.  These Hello Kitty jeans were the most expensive item and I got them for under $6 at Dillard's!

Gymboree skirt = $3.49

Crazy 8's top = $2.99

Crazy 8 dress = $2.99

And the clothes kept coming out.  All purchased for between $1- $5.74!

 We also filled a container with preschool workbooks, flashcards, pencils and crayons for Millie to start her at-home-preschool with mommy.

 And then we made sure these clothes got good use at school!

 Oh, and for those of you who were wondering how Adeline's first week of first grade was...

It was AWESOME!!!

She's loving it, of course!  She loves her teacher, she's made lots of new friends, and she still gets to see last year's friends at recess. 

My biggest worry with her at school is getting hurt feelings from mean kids, because I dealt with a lot of that in elementary school.  But so far, she seems to be handling that well.  This morning when I put a Curious George bandaid on her itchy bug bite, she got a little sad and told me that a boy in her class made fun of her last week for her bandaid and hollered to everyone, "Adeline likes Curious George!"  Fortunately, the other kids didn't go along with him (they probably like Curious George too) and Addie said she just didn't say anything.  But it obviously bothered her.  So, no, I didn't make her wear a Curious George bandaid again.  I took it off and put on a normal one.

 And Millie has been having fun doing preschool with mommy.  We do it every-other-day during nap time (so we don't have any distractions from Tate.)  And every day she asks, "Is it preschool today?  Please?!"  :)

Here's a picture of Tate.  Just because.  :)

Oh, and about our new dog....

This was Odie a few months ago (I didn't have any newer pics of him with his even longer, shaggier hair).

And then I took him to the groomers.  And I brought home this dog.

Pretty sure that's not Odie...

but an older, wiser, more serious dog?  

Must be the beard.  ;)

first day of first grade

 My first grader.

FIRST grader!

 6:40 a.m. - The morning starts out a little rough... since she's been wearing flip-flops and dressy sandals most of the summer, mommy didn't realize that NONE of her bazillion sensible, cute playground shoes fit her!  NONE. Especially not the ones I had laid out for her.  We try on shoe after shoe after shoe.  Who knew her feet grew a whole size in less than 2 months?!  We finally find a pair, although a little big, that will work as long as she wears thick socks with them.

7:10 - Breakfast.

7:18 - Wake Tate up (who was not so happy to be woken up at such an early hour).

7:23 - Check backpack for essentials and insert lunch.

7:25 - Rush out the door for some pictures. But not too many because now we're running behind thanks to the shoe fiasco.

7:27 - Begin our beautiful walk to school.

7:30 - Get partway down the street, and poor little Adeline gets a little too close to the stroller and trips over the wheel, falling and skinning her knee.  We all rush back to the house where I run and get a bandaid.  She's fine.  Still excited for school.  I start questioning the time and if we should drive instead.  But it's too beautiful outside, so we proceed to walk again.

7:44 - We finally make it to school.

 This is the hardest part for me.  

The locker.  

Last year they hung their stuff up in closets in the kindergarten room.

So safe and cozy.

This year her locker is way out in the hall.

Not so safe and cozy.

Way too independent.

When we walk into the room, I think we're late.  Nearly all the kids but one or two are all sitting quietly in their seats and there are no other parents to be seen.

I check the clock.

7:46.

"Doesn't school start at 7:55?" I ask, afraid that they had changed the starting time and not informed me.

"Yes," replies the super sweet (I mean, really really incredibly sweet - LOVE her!) teacher.

Phew.

So I have a another minute to take one more picture.

A real desk this year instead of tables!

*sigh*

And we leave.

Mommy's heart sinks.

And keeps sinking.

I'm not quite sure why, but this year feels even harder for me than last year.  Maybe it's because I wasn't as prepared.  With Kindergarten, there's more info sent to you ahead of time, more parent prep nights at school, more communication with the teacher.  With first grade, they expect you to know everything, which I guess I should.  There's just not as much warning and then *BAM* all of a sudden, it's the middle of August (which is so absurd) and my little girl's gone all day.  :(

I think the only thing that will help this sinking heart today is seeing that sweet little smile... in about an hour now!  And hearing all about her wonderful day.  I'm praying it was wonderful.  I'm sure it was.  She makes friends very easily and loves to learn (both traits that we are very thankful for!).

But in the meantime, this little sweetie was also very excited for today.

We started preschool at home today!  We spent an hour (during nap time) going over some brand new workbooks and learning lots of new things.  It was great having some quality one-on-one time with her.

49 minutes 'til we pick up Addie!