Time with Grandma and Papa

A few days after we got back from the wedding, Justin and I re-packed our bags to head to Columbia, MO to spend some time with his family and for him to enjoy some deer hunting.  It was a relaxing time with cousins coming to play/spend the night, lots of quality time with Grandma and Papa and fun activities that we tried for the first time!  

Haylie is really into getting her picture taken.  There was quite a montage of these silly faces on my phone from Grandma's house.

Jace was a trooper and wore his puffy jacket even though he hated it. It's on my list to get him a smaller fleece or something that he will enjoy more.  He looks like a muscle man.

We spent one evening with Grant, Brei and the boys where we had a surprise visit from BatGirl and Super(wo)man.

There is a gymnastic gym in Columbia called Flipz and on Fridays they have an open house where little ones can come play on the equipment.  It was SO FUN and I wish OKC had something like this.  I tried to find something but my search came up with nothing.

It was confirmed that Haylie will love gymnastics next year.

Haylie was in heaven with all the trucks that Grandma has at her house.  She would get upset if Jace even looked at them!

 And Grandma was nice enough to make Haylie a pink cake for her birthday!

Thanks for the fun!

Allicat Got Married!

Two weekends ago, I had the privilege of being in my good friend Allison's wedding.  I have known her since college and our birthdays are four days apart!  So we are destined to be friends for life! :)  She was marrying her love, Micah, in Arkansas so Justin and I took a weekend trip (kids went to the grandparents) to enjoy the wedding festivities.

Friday night we made it just in time for the rehearsal.  It was freezing outside and guess who forgot their jacket? At home. Yep.  My gracious husband let me borrow his while he bundled up in a blanket.  It was a relaxing evening with the dinner following and then the wedding party went out later where the bridesmaids totally schooled ALL the guys in a lively game of bowling.

Saturday, us ladies got our hair and makeup done in the morning.

I have 32 bobby pins in my hair and no make up on.  Nice ;)  And Allison looks so glamorous with her hair and makeup!

We head to the Stables to get dressed...

I'd say we clean up pretty well!

 

I don't know how Katie looks so beautiful...we were looking straight into the sun! (Hence the weird look on my face. I'm not mad.)

They say I do and it's official!!

Allison did a great job with the details of her wedding.  She decorated with blue and orange and it was perfect to tie into Micah's love of the OKC Thunder.

She decorated with lots of pumpkins and mason jars with brown sugar and candles.  It smelled divine!

I love this picture of Allison getting sassy.

It was such a fun wedding weekend.  Thanks to Micah and Allison for letting me be apart of their special day.  Love you guys!

Behind the Scenes::OKCMB

Starting Oklahoma City Moms Blog has seriously been so much fun.  We have been super blessed by a great team of contributors, businesses that are interested in us, and a support team from City Moms Blog who are there every step of the way!

One of the steps in setting up our site (Oklahoma City Moms Blog) is to get some photos for our "About Us" page. We were super lucky to have Mandy Stansberry Photography take some for us!

Maria & I - co-founders!

Our beautiful, smart, and creative team of contributors.

Honestly, trying to get all this up and running has taken a lot of our time.  I'd love to tell you that for weeks straight I wasn't on the computer every free second I had, but that would be a total lie.  We are constantly replying to emails, coming up with new graphics (PicMonkey is our NEW best friend), finding fun giveaways, planning a launch party, organizing ourselves, organizing our contributors, writing posts, pages for the site, and learning how to navigate WordPress.  It's been a lot and we have learned a TON!!

I know, I for one, couldn't have done this without Maria.  If I had to text/message/call/email someone 20+ times a day,  it would be to her!  I really don't know how anyone does this by themselves!

What people don't know is that you can start your own sister site in your own city.  If you'd like more information, just message me!  I'll get you the hook up.  (But sorry, Oklahoma City is already taken, ha!)

Happy reading! :)

Wall Gallery

The kids are getting to the age where they make fun projects at school and bring them home.  Which results in a parent dilemma of keeping everything or tossing it out.   I'm the worst (sorry kids!) with keeping it because they honestly won't care when at 18 I hand them a big file of their scribbles from preschool.  I'm so sentimental, I know.  Anyway, they do make cute stuff though that I want to display for a time.  Something they can be proud of. So I found an idea on Pinterest when I was looking to re-do the kids rooms and thought what a cool idea!  A wall gallery to hang their artwork!  We had a bare wall that needed something, so it was a perfect spot.

Looking towards H's room.

The full effect from her doorway.

Close up of how we did a cheaper version of a clip.

So on the Pinterest website, they bought these silver clips with a hole in the back that you could screw straight into the wall.  Well, those are super expensive (IMHO) and the wood trim was already more pricier than I thought.  So Justin suggested the cheaper clips that come in a bigger pack (less than $1.50 for 12) and he got washers to keep them in place to screw it to the wall.  Works like a charm!  At first I didn't like the look of it - but once he sharpied over them to make them darker and got it up in place, I loved it!!

And now we have a wonderful place to put their little creations!

Big boy time!

The other night, Justin got a wild idea to change Jace's crib from being a crib to a toddler bed.  I was less than thrilled with the idea, but I thought we could at least try it out.  So we busted out the camera (since I've been slacking these days) and tried to document a big step in the little boys life!  Both wanted to help...or maybe they just wanted to jump on the mattress.  Either way, we had a family night transitioning the bed!

This beauty has the biggest eyes and the smallest mouth.  This is my proof.

Why yes, H is worse than most retail stores with wanting to wear her holiday shirts before Thanksgiving even arrives.

Transition - complete.  Now, let's discuss bed time.  I wish I could say it went flawlessly, but that would be lying.  He hopped out of bed before we even shut the door, flew himself into said closed door, somehow opened the door, which resulted in us putting him back in bed.  Commence screaming for over an hour, then finally falling asleep on the floor with his feet blocking any opening of the door.  He woke up several times during the night for whatever reason and then woke up early the next morning, which resulted in waking up the sister.  I was not a happy camper.

We changed it back to a crib that night.

Thomas & a Dog {Halloween 2013}

Halloween has come and gone.  This year might have been less than exciting compared to last year when we went to 60 different places to collect candy, but we still enjoyed the holiday enough.  We never made it to a pumpkin patch (why?  Because Wal-mart had $2.98 pumpkins, that's why!) but we never got around to carving them.  Oh well, the kids won't be scarred by one year of parental slacking.

But we did make it to our church's Trunk or Treat!  Both H & J got to walk around the circle of cars and get candy. 

Getting ready to Trunk or Treat!

J didn't quite get it - he wanted to eat the candy as soon as it was dropped in his pumpkin.  He was trying to be sneaky when I caught this photo.  And H had a blast, although she since is a social butterfly, mostly wanted to wave hi to her friends when she saw them.

Our church did a carnival inside too and luckily, we got lots of little toys that make big noise.

 Halloween was on a school day so the kids got to dress up again!  H was SO excited while J was less than thrilled. He simply didn't want that dog head up!  He was fine once you took it off.

And our last stop was to Northpark Mall where the stores were handing out candy for all the kids who wanted to trick or treat inside.

We met a bunch of our friends there and had a crazy time trying to wrangle them all!  Luckily two of our hubbies came so it was easier with more adults around.

We did end up going to my sister's house for actual trick or treating.  H went around the neighborhood with cousins while J and I hung back at the house.  Too bad we only got a handful of trick or treaters...but their parents were probably feeling a little "done" like me with all the other events we could go to.  Fun year though! Maybe next time we'll get to carve the pumpkins.