Birthday fun!!

I'm no longer 30.  I'm that weird odd number of 31.  For some reason, 31 just sounds much older than simple 30.  I don't get confused anymore with college students and I'm wondering when I grew up! (Disclaimer: I haven't been confused for a college student for a looonnnng time...so I'm not sure why I said that!)

Regardless, I celebrated another birthday and it was a great weekend because of it!  Friday night, Justin organized some friends of mine to meet us at Shiki, a hibachi place here in OKC.  He is always trying to surprise me and he never seems to do it.  But, he put together a great group of friends to join us almost get our eyebrows burned off.  We had a fun chef who gave us a great show and cooked us some amazing food.

Casey, the photo-bomber.

After, we didn't know what to do so we went to listen to some Souled Out at the UCO Jazz Lab.  I have been here only one time before and that was listening to Matt Stansberry. Wasn't sure what to expect except there were a bunch of older people there shaking their groove thang.  It was hysterical to watch them.  We enjoyed the music for sure and might have even danced a little ourselves!

It was packed so we watched from the balcony!  The band and old people dancing.

Here are my young friends who joined us old people.  They have yet to even reach 3-0!

So that was Friday night.  My cousin came to watch the kids and it was great to have them in bed asleep when we got back!!  Saturday we were going to hang out with my family that night, but my mom was super sick so we changed our plans a wee bit.

We were going to go to Cafe 7 since that sounded delicious but Haylie preferred Chick-fil-a.  And who am I to tell my kiddo no??  She just "wanted some chicken", so off we went to CFA.

After lunch I decided to get an impromptu haircut (3ish inches off) and after we got home, the kids took a nap and I went off with Maria for some lazy shopping!  It's been ages since I went to any store just to browse, so that's what we did!  And dreamed we had lots of money to spend on things.

After we got back, the kids were ready to go to the park!  So off we went in our pink and purple bikes.

I have to share this card with you - it's hysterical.  Justin knows me so well. :)

After a dinner cooked by the hubby, we topped off the day by going to Pinkitzel at bedtime to sugar ourselves up!  We got to try four cupcakes and they were each delicious!!

(Top L, clockwise) Chocolate truffle, Birthday Surprise, Turtle Cheesecase and Peanut Butter Delight.  YUM.

It was so yummy and what a fun day it was!  BTW, this is the first picture of H that I think really looks like my side of the family!  It must be the hair. 

Technology Overload

Today I'm on the blog talking about something that I know too much about: technology.  As my father in law makes fun of me for hearing my phone whistle every 5 minutes, it's true that I, and my whole family, need to take a technology detox!

But is that even possible?  With everything revolving around it so much?  People don't carry planners to make sure they stay organized, I rarely see a physical Bible at church anymore and most people don't call anymore - the main way to communicate is to text.  People depend on their phones.  "There's an App for that!"

Let me know how you deal with your technology overload.  Because I'm looking for ways to simplify and reduce my dependency on devices!

Princess Tea

This is Haylie's second year to go to the Princess Tea. She ab-so-lutely loves going to this and I think it is such a fun experience to go on a dress-up date with your dad!!  A few weeks before my sister and I took the two girls shopping for their "fancy" dresses and we had visions of what it will be like with those two and prom dress shopping.

Regardless, we had a lot of fun chasing them around the store and picking out dresses.  The big night was finally here!

I wanted to see Haylie's hair so I told her to do "something" and this is what she came up with.  You can't tell but I spent quite a while trying to put ringlet curls in her hair. It looked super cute!

Jace did not want to be left out of the picture taking.

So they went and conquered the Princess Tea...chocolate pastries and all.  I'm not sure how she got chocolate up her nose...some things I'll never know.

My sister and I with the boys and my parents hung out while the two princesses and their daddy's went.  When they got back we had to take a picture - they were all so happy! (I honestly think it was the sugar high)

Next year is Haylie's last year for the Princess Tea.  How is that possible already?!

Our Valentine Projects

Valentine's Day.  The time when getting creative is all over blogs and lots of mommy's are discussing what "we're" going to do for our kids.  This year I wanted to be cheap...but that also meant more time-consuming.  I was half-way wishing I went the easy route when nothing seemed to be going right in the craft department, but we pushed through and ended up loving our valentine's.

For Jace's, I thought I would use the rest of a huge bag of Dum-Dums I got awhile back.  I saw a cute idea on a mom blog (which I can't remember which one right now, ugh!), so I thought I would try to recreate it!

I took a picture of J holding his hand out in a little fist.  Added some hearts in PicMonkey.com and a little tag that said Happy Valentine's Day.  I wish I would have also put Love, Jace, but that detail slipped my mind and I had to hand write.  Could be worse. :)

I could not be more in love with these Valentine's.  They turned out hysterically beautiful.

For Haylie, I got a good idea on this FANTASTIC blog.  Anna created print-ables, but I just wanted to have a tag instead of a bag topper, so I recreated a tag off of her creative ideas.  For this I used Canva.com.

So we made our playdough from her post, divided it into 18 pieces for her friends at school, created a tag and tied it on.

And I forgot to type Love, Haylie on this one too, so she got the fun project of writing it on the back!

For our Valentine's Day party on actual V-day, we made heart cookies!  Chocolate + peanut butter = best Vday ever.  So, I let Haylie stay up a little bit late to help me make these for our friends the night before.

And just for fun, here is a pic of our Valentine's from Daddy!  Flowers for me, one rose for Haylie and cookies for all of us!  He sure does love us :)

Little Brother turns 2!

The weekend following my dad's surprise party was Jace's 2nd birthday!!  I was pretty worn out but was determined to make this special for my little boy.  We, of course, had a Thomas the Train party for my train-loving boy.  {I'm just thankful he has fallen in love with the same thing as Haylie...it's been a $ saver for sure :oP}

I was skeptical the weekend of his birthday because he was acting like a Terrible Two.  Tantrums, not sleeping well, crying for no reason...it was not fun thinking about this party.  But, I still was able to whip up his cake with him crying at my feet the majority of the time.  Thankful for Amazon Prime who shipped this cake decor set in two days.  Whew, saved my butt there!

I decided to go ahead and do an early lunch party with PB&J's, chicken salad, fruits and veggies to go with the cake.  Thomas led the "train" of food.

Party favors were train whistles, party blowers and Thomas fruit snacks.

{We are on Thomas overload over here, but two little kids are loving every minute.}

Grandma and Papa sent these headlamps and all the parents at the party were asking where we got them.  All I knew to say was, "Missouri." Ha!

Remember his attitude issues?  Yes, first part of his party he was throwing a tantrum because....well, we just don't know why.

Sister was in full support-mode of the party theme by wearing her Thomas costume and sporting a party hat most of the time.

I don't know why they both look so confused, but I love this.

Haylie and Liesel were cuddled up watching the opening of gifts.

So fun!

Lunch time!

Cake time!! He was so excited to blow out the candles.

Hungry gals waiting for their piece!

Sunday was his actual birthday so we got him a few more Thomas gifts.  Man, he better like Thomas as long as H does!  We need our money's worth out of all this - ha!

Surprise Party!

We have been in extreme party mode over here.  Right after we celebrated the holidays, we jumped head first into planning a surprise {joint} birthday party for my dad!  He and his college bud Daryl turned 60 in the same month so the wives and children got together to plan a nice shin-dig.

A lot of planning went into this - lots of secret text messages, phone calls, emails and meetings.  Thankfully, as we found out at the party, neither birthday boy literally had no clue and that was the best part!

So the big day finally was here!  We met up at our church and got hustling on the decor.

We had some great helpers get excited with the photo booth props.  They really thought we just brought all that for them to play with.

The guys were each told a different story to get them to our church.  Since neither of them are members there, we had to get creative.  Daryl was told he was coming to a wedding reception for some long time members.  My dad was told that they needed to come get my kids so Justin and I could attend an event that night after we were done setting it up.  Both stories worked like a charm and when they "miraculously" met up in the parking lot, they were discussing why they were there!

Some details that we worked hard on -  

Facts from 1954 - just to make them realize how old they were ;)

Photo collages for both through the years

Fun napkins to celebrate the Vintage Dudes

Photo booth and props!

We of course had to get pictures of the crazy roommates from back in the OC {Oklahoma Christian} days...

and the whole OC crew!

Needless to say, it was a huge success of a party where we had friends from near and far come and celebrate!  Happy birthday, Dad!