Bryson's 4th Birthday- Part One

Since I have a Summer birthday, growing up, I never had to go to school on my birthday. (Well until school began starting back way too early my Junior year in high school). I enjoyed never having to go to school on my birthday and I hope to do the same for Bryson. This year his birthday fell on Saturday, but I still wanted us all to take a day off to spend time as a family. So we all took the day before his birthday off to celebrate. The weather had been forcasting a cold rain for that day so instead of going to the zoo, we decided to take Bryson to Chuck E. Cheese instead of the zoo. I hate Chuck E. Cheese. There are way too many people, kids unattended, it's just madness. But since we were going on a school day, we were hoping it wouldn't be that bad, and it wasn't. Of course that day ended up being beautiful and we could have went to the zoo, but we decided to take him to the zoo on his actual birthday since we had already gotten him excited about Chuck E. Cheese. It was nice to be able to sleep in and not be rushed so we could celebrate Bryson just the 3 of us. He had a lot of fun. We enjoyed pizza and played games but it seemed to go by so quickly. He wanted to buy ice cream there but we convinced him that we could go to Top it Off for yogurt on the way the home. Bryson loves going to Top it Off. He loves getting birthday cake yogurt and gummy frogs in his yogurt. We had a little bit of time after yogurt to come home and rest before going out to dinner with my family. Bryson had some birthday cards in the mail and loved opening them, and of course getting money.

 Ready to go to Chuck E. Cheese

 He only wanted to grab 1 ticket at a time. 

Checking to see how many tickets we got.

 He's so silly showing off his gummy frogs. 

 Opening his mail. 

 He was so excited about the money from Granny Goose. 

For dinner, we went to Papa Saia's with my family. I love the atmosphere there and Bryson loves the food. For his birthday, he wanted a Play-doh/Wreck it Ralph party. I had no idea how to incorporate Play-doh. My mom found some cupcakes at the grocery store that kind of looked like Play-doh, so she brought them to dinner. Bryson also thought they looked like Play-doh so he was happy.

We had a great day celebrating Bryson. In our family we really love to celebrate birthdays so we had another special day planned for the next day on his actual birthday.

Valentine's Day 2014

I have never been a huge fan of Valentine's Day. When me and Robert were dating we would go out to eat or get each other a little something; but once we got married, we stopped doing that as much. I've never really understood the point of Valentine's Day. Why do we need one day to waste money on flowers that will die, make ourselves sick eating chocolate or wait 2 hours to be seated at an overpriced restaurant? Since having Bryson, we have started celebrating Valentine's Day again. We don't do anything big, but we do make it a fun day all about him. He usually wakes up to some goodies on his table and we always have his favorite food for dinner. I wanted to do something cute for his friends at school, but I ran out of time so Bryson gave his friends a small goody bag and a minion Valentine. Our school does Valentine's Day parties after nap and since I work there, and get off early, I was able to go enjoy the party with him. The one thing I forgot to get Bryson was a balloon. So after school, we drove to CVS so he could pick one out. He found one that he liked but it was $10! There was no way I was going to pay $10 for a balloon. Thankfully he found a cheaper one that he liked too. When it was time to pay he kept telling me that the balloon was for daddy that he needed to buy daddy something else. So we went back to the candy section and he chose a stuffed Snoopy holding a heart shaped box of chocolates to give Robert. I told Bryson that I was only going to buy one balloon and asked him if that's the one that he wanted and if he wanted a balloon for him or daddy. He told me that daddy could share the balloon with him if he wanted to, but that he just wanted to get daddy a surprise. It was the sweetest thing! Bryson was so proud of the surprise he bought for Robert and was so excited to give it to him when he got home. We enjoyed a nice quiet evening at home, just the three of us watching movies and eating pizza and popcorn. It was the perfect way to spend Valentine's Day.

 Bryson's goody bags for his friends had all of his favorite things: the bags had robots on them, pirate bubbles, minion Valentine's with a tattoo, and Pirate's Booty snacks!

All his goodies from mommy and daddy!

 

 He has a little bit of a Pez obsession. We have a ton of them!

 Making silly faces with his new friend Tossy. He named him Tossy because you toss a stick to a dog for him to fetch!

 This is the only way he takes pictures. He has to make a silly face. 

 More silly faces.

 Bryson with some of his school friends. 

 He's so crazy!

 He loved his goody bag from school. 

 Checking out all his treats with his friends. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Couples Baby Shower

Our friends Steven and Jessica, and Carl and Joanna were both expecting babies just days apart. We were all so excited when we found out they were pregnant and even more excited when we found out they were both having girls! I knew that they would both be having a shower but I wanted to do something to include the guys too and it was a good excuse to get everybody together one last time before the babies came. I got together with a couple of our friends and we decided to throw them a couples baby shower! We invited everybody and had an awesome turn out! We grilled hamburgers, had tons of sweets and enjoyed some time with everybody and all of the sweet kids. I don't think we have ever had a get-together where everybody brought their kids. I did not realize just how many kids we had in our little group! We need to do it more often! They both got a lot of great gifts but just having everybody together in one place was great! It was an awesome night to celebrate baby Sophia and baby Addison!