Charne's FABULOUS 35th birthday bash!

My friend Charne used our back yard for her FABULOUS birthday party! I love lending our yard out for parties and I LOVE Charne so it was a win win! She is a fabulous lady and I am so happy that we got to celebrate with her! She had a bounce house for the kids and that was a ton of fun! The food was AMAZING! So were her decorations. She used to plan parties so she is REALLY good at personalizing things and making them really special and fun!
All the tables had different games on them. SO cool and such a fun way to get things started and people talking.

Here is the fabulous birthday girl! SO adorable!



Making a birthday wish!
It was pretty cold outside and at one point I went in to look for Juliet. I found her in my bed watching a show with her buddies!
We put a carpet on the side of the yard with all the legos for the kids to build and play too.
Max LOVES baby Jeremy and Jer LOVES Max.

Max and his buddy Justin!
Jake and Justin and Max with their creations!
We played Bingo for prizes too. SO much fun!
Bishop waiting to win something!
Jamie and I always have a good time together! I love this picture of Brandon sneaking in the back!

Brandon teasing Marilyn!
Me and the birthday girl!
We love Charne and her family and feel so blessed to have them in our lives! Happy birthday cute cute lady! WE are lucky to call you friend!

Our Valentine boxes!

This year we made Valentine boxes. (thanks Pinterest!) The kids didn't have to because they are taking all the fun out of school! I wanted them too though. THey had a blast and so did Brandon. I loved the final product! They got TONS of compliments at school and we made a wonderful memory! They were really easy. Tissue boxes. spray paint. egg carton. googly eyes. fun foam. paint for decorating. I found these on line and they were polk a dotted. SO cute. I wanted them to look the same as the picture but we let them do their own thing. Dang creative children! The website I found them on called them "tattle monsters" You put your complaint or you "tattle" on a paper and put it in the monster and he listens to your woes instead of the teacher! Cute idea. Max wanted to donate his to his teacher after the holiday! (Must have a lot of tattling in that class!)

Here's Juliet's box!
Max's box!
Darby's box!

Dash's box!

Max's Birthday Party #2

For Max's birthday party he just wanted a couple buddies to come over for Steak and video games. (and a sleep over) He called it his "man Party"! Here he is opening a video game he got as a gift. The new Zelda..... his face says it all!
One of Max's favorite candies are those extreme sour candies. We love having everyone put them in their mouths and just click the camera and watch them suffer/enjoy!

Juliet just spit hers out. Very smart girl!
Tristan is climbing the wall or falling down it! Either way it's pretty funny! I love Dash in this picture too.
Johnny was pretty funny through the process too.....


After dinner and candy they went out to play some football..... man party in full force!
Then we pulled the mattresses off the bed moved the man party into the livingroom!
Where they all slept.....like babies/men! (Max is friends with older "men"! Tyler and Aaron both slept over. Tristan and the McNulty brothers had a "late over" and left around ten) It was great fun and all the boys seemed to have fun. Most important though, Max had fun and felt like a man!

La la la la Lola!

I wanted another baby so for Christmas Brandon got me a kitten! ;) I love her to pieces! She is a rescue and she litter trained right away and she doesn't dig at the furniture. She DOES chase things and run around the house and attack your feet. (she also attacks Brandon's face if he is completely covered with only his face poking out! It freaks her out. Very funny, unless you're Brandon!) Lola LOVES to sit at the desk with you and chase the "mouse" on the computer! It is really cute/annoying!
She is such a sweet addition to our family! Dash ADORES her and carries her around everywhere. She is really good with Juliet too. She has figured out that it is better to run away than be taken hostage by the 3 year old but she has never scratched her. (knock on wood) The only family member that isn't a fan of Lola's is Callie. She does NOT appreciate her love of life and happy personality. She does NOT want to cuddle with her or have her tail attacked by her. She HATES it when Lola is sleeping her spot on the couch. She has however stopped hissing at the mere sight of her. She will let walk by her now 4 out of 5 times with out hissing. Watch out on that 5th time though because there is a LOT of pent up frustration in there! I did see them sleeping on the same bed the other day. Opposite ends of the bed but the same bed none the less! Progress. I am sure they will be life long buddies soon!
She has cured my baby cravings a little. I think a puppy would do it even better but I will take my stinky breath Lola any day of the week!

The cats and the carpet!

The night before the new carpet we had to move a lot of things out and stack a lot of furniture. I thought this would freak the cats out but it did the opposite! They ran and climbed and LOVED every second of it! Lola was just resting from her crazy time!
The couches were turned on their sides and stacked on top of each other. Of course they wanted to be as high up as they could! Callie was the queen but when she would move Lola would take over!
The queen of the house!
you can't see Lola on the side but she would try to pounce on Callie and Callie would just hiss with out lifting her head and she would bat at her with her paw. The absolute epitome of a lazy cat!
Then Lola got her spot! She thought she was so big and tuff!

What a cute kitten and what a fun day they had! I wish I had a space like this all the time! They are spoiled members of our family for sure! ;)

New Carpet!

This is the new carpet in the house we live in! I LOVE IT! It doesn't matter how clean your house is when your carpet is all stained it looks dirty! NOT ANY MORE! The carpet has caused me some anxiety and some grief BUT for the most part I really love it. I feel very blessed to have it!

What do you do while you are waiting for the carpet guys to finish? You watch a movie outside of course! Most of our furniture was on the back patio. It was getting chilly so caved ourselves in with mattresses and bundled up and watch a movie on the tv outside. It was fun!
That is the piano behind the kids and more mattresses! Nothing like building a GIANT fort while waiting! All in all it was a great day! Only a couple regrets. :) One of them is when I texted my landlord (and friend) that there would be no food, shoes or even children aloud on the new carpet! Dang predictive text though put the word wieners instead of shoes. Because I never re read my text I sent her a text that said "no more food, wieners or even children on the carpet!" Nice one Jeffords! If you're in the neighborhood drop on by to see the new carpet! Just no food or drink and leave your SHOES at the door! ;)