The Best Easter Present Ever

Our little man, Andrew James, was born Friday April 22. He weighed 7 lbs, 15 oz. When I have 2 hands to type, I may get around to telling more of the story. As you can see from the picture, Marin is thrilled and Kate is not quite sure what to think of him. His hair looks lighter than it really is in this picture, it's actually pretty dark. Oh how we love him already!

Happy Birthday Marvin!

No, "Marvin" is not a typo. More about that later. I am posting like crazy this week. But it's our birthday bash week and I don't want to miss posting about it (since someday I really will have this blog printed into a book, really, I will...) Yesterday was Marin's first friend party. She wanted a Tangled party, which was convenient because of course there are a million Tangled things out there and I could get most of it at good ol' Walmart. It was actually a lot of fun. We kept it simple and only invited a few girls from our immediate neighborhood. Marin was in heaven the whole time.

Here is our little Reepunzel (not a typo either, that is how Marin pronounces it). We braided ribbons into her hair and she wore that dress all day long.



We decorated paper lanterns.


Then played a little "Pin the Frying Pan on Flynn"


Next we blew out candles and ate some cake. The situation with the cake was the highlight of my day. All of my Facebook friends already know this, but when we got to the bakery to pick up the cake it said, "Happy Birthday Marvin." They hurried and changed it, but I was laughing hysterically in the grocery store and pretty much the rest of the day every time I thought about it.


Then we opened presents (Marin's favorite part, she later told me).


And finally, we went on a little treasure hunt to get our party favors.


What a fun time!

This picture also illustrates how tall our little Marin is! Oh, and Sara, if you're wondering where Allie is in all of these pictures, she spent most of the party in Marin's room playing with her princess dolls. Next up, family party. I can't believe how fast my little bald baby grew up into this darling 5 year old that I love to pieces!

Happy DAD birthday!

Mitch had the birthday most any 32 year old can only dream of, ha ha. He worked from 5 a.m. to 6:45, which is not fun but necessary when your birthday falls during tax season, but we did have fun when he got home. We had pizza, ate cheesecake, opened presents, and then watched Tangled. This is the kind of rockin' party you have when you're a true DAD. I let our girls go to the Dollar store and pick out any 3 things they wanted to get Mitch. Kate didn't get it, so Marin picked them out. I tried to let her have total freedom. This is what she chose:

1. A hula hoop. (When I asked her if she thought daddy would really want a hula hoop she replied, "Yes, it's yellow. It's a boy color so he'll like it." And she really was excited to give it to him.)
2. Squirt guns.
3. A robot shield.

Here is a picture of "him" opening his presents.


I know Mitch is closing his eyes and looks funny, but Marin's face was so cute I had to post this. This is Mitch's raspberry cheesecake.


And here they are eating popcorn and watching Tangled (which by the way is a really cute show Mitch and I thought!)


So happy DAD birthday Mitch!

Nursery Room Tour

I absolutely love nursery room tours, or kids room tours, or living room tours, or any room tours....you get the point. I like to see what other people's houses look like. I'm nosy. I've debated on whether to put this on my blog because it's not even that cool. It's not vintage or some amazing thrift store find that I transformed or anything else special. It's definitely not what I would do if my budget were unlimited. It probably cost less than $100 for everything I did. With that said, I still love my little guy's nursery. I've had it done for several weeks now and I like to sit in the rocking chair after my girls are asleep and just get excited for the fact that I'm having a little boy. No pink in this room. So here goes:


Here is a close up of my fabric thingies (I don't know what to call them) The pictures don't do the fabric justice. It's so cute and boyish.

Here is the cute bedding that my sister Avree gave me. It used to be her little boy's. In all honesty, I definitely would have splurged and bought my own crib bedding or had some made or something if I didn't always LOVE this bedding. It's so hard to find boy crib bedding I think!


Here is a close-up of the Etsy prints I got. They match the bedding perfectly and again, the pictures don't do them justice. They're so cute!


And here are my shelves of death... not because they are not properly hung and will fall on our heads while we rock, but because it took me 2 hours to hang them just right. They had to be level, even lengths from the corner, etc. It took all of my spacial brain capacity to do it. And seriously, it took 2 hours while Marin was at preschool and Kate played with the hammer (just kidding, but she threw several tantrums because she wanted to).

The end.