Hello, everyone!

Here are my sweet babies right before Harrison's THIRD haircut. 

Also, I straightened Emma's hair that morning just for kicks-it's cute!

And, notice the giant, awesome bow my sissy gave Emma for her birthday!

 

Sweet Babies!

Carebears Comin' from Somewhere up in the Sky........

Hopefully you are now humming the Carebears theme song from the 80's. Not the new one, the original one!

We love some Carebears around here. Mainly thanks to a cheer bear that Emma stole from my parent's house about a year ago. Ever since, I pick them up when I see them in Goodwill or consignment stores. I also frequent ebay looking for low priced small Carebears to add to the collection. I actually found three brand new ones with tags for $3 at a nicer consignment store. Then my butthole dog ate two of them. And I almost choked him.

Moving on. We love Carebears. So, when I asked Emma what she wanted to do for her third birthday, she said Carebears!! Natch. So I got to planning. And talking. And discussing with my multi-talented MIL (decorator extraordinaire!)

The party came together pretty quickly after only about a week of prep! See below for details! And sorry in advance for the photo bombing. But maybe you want a Carebears party one day.............

The favor bags-I found a birthday website that had Carebears party favors so I got whistles, notepads, and blowers. The other stuff is from Michael's dollar spot or Party City. We only had 5 children, so it wasn't expensive!

The cute lunch plates and napkins from the same site. And that silverware was 0.97 a pack at Walmart! It matched perfectly!

The cute birthday bow wreath I found on Pinterest! So easy and cute!

The lunch table-minus the burgers and dogs!

Another Pinterest find-cut lemon slices, dye in food coloring overnight, freeze, and use as "ice cubes" in a drink.

The appetizer station! Mom's yummy black bean and corn salsa, veggie tray, and fruit kabobs! Rainbow, of course!

Rainbow crayon art-floating around on Twitter, blogs, and Pinterest. So easy and fun!

Cute door hangings that FeFe and GiGi made!

Excuse my mirror flash-a photog I am not. 

Oh here's a pretty little model posing by the bears.

Prezzies!!

Front room decor-we got 2 dozen primary colored balloons for pops throughout the house. The treat bags I showed you earlier were lining the front walk in rainbow colors with matching balloons tied on!

The precious and creative birthday banner my MIL made.

Some of the boys: Dad, Jason, Gerry, Hays

I love this picture of Sitchy with Emma. So cute!

Even though I'm not looking and Emma looks pained, this is sweet.

Scarlet and Margaret Anne

A shirt I found on Etsy for Emma. It was like $10 and is personalized!

Notice Emma is wearing her Carebears pillowcase dress-also found on Etsy for $15!!

Haha, her surprised face!

This is not a great picture of the cupcakes, but it's the only one I could find. See below.

I found this image on Google, printed it off, and took it to Edgar's-the best bakery in Birmingham! They were amazing and looked JUST LIKE the picture! I ordered the cupcake toppers online for like $8.

Cute birthday hats-also found with the party favors and plates/napkins.

Sweet friends sugar loading together.

Dark pic but still sweet of my birthday girl.

OH! And Sarah has something to tell y'all.............baaahahahaha!

Busy Bees and Tweedle Dees

I think I mentioned this to y'all but we were in Birmingham for TEN DAYS at the end of July through the beginning of August. We went because my MIL was having her birthday celebration there, my immediate family is all there, and we decided to make a time of it by having Emma's third birthday there, too. It was much easier this way since no one had to drive to Atlanta on a Friday (yuck!) and I didn't have to clean and prep MY house (yay!)

We kicked off the first weekend there with a lovely celebration for my MIL, FeFe, at a delicious dinner spot in Brookwood called Brio's. It is SO GOOD and I'm so sad we don't have one over here. BUT. That's probably a good thing since we all ate ourselves sick on bread, wedge salad, and delicious main dishes! The next day, MIL's besties threw her a themed Alice in Wonderland tea party for girl's only and it was hilarious and awesome. Two words. Costume Party. For grown women. Hahahahaha! MIL was the Queen of Hearts, Eve was Alice, Jamie was the mad hatter, my mom was the rabbit, Scarlet and Emma were miniature queens, and Sarah and I were......................

Yes. This happened in real life. (Stolen from sissy's blog)

While we were brainstorming what we could be without breaking the bank on a costume, Sarah came up with this. And it was genius. All we bought/made were the hats and bow ties. And a bag of pillow stuffing to create our awesome guts. It was pretty rad.

The following week brought lots of playtime, party prep, and Emma's first two days of school! Emma crashed Scarlet's school and had a lot of fun! 

Sweet cousins!

Then, Scarlet got "croup" and all hell broke loose. My kids started coming down with "it" on Thursday. With Emma's party on Saturday. Yikes. I use quotes because I'm not convinced that Scarlet or my kids had it. I think it was an upper respiratory infection. No one was coughing all night, wet bark style. We are STILL getting over whatever is going on over a week later!

Friday was cray cray. I had booked a cut and color with my stylist cousin, Mo. Y'all. My hair was SO LONG. It was like middle of my back long. I couldn't take it. I told Mo to do something good. She gave me a darker, richer color and cut it to my shoulders. I love it! And it takes 15 minutes to dry and fix!

After the hair appointment, I went to get Emma from school so I could take both kids to the doctor. Alone. Out of town. That was fun. Luckily my mom and sis met me up there to entertain while I filled out 85849409 pages of paperwork. After they went home and napped, I got busy cleaning, organizing, cooking, and decorating. Lots to do! And I couldn't do it all yet because all three kids would be up to destroy things.

We all worked together (thank you so much sis, brother, momma, FeFe, GiGi, Eve, and Jamie!!) to help make Emma's birthday a wonderful, laid back success! That post will have to be next! This is getting long!

New Look!

Come on out of Google Reader and check out my new SWEET look! The amazing Leslie Lambert of Lamberts Lately, and the creative genius at Sweetie Baby's Blog Design worked this over for me!

A few new things:
*Buttons at the top so you can find me on twitter, pinterest, or directly email me.
*Very nice and streamlined with extras running only on the left side, instead of both sides.
*Nice new colors and styles!
*Cute new fonts chosen by ME! And my links are easier to see now.
*A cute, personalized favicon when you open up on your computer. (This makes me really happy!)

Leslie is a breeze to work with, and she "gets" just what you want! She is also VERY reasonably priced. So if any of you are looking for a new, fresh design, holler at her and see what she can do for you!

What do you all think? C'est magnifique??

Meet My NEW Friend!

Thanks to an incredibly generous giveaway from Michelle at Stuttering Shell, and the awesome folks at Oreck, I am now the PROUD owner of the new Oreck Magnesium! 

Look at this blue beauty!

Notice the vacuum lines in the background.

I NEVER win anything, especially on blog giveaways. I only enter giveaways for things I really want. There are so many giveaways always going on, and I don't want to spend hours entering contests for stuff I don't really need or want. That's......a little selfish, in my opinion. Anyway, I entered Michelle's giveaway and when she tweeted me that I won, then Oreck emailed me, I flipped out! I was waiting on it to be a joke!

No joke, this pretty showed up on my doorstep a few days later, and to this self proclaimed OCD vacuum ho, it was like Christmas. I immediately got it out and started vacuuming! It is super lightweight and actually self propelled! Crazy town!

Who has an Oreck? Do you love it? 

I'll be back!

Y'all. I am literally about to come UNGLUED. Real quick, everyone in my house is sick. We've been in Birmingham for 10 days, got home yesterday, and haven't had a moment's rest. Jason is "man sick," Harrison has an ear infection, is getting his 1 year molars, and has a viral upper respiratory infection. Today Emma started screaming during nap (after 4 days of awful coughing and snot) and she was diagnosed with a double ear infection (with an eardrum about to burst) along with the same foul respiratory infection. The kids are on like 4 meds each, and I'm still not unpacked from my trip, even though I got home on Monday. Yikes.

So. Once I kick the sickness' ass, I'll be back to update you on Emma's THIRD birthday and all the other life events! Hope everyone else is well!

A Taste of Random

I mean, it's been a while since I've done a totally random post. As always, I come to you with some questions and hope to hear some answers!

*Ballet camp for Emma last week kicked my butt! It was hard to get everything done and ready for class, not to mention it was slap in the middle of Buddy's nap time. So, that was fun. Missing morning naps for a week made for a long week. But, our girl was just precious at her camp! I've uploaded the video to you tube, but now have to put a few clips in a post for y'all to laugh at! Girlfriend needs some more classes in many things since she lacks the 'following directions' gene right now. Our next foray is into gymnastics beginning in September. She's really excited about Kinder Gym!

*I feel like a loser for not having Harrison's first birthday post up. OMG. It was on June 9th. The pictures are now uploaded. Just have to edit and export.

*Harrison is still taking a morning bottle and a nighttime bottle. :::hangs head in shame::: Whatever. He likes it. I like it. I'll deal with it later.

*Emma has been taking a nap in panties for a while now. But, the past week? Wetting her bed at nap-through two towels. If I have to wash her ONLY pair of sheets anymore, they will probably disintegrate. I'm over that. She also wet her Shabby Chic comforter the other day. So that was fun to wash. When we got her potty trained, we switched to the cheapo Sam's Club diapers for at night since she was only wearing one diaper a day. BAD IDEA. She is leaking through them every  night. Now we are having to double them up to contain the tee. And I'm pretty jealous that somehow my TWO YEAR OLD NIECE is keeping her pull up dry overnight. How?

*We are headed to Birmingham for my MIL's 60th birthday celebration this week. It will be so fun! Themed, dress up tea party, girl's night out dinner at BRIO, fun, and lots of playing! Can't wait! Then, we are staying all week and having Emma's third birthday in Birmingham the following weekend. Carebears theme! So cute-I've been an Etsy and Ebay stalker over the last month. Much to Jason's dismay. It's like the USPS over here with packages arriving daily.

*Speaking of Jason, my husband STARTED A COOKING BLOG. The world just imploded. I've been after him to do it for a while, and on Friday he finally caved and asked me for a tutorial on blogger. I got him all set up with the basics, and he has totally customized it now! It's pretty sweet. So, go check out his cooking journey and follow him! Leave him some comments ladies!

*I still can't figure out what I'm doing on cleaning my hardwood floors. I just want them to be shiny!! I Shark mopped on Saturday and it looked so good while wet, but when it dries? Dull. I'm going to borrow a Bona from my neighbor and try it out. Any more advice on this dead subject?

*I feel super guilty about staying inside with the kids all day. It's just so HOT. I can't even handle taking them outside. Jason and I cleaned the garage on Sunday and the kids played in the driveway with bikes, balloons, etc and they were DRIPPING WET and red! It's just ridic. Emma's brain may soon fall out from overexposure to Berenstain Bears and Laurie Berkner Band.

That's about all the random I can muster right now. I currently have a massive headache and am overtired from staying up till 12:00 watching you tube videos.

What's random in your life?