Happy HALF Birthday Kaylee!

In honor of Kaylee's half birthday the other day she decided she wanted "half" of a birthday cake!  So that is what she got!!

Swim Lessons

The last two weeks we have been taking swim lessons.  It was a rough start with Nolan, crying for the first 3 days, but by day 4 he started doing so much better.  All this week he had no tears and have done really well.

Nathan had his first little baby class

Laundry Time

Laundry time got way more fun with the Daddy laundry train!

First Job

This summer Kaylee and Alexa have their first little job helping Memaw out.  My Mom watches my niece and nephew on Mondays while my sister is at work and my Mom recruited Kaylee and Alexa to alternate Mondays and help out to play with Asher and help hold Maggie when need be.  My Mom actually pays them a dollar an hour to help so it really is their first job!  I hear the girls are a huge help and they are doing a great job!

Kaylee with Maggie and Asher

Family Pizza Night......on a budget

For the last month our family has really enjoyed having a weekend family pizza night.  This is not something our family has always all enjoyed.....meaning the kids.  When it was just the girls...or when Nolan was still too little to care, we would get groans from the girls when Ryan and I would mention wanting to have pizza for dinner.  Ryan and I would think that was so funny because when we were little, and actually got to have pizza, we would think it was the greatest thing ever!

PJ Mask

Our good friends daughters made Nolan these PJ Mask, masks.  They have been a huge hit with Nolan and Alexa and even Kaylee will join in sometimes.  :)  Nolan and Alexa are always running around playing PJ Mask and at any given time Nolan will often have one of these masks on his head.  

Cat Boy, Owlette, and Gekko.
Nolan often doesn't cooperate for pictures very well, but when I asked to get a picture of them in their masks he sure got into character.  :)

4th of July... Day and Party

This year on July 4th we had fun with family and friends at a BBQ at our house.  I have recently been enjoying being off my dairy free, practically food free, diet so I ate entirely way too much onion dip and artichoke dip....but that is what holidays are for.  :)  We started the day before getting a few things ready:

Kaylee made some patriotic cupcakes.  I love how she is becoming such a great baker in the kitchen. :)  Girl after my own heart!  

She took a regular box of white cake mix.

When the cupcakes were cooled she took some strawberry jello and just added the boiling water.  Then she took a chop stick to poke about 6-7 holes half way down in the top of each cupcake and spooned the jello water on top so it could soak in the holes.  Then the cupcakes were put in the fridge overnight.  

The next day she added cool whip, blueberries and patriotic sprinkles.

Prescott

Each year we look forward to our yearly Prescott trip.  Sometimes it falls on 4th of July and sometimes not.  Sometimes we stay the night, and sometimes we don't.  We usually go off the Rodeo Parade or Kiddie Parade of when we go.  This year Ryan worked the Saturday of the main parade so we went up for the Friday Kiddie Parade.  We actually went up on Jun 30th and then spent the night and the kiddie parade was Friday morning July 1.  Personally I think the parade for me has just become an excuse to go to cooler weather, green, a historic town at 4th of July, green, cooler, not brown.....did I say green and cooler??  Just sayin!
I remember we did the kiddie parade a couple years back and it was nice because it was shorter and that is perfect for the kids...and us!  This year it was really short because we took a little too long with breakfast, and we forgot that this parade was shorter so when we got out there it only had about 10 min left.  Ooops!  More time to enjoy the green grass and cooler weather of Prescott.  When in Phoenix this time of year we usually hover around 105-110 degrees, 70's, 80's, and even low 90's seem wonderful!  This year we stayed at the Historic Hotel St Michael.  It has a great downtown location and our room overlooked the courthouse square.  It was fun staying in an old hotel but the elevator was the original so it was a little harder to get into and small.  It had a door you had to pull open to get in so it made it harder with a stroller.  I still liked it because it was old and I like that sort of thing.

Mini Themed Birthday Party~ Nathan's First!

Our own little mini is turning 1,

so come and join us for some itty bitty fun!

Nathan's Miniature 1st 

Birthday Party

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Just a teeny bit past 5pm

The small house on:

Tiny regrets only:

Flag Pole Pancakes

We hope everyone had a fun 4th of July!  We had fun with all things red, white, and blue.  We started off our morning with these super cute Flag Pole pancakes.  Kind of a spin off of our flag cake we make every year.  These were super easy.

4th of July Flag Cake

This is definitely a fun cake we see this time of year in magazines or other blogs and there are so many different versions of it.  I was trying to remember but I think I have been making this cake for about 18-19 years.  I know I made it a few times in high school and then in college and all the way up to now!  It was always fun to bring to parties or just have if I was staying home with family.  As I had kids and they have gotten older it has become a fun tradition for them to help with.  It always looks so fancy and patriotic but it is super easy....especially how I do it now!

Nathan's First Birthday Cont...

The other night got too late but wanted to finish up Nathan's first birthday post:

At 12 months Nathan loves.....