Cromwell Court Block Party; Memorial Day 2013

Cromwell Court recently had a Block Party for the first time in approximately 23 years! I'm not exactly sure when they stopped or what the history is (I was in elementary school in WI 23 years ago!), but one of the women who attended said she used to coordinate them and listed "23 years ago" in her comment. I've been dying for us to get together as a street for the four years (it became officially 4 years the last weekend in April! Can you believe that!?) that we've lived here, and I finally made it come together. (A huge shout out and thanks to the Smiths, without whom it wouldn't have happened!)

For the most part, the street is quiet, connected, and neighborly, but there just hasn't been large-scale get togethers as far as I can tell. We had a housewarming party in September of 2009, but we've not been aware of anything like it since then. (Or perhaps we've just been too busy having babies!) We truly have the neighborly relationships that I dreamed of having--ones that the 1950s are notorious for having, and it makes me never want to move. I love my house and I love my street. I love borrowing a cup of sugar (or vinegar or oil or a platter, etc.), helping mow a neighbor's yard, but getting everyone together so that names and faces and houses could all be better connected was important to me. The turnout was really good that I'm already praying it will happen again next year.

We set up in our yard and the Smiths' yard, each putting out as many tables and chairs as we had (or borrowed), rolled Seth's grill out front, set out different lawn games, and a table for the food. (This was the biggest "problem"--we need more tables for food next time.) The kids ate and played while the adults were able to mingle and either meet or get reacquainted. It was perfect weather and I think it's safe to say that everyone had a good time.

Graham was happy to be in the exersaucer most of the evening, which was awesome!

I think Austin might have had 3 brownies and 2 cookies that day. But hey, it was a holiday, right!? 

One of the original residents, Ms. Gordan.

The food table was seriously overflowing with yummy food.

Sheala hamming it up for the camera.

Some of the kids wandered over to the Hernandez backyard. Austin cannot wait til he's a BIG boy.

This kid sweats like nobody's business.

Overall, it was a very fun evening. The weather was great, the food was yummy, and it was the perfect end to Memorial Day.

End of the school year 2013...

I coordinated an effort for Austin's MDO class to all contribute money toward a gift and "sign" a big Thank You card. I somehow failed to get a very good picture of the card, but the front said "Thank You" in a rainbow of colors and then I wrote "so much!" on the inside. Parents passed the card, my stamp pads, and an envelope for money around, and we ended up with a pretty sweet gift for Ms. Pam and Ms. Nancy. Ms. Pam got a $100 Target gift card and some teacher-y notecards with "Ms. Pam" on them while Ms. Nancy got a $50 Target gift card.

I emailed all the parents and suggested we all meet early on the very last day so that we could give it to her as a group. And I was able to catch a few pictures!

She was shocked and thrilled with it.

Here she's teasingly asking Eric and Austin if they had put their feet on her card.

And then she started crying and turned away from me so I couldn't get her picture.

The best I could get as she was avoiding the camera!

Austin and Eric are best buds and they very quickly hugged goodbye when we suggested it.
(Austin had JUST woken up and had slept so hard he gave himself a red splotch on his temple!)

I can't believe how much more grown up he looks!

We gave $10 Starbucks cards to each of the boys' BSF teachers as a Thank You for loving on them so well and for teaching them so much. But it was such a crazy time, I only got a picture of one boy with one teacher. I'm already looking forward to taking them next year! 

Mrs. Suggs on our last day of BSF for the year. She loved him and he loved her.

Graham Rocking!

Go baby go!

Graham Progression Photos -- 7 Months

Graham is awesome. 99% of the time, he is a smiley, happy, content baby. God definitely knew what he was doing when he gave us this personality. I don't know how well I would have survived the last 7 months if he hadn't been such an easy going guy. Having said that though, he does have some stubbornness in him, and when he doesn't feel well, he gets darn right cranky. Thankfully, though, those days are far and few between.

His biggest accomplishment this month is that he rolls to his tummy and then (finally!) gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. I'd heard of this before, that it's the preparation for crawling, but Austin never did that. (He stayed on his back as often as possible, and when we finally convinced him to try crawling (at 9.5 months) he did the army/broken-leg cricket crawl until he decided to just stand up and walk at 11.5 months.) So it's been pretty cool to watch. (I got some of Graham rocking on video and will post it soon.) The last week of his 6th month, he cut three teeth. All in the same week. Some of them are visible in the photos below. Enjoy!

He's had those two bottom teeth for like 3 months now. 

He rolls to his tummy...

and then he's up on his knees.

You can see the three upper teeth here. 

He's also ready to start doing some cruising! 

As usual, Austin wanted in on the photo session.

Love my sweet boys!

To compare to 1 week.
To compare to 1 month.
To compare to 2 months.
To compare to 3 months.
To compare to 4 months.
To compare to 5 months.
To compare to 6 months.

Design Dilemma 1; follow up (finally!)

This post is a quick follow-up to this post. (Thanks again for the feedback I got to it!)

Here's the before:

Here's the after/now:

It doesn't seem like much of a difference in that picture, but it makes a huge difference in feeling while walking down the hallway.

And here's a closer-up version of the pictures, better showing the brotherness of these sweet boys of mine.

And one of Austin being silly:

We LOVE how it turned out. THANK YOU for the encouragement. My biggest worry was that the hallway would feel too small and cramped after adding the pictures, but it's actually made a warmer, roomy feeling about it. It's more like a room than a long, boring hallway now. I have another design dilema coming your way soon. Stay tuned.

Mother's Day; May 2013

They say there are no guarantees in life. I disagree. I can guarantee that taking a picture with two small boys (2.5 and 6 months) is nearly impossible every. single. time! We got ready for church early on Mother's Day so that Seth could spend as much time as needed trying to get all three of us looking at the camera for a group shot, and then also get one of me and each son. It's important to me that I spend some time in front of the camera even though I'm not exactly pleased with what I see. Having them sit on my lap helps, though, because you can't actually see much of me (and I had Seth stand rather than sit so that my double chin was as little as possible). We had fairly good success, but only because he took about 100 pictures! ;-)

Here's what it usually looked like:

Which is pretty impressive given that Graham was doing this the whole time:

And Austin was doing this:

or this:

or this:

But we got this*:

And then there was Austin and I having fun (I love these pictures!):

And the best of me and my sweet "Grahamer Man" (read: the only one where both he and I are looking at the camera. Please excuse the cleavage.)

And lastly, the best group shot we could get:

I spent the day before Mother's Day as a Momma Day Away, and I highly recommend it. I got a facial, a pedicure (the BEST pedicure I have EVER had in my ENTIRE life. --think antigravity chair, noise canceling headphones playing ocean AND thunderstorm, warm blankie to cover up with, fuzzy eye mask. It. Was. Amazing. If you live in the DFW or Austin areas. Go to Hiatus Spa for a pedicure. Ohmygosh. It will change your life. I felt more relaxed in that 45 minutes than I have in years!), and then a haircut and highlights. I needed the pedicure, cut, and color anyways, so doing them all in one day was an awesome way to get away.

The morning of Mother's Day, Seth presented me with the most wonderful card I've ever seen in my life. (I had known something was up when on Saturday--after returning from my day away, Austin had marker on his hands. :-) I'm told that Austin told Seth what to cut out and then told Seth to label them with their names (which he identified). Apparently he also wanted a train so Seth improvised. So sweet! I love it.

front

inside

back

My gift was the necklace you see in the pictures, which I designed myself on this Etsy shop. I contacted her and told her I wanted two stones representing October, the most non-pink/opal-like she had, without anything else on the chain. Just the two stones. It's simple, subtle, yet obvious. And perfectly me. I love it. Thanks, babe! ;-)

*This is the first and only picture I have ever seen and thought "He DOES have my eyes." Even the other pictures from that day don't make me think that. Especially the group shot. I see Seth's eyes in that one. Well, whoever's eyes Austin has, they're cute ones! Graham's too.

I know something else that's guaranteed. Getting 5 kids, aged 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 to take a good picture is also nearly impossible. This is what pictures always look like:

Turner is proving his Spofford Man-ness here. :-| (and it's one of Graham's best pictures)

 half are good and the other half aren't

 But I did get this:

And then a couple of the generations:

How was your Mother's Day? What did you do?