Pre-school an update..

I am happy to report that the past week and half of Preschool drop off's have been tear free. For both Darrian and parents. He is getting more used to the idea of going, and dare I say having fun. He is making lots of crafts (pictures to follow shortly) and the teachers say he is really sweet and is even giving them hugs good-bye. I am glad he has adjusted and quickly, I am sure there will be off day's but it is good that we know he has good one's too. :)

Happy Monday!

yea right. It's monday, often time's the hardest day of the week for me. I don't think I will ever be a morning person, just can't seem to love an early wake up. Last night I went out with Niki for dinner, and left about an hour before Darrian's bedtime. It is hard to leave him these day's because he will get upset if I leave the room and he thinks I have left :(. I basically snuck out like a teenager last night. When I got home he was already in bed and I told Keith how much I miss him when I don't get to put him to bed. It makes me want to go in and wake him up, I don't-- but I want to! So at 3 am I guess Darrian must of heard me jinx myself, he woke up and came into bed with us. He tossed and turned, I closed my eyes only to feel like someone was staring at me. I open them and there is Darrian wide eye'd and just looking at me with a grin on his face! I told him it was time to go to sleep, it was still night night out... his response.. "ooookkaaayyyy". Only to toss and turn for anther couple of hours! finally at about 5 am I told him he had to go back to his bed, and he did. So although I miss bedtime, I don't want to make up for it between the hours of 3-5 am. That made Monday morning wake-up call even harder !

Finally starting to feel like Fall out! I want to throw a fall party, I think I want to throw a party for every reason there is :). I have an addiction. All these blogs about home parties I read are not helping my addiction, nor is etsy. I guess I could have worse problems right?? I love fall and look forward to the pumpkin patches, soup, and cooler weather...

Blog Challenge #1 ...Why do you blog?

I belong to an amazing community of woman (I have talked about them a few times here before), we were all talking about blogs last week. Most of us feel like our blogs become photo dumps (who me?) without much inspiration for anything else. A fellow Mom thought it would be fun to start a blog challenge to maybe get our minds inspired. This is the first week.

This week's prompt is: Why do you blog? What do you hope to get out of participating in this challenge?

Why do I blog?
It started 3 years ago (can you believe that?) when I was looking for a way to keep us connected with friends and family who did not live nearby. It is hard to talk to everyone everyday, or even once a week, and when we did talk and they asked what have we been doing I would say "nothing" . Well that doesn't open up the conversation very much, and I am on the go constantly so why didn't I have lots to talk about. I sort of started this hoping it would keep us better connected. Since then so much has happened and it is all documented right here. It has turned into being about mainly Darrian, and a few of my random thoughts thrown in. I find myself thankful for it now because it has documented so much of Darrian's life and it is easy for me to look back at the milestones (and when they happen). I still blog to keep connected, and often here from friends that they feel like they talk and see me often because of the blog.

What do you hope to get out of participating in this challenge?

I am hoping it will spark some new topics to write about, and help me expand it a bit from the same old, same old that I type about.

VOTE FOR DARRIAN

(let's try this again, hopefully it works) .. you can vote for every picture in the bunch..

https://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/justmarried67/

feel free to pass the link on..

It's not a party without people you love.......

No matter the decor, or the fun details...Darrian's party was only special because we got to share it all with family and friends we love (and really that's all you need to "celebrate"). Thank you to all those who came to celebrate our little boy with us!! Here are some pictures from the day.........Sorry I did not get a picture of everyone, the hardest thing about having a party is getting pictures and I never feel like I get enough.

I felt very special that Darrian's Birthday twin made an appearance at his party, just 5 days old isn't Baby Gemma SO cute?

Big sister Oona playing with D, and kept telling him ALL about how she was a big sister.

Wouldn't be a party without Greyson ...

Ms. A getting so big, and so pretty.

blowing out candles

It was so cute Darrian was singing Happy Birthday too.

Pinata aftermath

Faith another proud big sister, SO cute in her cheerleading outfit.

Laura who looks AMAZING, and Oona

Drew and my favorite girls

The twins in the bounce house with the capes on...

My favorite guy...

My favorite girls again..

and my other favorite Lily in her CUTE pink converse, She has SOO much personality and is funny. She was so cute playing and calling for "dee, dee, dee" , she is a smart cookie. oh yes and her Mom I love her too.

J & J.

K out and about with both kids on her own already, um these ladies are going to make me look bad lol.

Darrian's 2nd Birthday Party --Details

I started planning Darrian's party back in Jan. because I wanted to do something I had not seen before, and I wanted lots of time to pull it together. I was thinking of doing pirates, but I see pirate parties all over the web right now so I thought maybe something like prince or knights. I wanted a cute kid element to it, since D is only two. I thought a cute dragon would do the trick. Once I had the ideas the rest fell into place. I was lucky enough to use talented people from Etsy to bring the ideas to life. I was really happy with how it all came together, and the kids had a great time. I hope it was fun and memorable....now a few months of rest before starting the next one. Just kidding I promised Keith to not go AS big next year (yea right).

Here are some detail shots of the party..

main table: had the cape favors, favor boxes, the cake, framed invite, and table runner that matched many of the other decorations (pendants, D's shirt), and a framed picture of D.

The cake was amazing and matched the runner and colors perfectly!

Cake and the invite, the dragon on the cake inspired from the one on the invite.

Centerpieces had necklaces and coins overflowing, ribbon that matched the photo banner and the dragon from the invite.

gold coins on the table runner

favor boxes, I left these opened and unfilled we had a pinata and these were used to carry the pinata treats home.

Favors that my friend Lisa helped me make, these are the girl capes and were SO cute on the kids. Also had the dragon favor tag on it.

Invite...LOVED it

table set up

I wanted two pendant's like you have at castles, I originally thought paper one's but the girl who made the banner recommended her friend who did them in fabric. I really loved how the came out. The fabric matched the table runners and D's shirt.

The whole set up with the pendants and the banner...

favors

Instead of party hat's I had crowns made for the kids, in three colors and with the 2 and two dragons on them.

Darrian's special crown

Something I actually made :) A photo banner with a picture from each month from age 1 to 2.

The Castle :)

The photo banner

The custom pinata filled with play dough, jewels (ring pops & necklaces), and treats.

We had cupcakes for the kids with cool crown toppers.

Darrian's 2nd Birthday

Darrian's 2nd birthday fell on a Monday and I took the day off. Grandma and I took Darrian to the CA Academy of Sciences to play, then out to lunch. That evening I cooked Darrian's favorite meal (chicken, mac and cheese, and corn on the cob) and we celebrated with a cake.