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- Today is Braelynn’s 5th birthday!! Say, what?! And we’re celebrating with a big PAW Patrol themed birthday party!! She has been counting down the days until her birthday since Christmas & the big day is finally here – I can hardly believe it! Stay tuned: I’ll post more about her party (which is happening in just a few hours) next week!
- I posted Braelynn’s 5th birthday portraits last night – did you catch them?
- This whole week has flown by in a flurry of preparations: grocery shopping, making food for the party, wrapping presents, deep cleaning every room of my house, decorating, blowing up a billion balloons, icing cakes – whew! What a week!
- Speaking of the party (can you tell that this party consumed my entire week?) Papa & Nana came in last night to be here for the weekend to celebrate with Braelynn – and they brought a surprise guest!! Omigoodness, if I could just relive the moment of Braelynn realizing that her best friend & cousin Cameron had come with Papa & Nana for her birthday – I would be a happy girl for the rest of my days. Braelynn had anxiously hoped that Cameron could come, but I had to let her know that Aunt Naomi & Uncle Paul were unable to come down for the weekend – she was so disappointed. Just 2 days ago though – we got the news that everything had been ironed out for Cam to come with Papa & Nana and we decided to keep it a secret from Braelynn. We let Braelynn stay up quite a bit passed her bedtime in order to welcome Papa & Nana and boy oh boy did she get the surprise of her life when Cameron walked thru the door too.
- So yes, we have a big party planned for today .. and then .. nothing. As in, the last few weeks have been this whirlwind – Thanksgiving, Leander’s birthday, Christmas, and then Braelynn’s birthday. It makes February such a long, bleak, quiet month. I remember last year really struggling with all the exciting events being over. Thankfully, we have an exciting trip planned mid-February & then we’ll roll right into Ellen’s baby being due – Alethea’s birthday, and my first wedding of the year! So, maybe it won’t be so bad this year?
- (Moving on from party stuff) Leander has been walking everywhere – it’s hilarious & so much fun to watch! He shuffles & waddles & prances around the whole house! He’s catching on to this whole walking thing pretty quick (I mean, he has to keep up with his sister & all!)
- Speaking of Leander – he perfected giving “nice” kisses this week!! Up until this point, he would give us a kiss, but it was with a wide-open-mouth & was more of a “bite” than a “kiss” – this week though he has been super into mimicking everyone (especially Braelynn) so when he saw Braelynn give Mommy a “nice” kiss, he decided that he would give one too! And it was such a hugely celebrated moment, that he’s been doing it over & over – I’m obsessed.
- Remember how I mentioned last week that we got a new bed? We jumped on the Nectar train & got one of those fancy internet mail-order mattresses. Well, it’s been almost a week of us sleeping on it & well, the verdict is still out. We were hoping it would almost instantly make a difference in Derrick’s back pain (he had been waking up in terrible pain every morning on our old mattress) and so far, nothing has really changed with this new one. We’re giving it a few more weeks, but if it doesn’t seem to make any difference, we’ll be sending it back!
mid February trip? I’m out of the loop.
[…] you’d like a trip down memory lane, you can go back & see the past photos I’ve taken here: #283, #236, […]
[…] like a trip down memory lane, you can go back & see the past photos I’ve taken here: #335, #283, #236, #184. (But seriously: Leander’s hair in this photo makes my laugh! Everything is so […]
[…] Braelynn celebrated her 8th birthday this week!! Since her birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, we opted to have her birthday party the weekend before (that way, Papa and Nana could be with us). I’ll be posting more about her party this coming week!I still wanted to make her birthday as special as possible though, so I told her I’d make her whatever she wanted for breakfast. We then made plans to pick up lunch from one of her favorite restaurants (“The Cookie Place” aka Eat’n’Park) and go visit my Grandma (Braelynn’s Great Grandma). And then we had church that night.So for breakfast, Braelynn told me she wanted crepes. I wasn’t surprised – she’s requested crepes for her birthday breakfast every year for the past 2-3 years! I started putting the batter together and then realized that I didn’t have any strawberries – no worries, I had frozen blueberries, we’d just use those. Then, I realized I didn’t have any whipped cream – no worries, I had heavy cream, I’d just make some! So, I started pulling all of that out and as I was pouring the heavy cream into the measuring cup, I realized it was spoiled. Yuck. Needless to say, Braelynn’s “birthday crepes” didn’t turn out nearly as planned! So, I promised her we would re-do them on Saturday – with the correct topping ingredients this time! (And spoiler alert – we made them this morning, with fresh cream and fresh strawberries – they were delicious!)Otherwise, we have celebrated our BIG girl all week! We went to Red Lobster on Monday night for endless shrimp, we visited Braelynn’s Great Grandma, Great Meme and Great Grandpa (all of my grandparents), and we’ve been reminded every single day that she’s now “eight years old”.So, today is the annual “Braelynn’s birthday Abby’s Saturday” photo! If you’d like a trip down memory lane, you can go back & see the past photos I’ve taken here: #388, #335, #283, #236, #184. […]