Benny Turned TWO!
Over the weekend Jackson’s little buddy Ben turned 2! He had a fun pool party followed by pizza & cupcakes. All of the little ones were so cute, and Jackson was more than happy to show off his swimming skills. Here is some photo spam of Ben’s party:
Shall we start with the many faces of Benjamin?!
:) Here are all the little buddies:
Sidenote: J & Diego might have the cutest toddler friendship in the history of the universe:
The three Amigos!
Ben was SO cute when we sang happy birthday. It started out ok, but then he decided it was far too noisy!
Happy birthday Benny, we love you!
A Traintastic Birthday Celebration!
You know what is absolutely ridiculous? The fact that it has taken me 2.5 weeks to post photos from Jack’s 2nd birthday party. Inexcusable, really! The theme for the party this year was trains. Kid loves a good choo choo train. I want to keep the photos of the details to a minimum and overload you with photos of the kids, because, really, who doesn’t like to see cute kiddos?!
I used a lot of blue ticking fabric for the details of the party, to give it a real vintage conductor feel. I made the special hats (which i mom failed and forgot to even put on Jackson for his cupcake :(), and used red and white accents for a color scheme. The table had a fabric runner with some flowers, balloons, and stars. Simple & Easy.
My friend and cake baker extraordinaire, Megan, made the most fantastic train cake (like her page)!!!. The tracks around the bottom and the smoke coming from the train were fantastic details, AND there was a number two on the back of the locomotive :). I also purchased chevron paper straws for some added flair. I made the banner using my trusty cricut (seriously - a cricut turns a 2 hour job into a 10 minute job. get one), and some scrapbooking paper. The bottom right photo shows the dessert/favor table. My sister made amazing cupcakes, and I displayed Jackson’s Year I and Year II Photobooks. Also, I used a vintage traincase to hold the favor bags which included: Conductor hats, train whistles, bubbles, and other fun kid-friendly things!
The main activity for the littles was to paint wooden trains to take with them as a keepsake. It was messy, but so cute.
Here are some photos of my favorite little man and his buddies enjoying the festivities!
Playing football with Jesse :)
Hi Alex!
Lovely Miss PBT <3
Vaughn in all of his two week old glory!!!! I will be stealing him very soon!
Ben gives dirty looks ;)
Hi Diego!
Ben & his mama Emily :)
This is 8 month old Caleb, he is a flirt and soooo cute!
Presents!
Cupcakes!
At least someone got some use out of the party hats!
I still can’t believe my crazy, sweet, awkward smiling, trailer loving boy is 2 already!
I have been horrible at blogging lately. J’s party was nearly two weeks ago and I haven’t even posted about it! We have been moving and things are finally starting to calm down, so ill be catching up soon, but in the meantime here is a 20 second video to promote good self-esteem in toddlers ;)
Happy Birthday to my favorite TWO YEAR OLD of all time! Click play for a montage of his second year :)
Spring has Sprung!
We are so happy to finally be able to enjoy the warmer weather. Jackson has been spending as much time as possible outdoors, and as exhausting as it can get, I can’t say that I mind at all, because within seconds, the funniest and cutest expressions come across his little face: 
Wednesday marks two years for our boy, and I honestly have been trying to figure out just how we made it here so quickly. He was just a baby, and now he is BIG. Opinionated, carefree, demanding, sweet, loving, and BIG.
All I know is that I have loved every single second that he has been here, and I am so looking forward to the next 8 decades or so, just to see where this lovely little journey takes us. Big things are in store for this big kid.
king of the awkward forced smile
We celebrated Easter with all of the cousins and many of the grandparents yesterday. Jackson woke up to a basket full of stuff, and wanted to “ofen it” all without paying any attention to the next item :) I think the clear winners were the two chuggington interactive trains to add to his set, and the aquadoodle, which he is obsessed with already. He calls it painting and spends a minimum of 20 minutes per session drawing on the mat - which is an eternity in the attention span of a toddler. Here are some photos from our day:
I sure do love a kid in a bowtie!
1. Good Morning
2. You are Scaring me…
3. Tantrum
4. Cute
5. “Behave.”
6. Cute x 2
These were taken at a really absurd hour of the morning on Thursday while we were getting ready for school (him) & work (me). He was being extra cute and silly, and I didn’t want to miss out on the moment. He decided after starting to eat his apples, however, that it was time to be serious and told me to “behave.” I was speechless for at least a full minute ;).
I am having a really hard time believing that one month from today, this little guy will be two years old. I say it all the time, but it really is unbelievable how it feels like he has hardly been here, but has been here all along at the same time. One thing is for certain, though the past two years have flown by, they sure have been the greatest couple years of my life.
Two seems so big to me. Like he really isn’t a baby anymore. In fact, he points to kids that are 6 months younger than him and says “Baaaabbyyyyy!!!!’ And his language skills are nuts all of a sudden. He is literally communicating and able to carry on a full conversation. I will ask what he did at school and he will tell me that he read books, rode on the buggy, and played outside with his friends. My mind is blown daily. Just tonight, he realized that Zac (btw, he totally only calls him Zac now, daddy who?) was on the phone with Grandpa, and he held his phone up to his year and emphatically stated “I talk it!” and proceeded to have a full conversation wtih him about how he played with his trucks all day.
The next month will be spent feverishly preparing for a birthday party, attending baby/bridal showers, AND taking a business trip to Georgia. I’ll be busy, to say the least, but while we are closing in on two years with our adult-child, I couldn’t be more excited looking towards the future to see what this little guy has in store for us - except the tantrums…he can leave those at the door!
