Daily life, catching up through Instagram

This year, my big camera has been staying home a lot and I've been grabbing my phone to capture little things throughout the day.  I've been taking a picture of each kid every day (my own little 365) and tagging it so at the end of the year, we'll be able to look back and literally see an entire year at a glance....still brainstorming on what to do with it, but I'm excited.  So far I'm 137 for 137.  Let's see if I can actually keep it up.

If you are at all interested, my instagram name is mbparsons, so you can follow me there.

Since I haven't pulled the big camera out as much (maybe that will be next year's project), I need to play catch up with some every day stuff on the blog.  Here are some from the last month.

Graham's pre school class pic.  They wanted $25 for the digital file.

This is my free version.  =)

Not quite sure why Clifford was in the pics, but he's cute nonetheless.

Other month happenings....

Birthday toes

Graham wanted to try my coffee.

Turns out he likes it.

#myplanbackfired

These pics remind me we need to go here more.

 One of my favorite Instagram pics ever......these two are sometimes TOO attached.

Addison can finally put Legos together all by herself.  I love the Friends line they have now for girls.

Man, I would have been over the moon for those when I was little.  Now we just need an organization system that works over here.  Ideas?

Freebirds came to Temecula (only about 45 minutes from us, and conveniently on the way to the wineries).  

Addison discovered queso.  The girl was hooked.

It's the little things people.  Chick Fil A and Freebirds are a good start, but when can we get a Lupe Tortilla or a Chuys?  And while we're on that, go ahead and put in a HEB as well.

 Family winery day.

A lot of this going on lately....

"Surfing"

 Lots of green and color around here.

Still trying to work on sight words

 Park time

Addison's Valentine (V week was in April this year)

A guy that works with Andy had a crawfish boil.

He had crawfish flown in from Louisiana, and it was AMAZING.

So was his backyard.

and we finally have two "swimmers".

We've been trying to take advantage of any opportunity we get to swim out here

(ocean doesn't count).

There really aren't that many to be honest.

I'm getting a little jealous of all the swim team pics from Texas I'm seeing on Facebook.

I really hope that someday my kids get to enjoy that....such fun memories!

 

Between all the good food and the swimming, this guy was WORN OUT.

And that was April in a nutshell.  =)

Carlsbad Flower Fields

A couple of weeks ago I finally took the kids to the Flower Fields.  They are one of the great things Carlsbad is known for, and for three years I've driven by them during March and April and tried to steal  glances while flying 80....er, 70 on the freeway.

We finally parked the car, paid the admission and went in.

The kids LOVED it, so much more than I thought they would.  I think those people at the flower fields know what they're doing by providing a little "passport" for the kiddos.  They have to find all of the spots on the map while at the fields and put the special stamp on it.  It's the little things.

We spent over an hour there, although 20 minutes of that hour was us being stuck in the maze.

That flower maze is no joke.  I was praying nobody would have to go to the bathroom.

The pictures don't really do this place justice and we went when the sunlight was unforgiving, but it was amazingly beautiful.

Addison's Fancy Nancy Birthday Party

I used to love planning birthday parties, and then Pinterest came around and made me feel like a fool for even trying!  Don't get me wrong, I love Pinterest for so many reasons, but not many things can knock you down so quickly as taking a few minutes to look through what everyone else is doing and realize that you are LAME.

After taking a little bit of a break from the Pinterest craze, I have a newfound love for it.

For recipes, photography inspiration, people with style leading me in the right direction of what to wear....

AND.

to finding a fabulous party that someone else put a whole lot of work into and was so nice to share and totally copying it right out from under them to create a party that my girl is still talking about....thank you Pinterest.

And thank you Tiny Oranges blog for being the creative one and sharing all of your details with us moms who can take the easy way out with our kids being none the wiser!

I ordered the cute invitation from an Etsy shop 

called Pixel Parade. She was awesome to work with and also helped 

me come up with other signs to use throughout the party.

like this one, which welcomed everybody in style.

Being her 5th birthday party, I figured it was a good year to try and do a "drop off" party.....meaning the parents drop off their kids for some fun, get a few hours to themselves, and you don't have to feed them!  It worked out great.  Except I'm no dummy and begged my amazing friend Joy to be my Fancy helper and stick around for the festivities.

I needed someone to help all the girls get "fancy".

I ordered a bunch of accessories off of Windy City Novelties and Oriental Trading and let the girls pick and choose what they wanted to add to their already fancy ensembles.

We also had a little eye shadow and lip gloss to have fun with as well.

and a mirror.  

You must have a mirror to check out all the fanciness!

For food I kept it pretty simple.  Since the party was from 2-4, we just did PB&J or cheese sandwiches cut into flowers and butterflies....Fancy Nancy's favorites.  We also had Fancy fruit kabobs, cookies,

Birthday chex mix (addictive), 

and Sprinkles pink cupcakes.

 We also had flower pops which were just giant marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.

The table was the fun part and so easy thanks to those links that I grabbed off Pinterest.

I borrowed tables and chairs from friends.

I got purple foam sheets and cut them into butterflies for placemats (which the girls decorated as one of the crafts).  The eiffel towers came from Birthday express.

Flower centerpieces were from Party City as well as the poms.

Addison still has these in her room!

Since this was a Fancy Nancy party, I decided to pull out the good stuff.

The stuff I registered for, but have yet to use.......the china.

The girls did great, but I wouldn't have put it out if I would have cared if something did go wrong.

I thought it would just be fun to have a "real" tea party.  And by real tea, I mean crystal light.

I found these silk organza ties off Amazon for an absolute STEAL.

 Addison's dad dressed up for the occasion and helped answer the door....she helped him get ready, even picking out his tie. 

and loved that he dressed up for her special day.

Can you tell that this girl was excited for her party?

  To keep the fun going (and fill the two hours) we had a few crafts/activities planned.

When the girls arrived, they got "fancy" with the accessories and make up.

They also decorated a hat (thank you Target $ spot).

I just cut up spare bows and bought a huge bag of feathers from Michaels.  

After everyone was there we did the first craft of decorating the place mats with jewels and stickers found at Michaels.

I channeled my old teacher self and read "Fancy Nancy's Posh Puppy" to the group.

and then the girls all got to decorate their own puppy dog collar.

The puppies were also found online at Birthday Express.

After snacks, cake, and crafts were done, we played a game that I remembered from a party when I was little. It's basically like hot potato, but you wrap several boxes inside each other with a little prize in each one.  Music plays, present gets passed, music stops, prize is opened.  The girls loved it.

I wrapped up things like inexpensive books, play jewelry, a boa, etc.

Treat time.

  

Graham got to join in the festivities for a Sprinkles cupcake because who am I to keep a kid from Sprinkles? Girls only party or not.....

For favors, I found a cute Fancy Nancy book on Amazon and put a little "Merci" sticker inside from Addison for each guest.

The party was a huge success, most of all because my girl continues to tell me that her was her best day ever.  I can't believe she's FIVE!!! 

But yet I can, because she continues to remind me every day.....