Laney's 3rd Birthday 8-24-14

Laney Faith is 3 and I just can't believe it!  She has grown from a non-talking toddler into a chatty little girl.  Her birthday was the day after the birthday party so it was a quick turn around to make her day special.  

 She spotted her present and barely gave me enough time to grab my camera before they ripped into it.

 "A MiMi bike!!"  

 Already into the candy…and yes, I let her eat those Skittles.   I am a sucker for birthdays.  

 Frozen birthday balloons in the lawn from Grandpa and Grandma.

 A little birthday singing on her karaoke machine.

 I have always made cinnamon rolls as Laney's birthday breakfast.  Unfortunately I remembered this the afternoon of the birthday party - I knew I didn't have cinnamon rolls in my future.  So we did the next best thing, a breakfast cupcake and she wanted me to light a candle and sing to her.  Of course I obliged.  Her baby joined us for breakfast :).

 Adam doing what Dads do on birthdays and holidays - putting together kids' gifts.  Laney had pulled all the cushions off the couch and was jumping on them.  I don't think she stopped talking all.day.long.

 I took Coop and Pippi down to Grandma and Grandpa's house so we could take Laney on a birthday date.  What better place to take a stuffed animal hoarder than Build-A-Bear!?  It was brilliant.  From the minute we walked in she spotted exactly what she wanted…the tye dye Hello Kitty.  Here she is picking out the personality traits for her Hello Kitty.

 She got to stuff it,

 give her heart lots of love,

 and place her heart.  

 She gave her a bath and created her birth certificate.  She named her, Meowy.  LOL.  Seriously, we couldn't stop laughing.  

 She was beaming and over the moon proud.

 She got to ring the birthday bell,

 and the whole store sang to her :).

 We were walking out, she was so stinkin' adorable carrying that big box all smiles.  I told Adam, "take a picture of her."  And Laney said, "yeah Dad, take a picture of me."  She stopped in her tracks and smiled.

She requested to ride the escalator and since it was her birthday, we did.

 Her one birthday request was to go to the carwash so we did.  She loves the car wash almost as much as her Dad ;).  

 And she's out.

 It's so fun to have one on one time with each of the kids.

 She picked out her cake and icing at the store so I made it despite all the other desserts we had from the party.

 Love.

 Grandma and Grandpa with our August babies.

This picture just about sums her up.  Sweet, sassy, and a whole lot of cute!

Happy 3rd Birthday Laney Faith - we love you so much!!!!!!!

Another double birthday party for our August babies!

Man, I just looked back at last year's birthday party here.  My kids were so little!  And I loved Cooper's long hair!  But the thing I was most sad about was all the great pictures I took…I totally failed at this year's party.  I should have put someone in charge of that :(.  I didn't even get a picture of the 2 kids together!  Or of Adam and I with them!  Total Bummer!

Cooper wanted a very boy themed party but Laney is too old to get by with that.  They both love to color so I casually mentioned having a coloring party…just waiting for a backlash from the Superhero kid.  Much to my surprise, he was all for it!  It was supposed to be a coloring party yet 5 minutes after the party started I was printing out some coloring pages to throw on the tables :).

It's 2014 so of course there is an app for me to create our invites and text them out :).  I did print a couple copies of it for keepsakes.  If you don't already have the Red Stamp app - I highly recommend it (free)!  Phew-it was a lot of work to get all the errands ran, house cleaned up and food cooked but we did it and it was 100% worth it!  It couldn't have happened without my mom and sister, who cooked and helped days leading up to and the day of the party.

 Laney and her friend Gia.  The kids had Chick-Fil-A nuggets, fruit, applesauce and mac'n'cheese.  All of my kids' favorite foods!  Cooper suggested meatballs for the adults, so that's what we did!

 Anna and Ashley - if there was a coloring contest, I am pretty sure they would have won!

 It was a full house-about 40 total people!  And it was about 100 degrees out so everyone was inside.  No cooperation from Mother Nature that day.  

 I was making rainbow cupcakes for Laney but her Aunt Alli thought she was being deprived so she made her a cake.

 Sweet Landree

 Party decor was simple, as always.

A birthday party isn't a party to Coop unless there is a piñata.  

Caannnnddddyyyyyyy!  I threw away so much candy the next day and my kids never once asked where there bag was!

 I thought I could get away with just one piñata but she was with me on the Party City trip and she wasn't leaving without that piñata.  

 Testing out her new Frozen karaoke machine from Bryson and Tara.

 I would have guessed her to be much more shy during her birthday song.

 He was hamming it up.

 Forced cheesy smile #1

 Forced cheesy smile #2.  Since his first birthday I have gotten him a cookie cake for a selfish reason…it's my favorite.  I probably ate 1/4 of that cake, yum, yum, yum.

 She was giddy about her gifts!

 Hi Charlie!

 He got some awesome gifts and definitely took his time opening them.

 It was chaos as you can imagine with 2 kids opening birthday presents.  Apparently Piper wanted to make her presence known.  She was literally squealing!

 He is so my kid…middle of his party and he has Adam reading him books.

I got the Happy Birthday banner here.  She was great, it came shipped super fast!  Then the day of the party my sister shows up with the Cooper & Laney banner.  It matched perfectly-she is so talented!!!

Thanks to all of you that came and made this party memorable!  We had so much fun!

8 months!

Well, technically 8 1/2 months :(.  I thought I took these pics on her actual 8 month birthday but definitely didn't so we did them tonight.  Oops.  So - she has changed a lot in the last few weeks but I am going to write this post as if she was 8 months tonight :).

Piper is such a happy baby and is getting more interactive everyday!  She brightens our days.

-She is going to bed around 8-9ish and up around 7.  Still taking morning and afternoon nap and usually an evening snooze around 5.

-I am still nursing her full time and really can't believe it.  I was so over nursing the other two by 6 months-but it just seems so much easier this time around.  Who has time to make and wash bottles!??  She does take bottles and formula with no problem.  I nurse her 5 times a day and she eats breakfast and usually lunch or dinner.  Getting better with table food, but really loving the squeeze food pouches.  No longer wants any of the food I made :(.

-We have got a CRAWLER!  Just a few days before turning 8 months she started crawling!!!  She sits up really well now too.

-She still just has the 2 teeth on the bottom but her 2 fang teeth are trying to break thru.

 The hair continues to grow like crazy!  It's really thick up front and really thin in the back.

 She stole her 8 block and can't believe how old she is!

The headband is officially too small.  Love leg rolls here!!!!