Shutterfly my holiday, baby!

Calling all bloggers!!! Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards just for doing what we do...ramble. And lord knows I can ramble for most anything, but this is seriously something worth my babbling energy :) Shutterfly rocks, I love ordering pics from them and sharing albums with friends. And every year I order our family calendar filled with our favorite photos! And seriously, these make me want to have a party...or at least get an invite in the mail! Our favorite Christmas cards always come from their site, and with this promotion I might even get cards out this year!

Whaddya think?

Festive?





Colorful?

Or, we'd be pretty cute in pale blue.

This one makes my heart sing a little...but I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!!!

TOO MANY CHOICES!! Do you think after I qualify for my free Christmas cards, someone else can decide which design, choose which pictures to use, put it all together, stuff the envelopes, stamp them, address them, and make me look oh so organized and festive in the process?? Oh, and I need my calendar this year too.

But seriously, this is a great promotion! I've been stressing about where to find the extra pennies this year to do Christmas cards and after the most pathetic yard sale in history, I figured we would do without AGAIN. But now I can totally send pics of my incredibly cute children to everyone we love. YEA!

Tonight we said our final goodnight to Frasier Maupin. He was a member of this family before we were even officially a family. He moved with us from Albany to Miami to Nashville to Phoenix. He saved me when I was unbearably lonely, snuggled me when I was cold, shunned me when I was pregnant, pooped on the carpet, spread litter to every corner of our homes, played fetch, wrestled with lizards, tormented Jack, tolerated our kids, and loved us unconditionally everyday even when we weren't very lovable.

Thank you Frasier for bringing me so much joy and love, and I hope you are now without pain in a place with plenty of tuna and ice cold milk. I love you sweet boy and I will miss you.

Pumpkin Patch

Our Halloween celebrations have been plentiful this year. I've never been a huge Halloween fan, I'll dress the kids up, we trick or treat, but nothing extravagant. But we have fallen into such a fabulous group of friends here, and it seems each holiday has taken on a life of it's own!

We started with the pumpkin patch. We went to the same place as last year, and never before has it been so apparent that my baby boy HAS CHANGED! Lets review...last year...

This year!

But Parker isn't the only one who has grown up. Last year...

This year...

Of course, Lisa and I haven't aged a bit :)

Irresistible

These pictures were taken a few days after Parker's birthday party when we still had the slide and gator pool out back.

I double dog dare you not to fall in love with this man...

The Big Little Man

This is a post I have been working on since Sept 27th, its only been a month, but I haven't been able to load pictures until today. Either way, he still is adorable :)

Parker is two. Did you hear that? I said, Parker is TWO! How on earth did that happen?!? He is two and adorable and fabulous and a handful and dramatic and little and lovable and OH-SO-BLONDE! He is a whopping 26 pounds (25 percentile) and 35 inches (50 percentile), but his great curls add at least 2 inches. And I love him. I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM. His smile is contagious, he sings Twinkle Twinkle and he talks back to Diego and Dora like their lives depend on his every move.

We had a party at the house to celebrate his big day. It was a grand success even if he was a little annoyed about sharing his brand new toys. I found myself inspired by my friend Debbie, who recently had a party for her son's first birthday. As it turns out, I am no Debbie. She comments repeatedly on the ease of making her own amazingly fabulous party decor...mine were not easy but I like to think we had our own fabulousness going on!

I made these pinwheels. And for every father at the party who felt compelled to remind me over and over that they didn't spin up to the standards of a...well...anyone really, they were a royal pain in the rear end to make! Jona quit not even halfway through. I did not enjoy constructing them, or even duct taping them together in the end, but I did INDEED make them and I was giving them out darn it. So there.

These were my other super-cute-and-crafty party favor idea. And while they did turn out super-cute-and-crafty, the names started popping off the balls well before a single guest arrived. I didn't let anyone touch them until every single guest had arrived so everyone could see the cuteness!! And then everyone took home a perfectly plain beach ball...yippie.

There was digging...

driving....

sliding and splashing!



Chicken wings for all, because as it turns out, while Parker wants to be a vegetarian he is a chicken wang lover!

And sweets, my oh my there were sweets. Parker believes with all his heart that birthdays mean cake, nothing but cake, cake cake cake...and M&Ms!

These were also inspired by Debbie, and they turned out PERFECT!

My Big Little Man loved every second of it. I love you my precious little boy, you are such a gift and I thank my lucky stars everyday to have you as my son!

It was WAY to hard to pick a few...Cape Cod was AMAZING!

I'm such a big boy...

Hi! My mom is super lazy and hasn't managed to blog in FOREVER which is really sad cause we've done some pretty awesome stuff this summer. But whatever. I just wanted you all to know THAT I'M TWO!

I'll try to light a fire under mama's bum and get her going on this blog thing.

Love,

Parker