On October 13, Smith turned TWO years old!!  It's hard to believe sometimes.  Then sometimes I can't remember life without him.  We celebrated on October 16th with family and friends.  After Millie Janalee's mega-party this past summer, I decided to invite a couple of friends from school and family only.  So, I signed my sister up for a "smallish party."  Ha!  There's really no such thing once we get started.

Kristin and Lee built and painted things within days and were ready to party! In the middle of hosting a fiesta shower for my brother and his fiancé the day before (or maybe it was the weekend before?).  We like to do crazy things like that.  Kristin came over and worked her magic giving Russ directions on attaching railroad crossings and getting electrical tape for the train tracks on the sidewalk, etc.  She brought her famous cookies and an adorable birthday cake that she made in her "spare time."  It was a party fit for a railroad king!

We planned the party right after Smith's morning nap, and it worked out perfectly!  He woke up to a beautiful setup just for him!  Our neighbors even let us borrow their jumpy house for the party.

It is so much fun for us to have a special party for each of our littles.  It may not always be this way, but for now it works out.  Thankfully, I have a sister who thrives off of party planning.  So I can give her my idea of what I want and start a Pinterest board...and she basically does the rest or tells me what to do.  We are thankful for her talent!

The guests began to arrive, and the fun began!  Thankfully, we have a dear friend who brings his camera everywhere he goes.  So we always have fantastic pictures of our parties!  I had my own camera too, so excuse the photo overload.  It was a beautiful, warm day in October!  Perfect for a 2 year old birthday!

Russ, his mom, and his brother

David and Russ

Aunt Jenny and Susu

Family gathered around the jumpy house and bean bag toss

Aunt Gail and Amanda

Sweet friends LOVING the Choo Choo train!

Big kids loving the balloons I kept blowing up for entertainment. Ha!

My sweet great-nephew with Smith!  Such a sweet picture!

Uncie Buck and Smith

Uncle Donald and Pawpaw

Kay Kay and Hughes

Me and Leah (part of our sweet photographer team)

When Millie Janalee turned two, we lived in Missouri and just had family visit.  We spent time doing fun things around St. Louis.  So watching two year olds interacting and having fun together is so sweet to me!  This age really cracks me up, because they mostly play around each other instead of with each other.  Haha!  It is safe to say, everyone had a ball!

The birthday boy playing with the bean bag toss

Sweet Sawyer!  Young love! Ha!

Cousins - Hughes and Smith

Lots of fun in the jumpy house!

After a while, we decided to bring everyone in for some birthday cake!  Kay Kay outdid herself with the cake - inspired by our invitations.  Perfectly!

We all sang Happy Birthday to our sweet birthday boy, and he was ready to dig in!  Everyone enjoyed cake, cookies, and lots of snacks for the rest of the party.

Once the party was over, there was one very sad boy who had to say goodbye to the jumpy house in our front yard.  I'm sure the neighbors loved us! Ha!  We gave Smith some extra time to jump and play before bringing the close family inside to open gifts.

One thing I've learned about little kid parties - never open gifts during the party!  Too many little kids wanting to keep the gifts they brought and not ever knowing how the birthday boy/girl will react to the gifts.  My biggest fear is the latter - "But I already have one of these!"  LOL!  For the record, that has only happened once, but Smith was only 1 at the time and didn't know the difference.  We still have both of them and it's perfect for sharing.  Haha!

Sweet Smith,  your second year of life has been the most exciting yet!  You challenge us moment by moment.  You make us laugh, and you give the sweetest hugs and kisses!  You are the easiest child in the world to put to bed or nap (as long as it is in a room isolated).  And we really need to put a lock on the pantry door, because you are a bottomless pit!  Constantly bringing food out or sneaking chocolate from the highest shelf!  You are a JOY and a delight!  You keep us on our toes and keep us humble for sure!

My prayer for you is always that God will use your strong will for His glory and purpose!  What a wonderful gift!

We love you more each day, and we are cautiously excited to see how your little personality grows as you grow!  Happy 2nd Birthday to YOU!

Catch Up With My Little Family

Will I ever get caught up the way I want to with my blogging?  No way!  I'm so disappointed that I have dropped the ball so badly in the last couple years.  I treasure these blog posts and love to print them out as keepsakes for my kids.  So I will try to do better.

I will try.

While I attempt to dive in, I will recap the last several months as best I can.  I really haven't updated life since the beginning of fall.

SEPTEMBER:  September was full of football!  Both kids tailgated and attended the games this year.  We had our hands full, but we are determined to make die hard State fans out of these two.  We had such a fun year watching "Missimissi State" (as Smith calls it) play football.  The season left lots to be desired, but the Egg Bowl at the end really left us pretty happy. Who saw that coming?!  I know Smith's birthmother is cringing reading this and seeing that precious boy in maroon. LOL!  She and her Ole Miss family were gracious enough to overlook our True Maroon family when they chose us!  

OCTOBER:  October was a big month!  We were still in the throws of football season, but we paused long enough to celebrate my favorite little boy!  Smith turned TWO!  We enjoyed an adorable train themed party.  Kay Kay went all out - as she tends to do - for our "small, mostly family party". LOL! I will have to write an entire post on the birthday because the occasion deserves it.

Then the end of the month brought lots of fun as we brought back our family Halloween costumes!  My Neverland crew was by far the cutest I've seen.  Of course I may be biased.  The kids and I enjoyed Halloween parties, the Halloween carnival at our country club, and Russ joined us for a fun night of trick or treating with some of our favorite neighbors and friends!  We live in the perfect neighborhood for us.  We really may never leave it.  Trick or treating was like a huge social event. And the kids loved every minute of it...Russ and I did too!

NOVEMBER: November is always exciting for me, because it is the start of "the holiday season."  And Thanksgiving is part of my holiday season.  I love being around family for the sole purpose of enjoying family.  We hosted Thanksgiving again this year, and my sister did most of the cooking.  I got the easy part.  Millie Janalee also had her annual Thanksgiving program at her preschool with her own traveling fan club.  And it was precious as always!  Oh, how I love this stage of parenting!  I should also add that Kristin worked her magic with my Christmas decor in November.  I felt like we had the most beautiful house in town!

DECEMBER: December is always packed full, and this year was certainly no exception!  We started off watching Millie Janalee in the Snowflake Classic at gymnastics.  She did a great job showing all her skills to us.  It was actually on my birthday, so we celebrated afterward with dinner with Susu.  A few days later, Pawpaw joined us for a night at Cottonplant.  That's what I wanted to do for my birthday.  It's one of my favorite things to do during the holidays!  We also rode the Polar Express again this year, and it was just as magical as the first time!  The kids had a ball and the adults loved watching it all through the kids' eyes too.  Such a fun time of year with children!  There was SO much more in December, but I can't list it all.  We had class parties, family parties, dinner parties, work parties, Millie Janalee and I went to see the Nutcracker together for the first time, and we ended with my absolute favorite - the Christmas Eve service.  We always spend Christmas Eve day at Russ's mom's house.  We attend the Christmas Eve service at our hometown church with my family and finish up with Christmas Eve night at my parents' house.  Santa came twice.  Once to our home Christmas Eve morning and again at Susu and Pawpaw's on Christmas Day!  These kids must've been really good this year.

JANUARY: We celebrated the New Year with my family at Kay Kay and Uncie Lee's house.  It was a low key, rainy night.  We watched the neighbors shoot fireworks and celebrated early.  Russ and I watched the ball drop at Times Square from the comfort of our bed.  Haha!

FEBRUARY: We had a fantastic month in February!  We took our family and Susu and Pawpaw to DISNEY WORLD!!  This deserves an entire post dedicated to the unforgettable moments.

MARCH:  Here we are!  March proved to be as exciting as any other month for our family.  My baby brother finally married our She She!!  Our entire little family was in the wedding.  The kids did great!  Our sweet babysitter, Jessica, was a lifesaver!  And the party was the best!  My mom, Sheila, and Kristin did a fabulous job planning the details.  It was perfect!  And we are all still talking about it and the fun times from the weekend!

Whew!  I think you've been updated on the most important events.  There is so much more I would love to share, and if I ever get around to it...I WILL!  I hope you have had a wonderful 2017 so far!  We are so thankful for this life God has given us.  What a gift to be Russ's wife and a mother to these two precious children.  Seriously.  I wouldn't trade this life for anything!

God is good!