Jaxon's 3rd birthday Party

Jaxon doesn't turn 3 until June 16th - but originally we were going to be in Utah in June so we wanted to have his friend party before we went. We found out our summer plans were changing and we wouldn't be going to Utah until late July a few days before the party so we decided to just go ahead with it anyway since the invitations were sent out and a few of our friends are moving this summer :(

I asked Jaxon what he wanted to do and he wanted to go swimming so we had a pool party! We are very lucky to have a friend that lives in a beautiful apartment complex with an AWESOME pool and she was nice enough to let us have the party there. The party was on Tuesday May 22nd from 6:00pm - 8:00pm. We were lucky and had the ENTIRE pool to ourselves! We provided dinner which consisted of hot dogs (they have a built in grill area at the pool which made it great for grilling hot dogs) pasta salad, veggies, chips, drinks, and of course cup cakes!!! I had all these cute decorations I was going to take - but it ended up being kind of windy (welcome to Lubbock) so we decided to keep it simple so we weren’t chasing party decor all over! Jaxon loved having his friends there swimming with him! After they swam for a while - we got Jax out - sang happy birthday to him and he opened his gifts! He got a lot of good stuff! We are spoiled with our awesome friends here! After he opened his gifts they swam some more. Jaxon was so cute and kept thanking everyone and he had so much fun! I am pretty sure he thinks it was the best day of his life - he was so happy and had so much fun! Here are a few pictures!

Party favors for the kids and the cupcakes

Addi ready to PARTY

Some of our friend eating!

SWIMMING!

Jaxon's favorite thing - he loves it when daddy throws him up like that!

Beautiful mom's playing with the babies!

Dad's in the pool playing with the kids!

Jaxon loved that everyone was singing to him

Opening his gifts

Some of his friends wanted to help him open the gifts... too cute

This picture sums up the party - Addy fell asleep, Jaxon loved his water guns that he got - I laughed a lot and look a little crazy and Dan is just cute haha.

His gifts - he has some awesome friends here!!!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was right in the middle of finals - so we decided to celebrate a week later so Dan wouldn't be stressed out studying and be at the school during most of the day.

So on May 20th we had my Mother's Day.

What a perfect day it was! The night before Dan gave me beautiful flowers and that night he woke up with Addison and fed her so I wouldn't have to get up in the night - he also let me sleep in a little (we have 8:30 church so I couldn't sleep in much). Then him, Jax and Addy came in with breakfast in bed and my gifts. Dan got me a beautiful bracelet and some earrings and he wrote a beautiful Poem about mom's. I also got a drawing Jaxon and Addison did.

After we got home from church, Dan let me nap to try and finally catch up on sleep, then he cooked dinner while I relaxeed and played with the kids. It was such a wonderful day! I loved being able to spend time with my adorable kids and wonderful husband and I didn't have to worry about cleaning or cooking because Dan did all of it with a smile on his face! It was great! I feel so blessed to be a mom! It has brought more joy to my life than I thought possible!


This picture was clearly taken BEFORE my nap... I look pretty tired - but the adorable two kids I'm holding are totally worth it!

I also want to write a little bit about my mom. My mother is the most giving, hard working woman I know. She is truly amazing and I miss being able to be around her, but I love being able to call and talk to her, cry to her about my struggles - and have her understand and give me great advice. Becoming a mom has made me appreciate my mom more and more. It's sad that it took that for me to appreciate her the way I do but it's better late than never right?! I love you mom - you are AMAZING and I hope to be as good of a mom to my kids as you were to me!

Camping

Fathers and Sons was 2 days after Dan finished his finals so he was going to take Jaxon to the fathers and sons campout. Someone told us it was going to be an hour and a half away so we decided that since Jaxon had never been camping and can't seem to go to sleep when we are in the same room... we figured it might be better for them to not be so far away, so we decided it would be fun to have the campout in the backyard.

We don't have a tent so our sweet friends the Willnauer's let us borrow theirs. Jaxon and Dan had fun putting it up together. While they were doing that I went to the store to get all the essentials for camping. I got back and the boys cooked their hotdogs over the fire that we made in a terracotta pot. They played outside until it got darker and then they cooked s'mores over the fire. Then it was time for bed. Jaxon was so excited to go to sleep in the tent. Maybe an hour later after they went down - they came back inside. Jaxon couldn't fall asleep because it was windy which was making a lot of noise and I guess he kept asking Dan why "they had to sleep in the tent when mommy gets to sleep inside" lol. Hopefully his next time we go camping he will stay the entire night in the tent... but overall, I think it was a total success!!!

 

My Calling

I don't think I have posted about my calling so let me finally do it.

At the end of the year last year I was called to be the Activity Day leader. Because it was so close to Christmas we decided to wait to start activities until after the New Year, well I was having Addison at that time so the girls met with another ward for the first activity... but then in February I officially started doing the activities. We meet two times a week (every other Wednesday before mutual). I have the cutest/sweetest girls in the world! There are only 5 that show up regularly, but we are hoping to get more girls active in the church and coming again. We have done some really fun activities and one that I wanted to document was a Mother's Day activity we did the day before Mother's Day. We had a "pamper your mom" day and a lunch. I invited the young women to be a part of it too - but only one was able to come - and some of my girls were out of town that weekend so we only had a total of 5 girls show up and their moms. It was so much fun though! We had a lunch and then the girls gave their moms pedicures. It was a lot of work making all the food and finding time to go set up since it was in the middle of Dan's finals so he was never home - but it was totally worth it. We had a blast - here are a few pictures of the cute girls and their amazing moms!

My life in iphone pictures