maddie invite

Ever After Birthday Invitation

Shutterfly birthday cards and birthday party invitations.

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Happy Halloween!

Buzz Lightyear, our little ladybug, and Fancy Nancy

More to come, but I wanted you to see what they dressed like for Halloween! We have had a great week- let's just say the kids got to wear their costumes 4 times and racked up on candy!

Comments heard Before/During Bath time Tonight

Davis : "Daddy, I won't pee on you tonight."
Matt: "Kallie, please leave Davis's boy parts alone."

Saturday Afternoon Drive

Gaga comes to visit

On the Friday after Davis's birthday Gaga came for a visit. Apple had to work. Davis got his gifts first - he got a set of 4 wooden puzzles (2 Toy Story, Mickey Mouse, and Cars) and John Deere tractor dominoes as well as money towards his Power Wheels from Gaga and Apple and a rug to drive his cars on from Uncle Adam and Aunt Sommer. Thanks again! He loves them!

Some action shots of the kids enjoying the car rug.

After a little while we headed to the Science Center here in Hickory where it is free on Fridays.

Maddie playing tic-tac-toe in her favorite room - the tree house room.

Kallie enjoying the busy box.

The butterfly garden - I don't think either one of them got one to land on them this trip but we went 2 or 3 other times later and they each got to hold at least one.

Gaga had lunch with us and she had brought this cookie cake for Davis, so after lunch we sang "Happy Birthday" and we enjoyed the yummy cookie cake. The kids had blue tongues and mouths from the icing. It was pretty funny.

Happy Birthday, Sweet boy!

Thanks for coming to celebrate Gaga! We had a great day! The kids were sad to see her go, but we told them we would see her in a couple of weeks at her birthday party in Charlotte.

More pics from Davis's party

I found some better pictures of Josiah at Davis's birthday party on his mom's blog. Here is our buddy Josiah painting his car - he got really into this which was fun to watch. And if you look closely you can see that Davis painted his car - green :) of course - he loves green.

Josiah enjoying the cake and ice cream.

The kids at Chickfila. They had so much fun. It happened to be family night so there was a balloon artist and they also had a craft that the girls enjoyed doing.

Super Sweet Friends!

The day before Davis's actual birthday our good friends Amy and Cheryl drove 3 hours with their kiddos to come celebrate Davis's birthday. When I found out they were doing this I went ahead and planned his birthday party for this day. Our local sweet friends Laura Leigh and her boys Josiah and Micah came over as well and we had a great time celebrating Davis's 3 year old birthday. I don't know if it meant more to me or to Davis! Davis loves the movie Cars and everything about racing right now, so we went with that theme. Because the kids had been cooped up in the car we played "Tractor Tipping" first. I wore a Mater party hat and told the kids to run around like tractors and when they hear the whistle they had to fall down like in the movie when Mater blows his horn at the tractors. They really enjoyed this simple game, so we played a few rounds and then headed inside for a few more activities.

I had found some little plaster cars at Hobby Lobby and let the kids each paint one and they were then able to take it home with them. The kids seemed to enjoy this and since it was washable paint it was all good.

Luke painting his car

Claire and Maddie

Evan working on his car.

Daddy even came home for some of the party. Here he is holding Micah while Laura Leigh is helping Josiah with something. Kallie loves Josiah and here she is trying to climb up Matt so that she can get to him. Between activities and lunch the kids just enjoyed playing together. Notice Davis's costume in the background :)

The only picture I have of Davis's cake - somehow mine got deleted, so very thankful that Amy took this pic with her camera.

You can't tell, but there is a Lightning McQueen car and Mater tow truck on the cake. I let Lowes Food do the work - I know my limitations :)

Davis opening his gifts with help from his friends. Everyone was very generous and he racked up on cars and trucks and accessories and a Thomas the train movie. He plays with them all! Thank you sweet friends and mommies!

Another activity where the kids dipped different cars into paint and then drove them onto paper to make tracks.

Only picture I have of our friend Josiah - and it is the back of his head. He and Davis are only 20 some days apart, so we are looking forward to getting the boys together for some play dates here in Hickory as they just recently moved here (July) as well. We were in Sunday School with Laura Leigh and Jonathan years back at Providence and he took a job here in Hickory - so neat how the Lord works.

After cake and ice cream Laura Leigh and the boys went home for naps and we attempted to put Evan, Luke, Davis and Kallie down for naps upstairs and let Maddie and Claire play downstairs while the mommies chatted and enjoyed catching up. Davis fell asleep after a while and Kallie took a nap, but I don't think Evan and Luke ever really fell asleep. We still had a great time catching up while they layed upstairs.
Here are some pictures Amy or Cheryl snapped of the kids all together.

Buddies and Elmo :)

Kallie looks like one of the big kids in this picture.

We headed to Chickfila for dinner later and this is a picture of the girls. After dinner they headed back to Raleigh. We had such a great time and Davis wore a huge grin all day! Thank you so much for making the trip!!

Cousin Jessi

On our way home from Bluffton we stopped in Columbia for a quick visit with Jessi, Amy's cousin who is attending USC. We had not seen the house she is living in and it was a great chance for the kids to get out and stretch while we visited. Jessi called one of her friends who had just gotten a puppy when we got there and her friend brought the puppy over for the kids to play with. Davis of course loved this. Maddie didn't like that the puppy kept jumping on her and licking her. Here are some pics of Jessi with each of the kids. We love you, Jess and enjoyed our quick visit!

Happy Birthday Davis Round 1

On the last night of vacation Mimi and Poppa got Davis a cake and some ice cream to celebrate his 3rd birthday since he would be turning 3 4 days after we got back. Mimi did a green theme with the icing and plates and napkins since green is Davis's favorite color.

Davis really isn't angry even though it looks like it in this picture. What birthday party is complete without balloons?
Sneaking a lick before we sang "Happy Birthday"

Notice the shirt change? I realized that chocolate icing and a white shirt were probably not the best combination.

Yummy cake! Thanks Mimi and Poppa! They gave him some cars from the movie "Cars" and money towards a power wheels for his birthday.

Crabbing and Harbour Town

We went crabbing one of the days we were there for about 30 or 40 minutes before a storm came up. Crabbing= hooking chicken necks on a hook and line, hanging it over the side of the boat and waiting to get a nibble. When you get a nibble, slowly pull your line up and scoop the crab into a net. I have been doing this for years and I was excited to watch and teach Maddie and Davis. They really enjoyed it and were sad when we had to leave. We caught about 5 or 6 in the time that we were there. Not enough to cook so we threw them back before we left.

Davis checking out the crabs in the bucket.
Mimi helping Maddie check their line.

Matt getting ready to scoop one up

Another day we went to Harbour Town by boat. Another tradition. We ride through the creeks on our boat to Harbor Town and pay to park with some very big yachts and we go shopping and eat ice cream. We used to go up in the lighthouse, but it has become a tourist trap costing a lot of money to climb a bunch of stairs in the heat. This year we found a playground and the kids really enjoyed playing on the swings and trees and other climbing structures. On the way back from Harbour Town we always jump in for a swim once we get back in the creeks.

Kallie enjoyed this swing most of the time we were at the playground.
The trees were such a great back drop so Matt snapped a few pictures of the kids climbing on them.

After we played for a while we cooled down with some yummy ice cream.

Davis of course got "gween" ice cream

The kids by a pretty flower we passed on the way back to the boat.

Had to grab a quick picture of us in the harbor with the lighthouse in the background.