Blair at 3

 

 Blair at 3 in her own words

Favorite Color: pink

Favorite TV Show: Wild Kratts or Elmo (Sesame Street)

Favorite Movie: We Are (Ice Age 3: Continental Drift)

Favorite Song: What Does the Fox Say? or We Are (The Ice Age 3 Theme Song)

Favorite Food: Yogurt or pizza

Favorite Toy: my foxes

Favorite Activities: Coloring/making things, reading books, tea party, playing in the kitchen

Favorite Books: The Gruffalo; Fox in Socks; Brown Bear, Brown Bear; Llama, Llama, Red Pajama

Favorite Outfit: my fox costume
Favorite Holiday: Christmas

Favorite Thing to do with Mommy: read books, swing
Favorite Thing to do with Daddy: tickle (meaning tickle fight)
What's Something You Really Don't Like? get spankings

What Do You Want to be when you grow up? get bigger

I love this verse that my Aunt Kathy shared with Blair for her birthday.  May you know and believe this.

You are precious and honored in my sight and I love you. Isaiah 43:4. 

What a 7 Year Old Needs According to a 7 Year Old

Both Blake and Blair's preschool classes participate in Operation Christmas Child, so we let Bailey do her own box. The last two years I have always helped, but this year I took my hands off and just let her pick things out, because as Bailey put it "who else knows what a 7 year old wants better than a 7 year old".

a cup with straw
soap
a pig loofah
pens
How to Train Your Dragon 2 coloring book
a wolf toy
a thorny-devil lizard toy
My Little Pony toy
a bobble head dog toy
Strawberry Shortcake hair brush
purple leopard-print handheld mirror
clip-in hair extensions
flip flops
toothbrush
toothpaste
a necklace from the 50 cents machine
socks
a picture of Bailey with a note, so they know who sent it

It was quite interesting for me to watch her and the box was packed to the gills with love. I pray some 7-9 year old girl with interests that span lizards to My Little Ponies is blessed by this box.

What Does the Fox Say?

Ha-Ha-Ha-Happy Birthday Blair!

 

  I love a good theme and Blair's obsession with foxes made it easy for me to decide what to do for her birthday- a fox party with our favorite people doing some of Blair's favorite things. At 3 years old, Blair LOVES sweets (I know that could be said of every kid, but Blair just takes it up a notch), decorating/coloring things, playing outside, and reading books, so we did them ALL! Sadly, the weather didn't quite cooperate for the outside, backyard party I thought we would have, but I think what we did worked with the size of party we had.

These were some of our favorite 2 year old pictures.

The first thing I had most kids do was decorate their fox cookies. I found these after the party & love the different interpretations.

It was frigid outside, so to keep warm we had a propane torch thing on the covered patio, a fire in the fireplace (thanks to Grandpa Robert!), and hot chocolate.

 

Telling Nana how old she is. 

Tori's here!!

Blythe & Shipley are here! Shipley is Blake & Blythe's class mascot! I wish this was in focus.

 

 

It was fun to see whether kids stayed inside in the warmth with the cars or

 headed out into the Artic or

did both and didn't stop running like these girls.

Singing Happy Birthday! Emmy was so sweet to hold the plate for her.

Since this isn't the greatest picture, I thought I would squeeze this one in from the morning of Blair's birthday.

 We ended the party with story time & read two of her favorite stories.

The first was  Fox in Socks, which when she picked it out, I tried really hard not to let out a groan because it is a book of tongue twisters and although she LOVES it, it is not a book you want to read outloud to 25-30 kids. However, birthday girl got what she wanted.

To help with all these tongue twisters I recruited some help from Mr. Knox to read Mr. Knox's parts in the book.

I also had Joel, Luke, Kyle, and Anna Kinslow help read. What's fun is that I converted Slow Joe Crow to Slow Joel Crow & there was also a Luke in it!

 We have an unspoken rule that Nana gets to stay after everyone has left for some special time and opening of her present.

Thanks Tori for being my extra set of hands and taking most of these pictures and happy birthday to you today!

Beau is 8 Months Old & the Penny Cousins Come to visit

Let's look back at your 7th month really quickly before we move on to our cousin visit.

You can just barely see those top two teeth that came through just recently. You are eating solids like a champs. You are still army crawling, but everywhere now & just recently pulled up. You can still fall asleep on mommy in the ergo, which goes along with the fact that you love to be held, but naps are much better at home in your crib. I am actually surprised by the number of pictures without your fingers in your mouth. That's going to be a hard habit to break one day.

I must admit you were pretty proud of yourself. 

Cousin Time

Getting my baby snuggles in.

The two closest cousins on my side of the family.

 

 

Uncle Fun

Sunday morning snuggles

Another one with sweet Caroline.

Colt was very sweet to let Blake direct him & hold him. 

 

The Annual Trek to Aggieland

We had written off a trip to College Station this year with the move, but free alumni tickets on the 50 yard line were too hard to pass up. Nevermind that we were playing University of Louisiana Monroe, who was one touchdown from beating us, it was a great day in Aggieland with a victory for the Ags. Thank you, thank you, thank you Tori & Alec for these seats!

Here's the new side of the stadium!

We were literally on the 50 yard line!

The only time we had to stand up was to watch these guys! Ahhhhh...

Since this little guy is still nursing he got to come too.

Glad she still gives a Gig 'Em!

You never know who you will run into & we ran into the Nunnellys. Scott was one of Luke's groomsmen.

Halloween

One of my favorite days of the year has come and gone too quickly again, but my heart is full for sure!

We barely squeezed in pumpkin carving the day before Halloween and they again go with the kid's costumes. I am amazed by my husband's pumpkin-carving skills and glad he pushed to do jack-o-lanterns.

A fox of sorts, a transformer, a Wild Kratt paw

So here's everyone- Bailey Kratt who activated lion powers, a fox, a panther (that's what my t-shirt is picked out by Bailey), Luke in his transformer t-shirt picked out by Blake, Bumble Bee Transformer Beau, and Optimus Blake. So, I don't know what happened to me this summer, but I decided Luke & I wouldn't dress up. Then I got really sad about it, so we let the older two pick out t-shirts for us, but I felt super lame and learned my lesson. My shirt also did not get here until 5 pm on Halloween night and after one family had arrived. So, I have already started thinking about Luke & I's costumes for next year.

 The transformer boys

The party animals

We got a super sweet visit from these guys on Halloween afternoon.

Halloween night we had a small gathering of mostly neighbors, but also Tori & Franny and the Kuykendalls.

This is a better look at my panther shirt.

 

I thought this was pretty awesome- they dressed up as each other, so Leah is Matt & Matt is Leah!

The kids

The adults

Flashback to last year and we four neighborhood mommies were pregnant

Here are the sweet babies that are now out of our bellies!!! (not in order with their moms)

From here on out it is just some of the kids trick-or-treating

Bowen showed me his candy after almost every house

 

These two silly 2 year olds pulled up the rear of our trick or treaters, while Bailey was leading the pack.

sweet angel Marlow

Not too long in we found the Risingers!

And Erika passed out candy as we passed her house!

The witches of Cordova. 

The ones that scared Bailey last year & I am happy to report that Bailey got them this year! They even sent a message out to the neighborhood to find the "ferocious lioness who scared the daylights out of them" and would like to meet Bailey in person, but she thinks it is a secret plot to get her so she won't agree. I will report back if we do get to meet them not in costume.

And now only 360ish days till next time.