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birthday, Blog, kai

Wallowing in Birthday Fun


How do you like that title? A good pun can never be resisted. A couple of weeks ago, Kai (our second oldest,) turned 7 years old. It always amazes me how quickly time goes by. I feel like just recently, Kai has grown up quite a bit. Don had asked me to find a picture of Kai to use for the thumbnail for his birthday vlog. But as I was scrolling through the pictures, I realized how much his looks have changed over the past 6 months. Even a picture from 2 months ago made him look so much younger.

With all the birthdays, I have the kids get a picture on the front porch. I totally slacked this year and didn’t take these pictures until last night. And you may notice something about the door behind him. It’s not teal anymore! We loved our teal door but I was wanting to change it up. And my super kind husband agreed to a pink door (though now he’s acting like he doesn’t remember saying that. Too late now šŸ˜‰ ) I thought it may look like too girly of a background for his birthday pictures but I kind of love it. Anyway, I feel like these pictures sum up his personality pretty well. He is fun, silly, joyful, and so very loving.

On his actual birthday, he requested donuts for breakfast. We drove to 2 different places that he had picked out and neither of them were open. We ended up at Krispy Kreme, which was not as exciting to me but it made him happy so that’s all that matters. We had to take a detour to the doctor for his brother before we went to the park. We had hoped to see pigs but there was only one super fat pig hanging out so we didn’t stay too long. The big deal for birthdays is always the trip to McDonald’s. As we were trying to unload the kids to get inside McDonald’s, the skies opened up and poured all over us (while Evangeline kept saying she didn’t know where her shoes were.) I grabbed her shoeless self and we ran to the restaurant. But not before I got soaked and my eye makeup ran all down my face.

We ended the evening with his favorite, homemade pizza–aka “mommy pizza” and his dessert of choice, this giant scoop cake from Sams.

This is aĀ caption that IĀ shared that night on Instagram. I wanted to include it here too.

At the end of the night, he gave me a hug, told me he loves me, and thanked me for all of the fun things we did today. You guys. We went to mcdonalds (and we even had to make a pit stop at the doctor to get his brother’s ears checked.) We didn’t throw some party that would be worthy of Pinterest (though those are amazing and I wish that I was able to always do that for my kids.) He loved this day because we were present. He loved this day because he felt loved. He loved this day, not because of what we did for him, but because of what we mean to him.”

He loved his birthday and I loved that he loved his birthday. But he had no idea that we were about to make his dreams come true. You see, Kai has a major obsession with pigs. If you want to have an engaging conversation with the boy, start talking about pigs. I had asked around on Facebook to see if anyone knew where we could find some pigs to pet. Multiple people suggested Purina Farms. So a couple days after his birthday, we told him we had one more surprise for him. We asked him “if you could do anything in the world for your birthday, what would you want to do?” His response “See a piggy and pet it!” So he was extremely excited to find out we were going to do just that. Don recorded that whole conversationĀ on the GoPro but for some reason the audio didn’t work–which is a huge bummer because his reaction was adorable. And this look really tells me the whole day was worth it.

Kai and Kingston have a small brotherhood rivalry–Kai loves pigs/hates dogs. Kingston love dogs/hates pigs. They like to make it known to each other that they do not enjoy the animal that the other brother loves. But even Kingston couldn’t resist the pigs that day.

Sorry for the overload of pig pictures but that was the highlight of the day. It brought him so much joy and it brought us joy to see him so happy. But, of course, there were other animals too. Liam was particularly fond of the bunny.

And Desmond really wasn’t interested in much that day (more on that on the vlog.) He’s just at a hard age right now.Ā 


I don’t think we’ve ever done Easter bunny pictures before but since it was free, we went ahead and did it. You can just tell from Desmond’s face how much he loved it.



We had so much fun and hope to go back again sometime (maybe on a day that it doesn’t end up raining.) And here is his birthday video–which is pretty adorable

Happy weekend!!

baby, Blog, Clementine, product review

Clem’s Favorite Toys (6 Months Old)


I have been wanting to put this post together since Clem was right around 5 months and just starting to hold on to toys and play. With all the sickness and all of the other things going in our lives, this post got pushed to the back burner. But now she’s 6 months old and loving these things even more. So I guess it worked out.

Before I start, I will tell you that these items were all gifted to me by the companies. However, all I was asked to do in exchange was to post an Instagram picture, which I have already done. I was not asked to write a blog post. The only reason I am even writing it is because Clem truly does love these toys and IĀ wanted to share in case anyone was looking for beautiful, quality, small shop toys for your own baby or for a gift. Sometimes it’s hard to know what kind of toys are ideal for those first toys. So this is not a sales pitch. This is just me sharing some things thatĀ have been in constant rotation around here.

I will start with this amazing lovey from Stella and LuĀ because it was the first toy she ever “played” with (and you can see in this ^^ picture how much she loves it!) I have shared a bit about this small shop on my blog before because we also have a gorgeous blanket from them. But this lovey has been getting more attention lately. She loves to snuggle it and play with the ribbon. They have so many fabric options and I think the pricing is so reasonable. And I’m not even kidding–the girls who run this shop are probably some of the sweetest people I have ever “met.” They truly care about their customers and their products.

I can honestly see this lovey sticking with Clem for many years, as all my other kids haveĀ had lengthy attachments to their blankies. This just happens to be way cuter than what any of my other kids had šŸ˜‰

Another favoriteĀ is Willow the Deer. I had been admiring all of the Cuddle + Kind dolls for months when they reached out to me to ask me to spread the word about their company.Ā I jumped right on it! First of all, yes, the dolls are SO adorable and so, so soft. But more importantly, they are helping out so many people with the sales of their dolls. Each doll is handcrafted by women artisans in Peru, which provides them with a fair income. And with each doll sold, Cuddle + Kind provides 10 meals to children in need. Just recently they reached their goal of 1 million meals! And through the month of April, they are donating one meal for each new follower on the Cuddle + Kind instagram page.

We picked out this beautiful deer (and I have to admit, the ice cream shirt was one of the biggest reasons why haha.) Those pictures above are blurry but I couldn’t help sharing them because this is exactly what Clementine does every time we lay Willow next to her. She smiles and attacks it. I plan to hold on to this doll for her to give to her own child some day.

The toys that probably get the most use right now are our rattles from Bannor Toys. I don’t like to leave the house without a couple of her rattles to switch out throughout the day. They are the perfect size to fit in her tiny hands and of course, they always end up in her mouth.

(This is the classic rattle.)


Of course, in addition to them being functional, they are so aesthetically pleasing. The quality is so good. I also plan to hang on to these to pass down. Ever since I saw the state rattles, I had to have one. They have almost all 50 states to choose from. But I do majorly regret not getting a little heart engraved on St. Louis.


The heart rattle is another one of Clem’s faves. I love that it has her name engraved. We usually take the classic rattle, this heart rattle, and her lovey with us everywhere we go.

And this really isn’t one of Clem’s favorites yet but the other kids have all been obsessed with this wooden camera, also from Bannor Toys. It has the screen and functions lasered on the back of the camera to make it more realistic.

And of course it leads to them imitating me–taking tons of pictures of Clementine.

As much as I would love for Clementine to stay a tiny baby forever, it is so much fun to watch her learn new things. It’s sweet to see her already loving to play with toys.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a happy Easter yesterday. Thank you for reading and allowing me to show off the cutest baby girl šŸ˜‰ Ā I hope you have a great week!