Hannah's 7th Birthday Party

Hannah is 7.

What!? How is that even possible?

I thought 5 sounded old and now here she is--7! 

Hannah is such a smart and independent girl. She excels at school and loves to read. She is wanting to do more and more things on her own. She is wanting to have her own space more, instead of always playing with her brother and sister. It makes me sad but I know that is part of growing up. 

We celebrated her birthday with a fairy party. She had a blast. A few of her school friends came, as well as her family so it was a packed house full of love, excitement, and screaming kids! :oP

Here are some details of the party.

Goodie bag fun.

The cupcakes that the kids could decorate with 'pixie dust'.

The cake.

I made giant flowers to decorate the kitchen.

 And I made a giant tree to go over the food table.

We had a 'decorate your own fairy house' station which the kids absolutely loved. It was a big hit!!

Here are Hannah, Colson and Hailey's finished houses.  :o)

Then it was time for cake. I still can't believe I had to put a '7' on it!

It was a free for all when I told the kids they could decorate their own cupcakes. We actually ended up taking everything outside so the mess was out there and not in the kitchen. :oP

Finally, we ended with presents.

Hannah did a great job reading all of her cards!

So another birthday is in the books! We hope you had a great birthday, Hannah! From the looks of the photos, I think she did! :o)

Fall Blog Swap

I decided to join up with some fellow bloggers to do a Fall blog swap! I have met some great bloggers through swaps so when Johannah (who I met through a swap) decided to host one, I knew I couldn't pass it up!!!

I was partnered up with Erin from Homemade Happenings. Erin lives in Iowa with her hubby and 3 boys and she is pregnant with a baby girl due to arrive in just a couple weeks! We had a lot of fun chatting via emails!

I love getting packages in the mail so when my goodies arrived from Erin, I was very excited!

I received a cute little card and these following Fall lovelies:

I'm not sure a Fall box could get any better! 

See that red card?? Yeah, McDonald's cokes, here I come!! :o) Plus I got a super comfy scarf--a fall must have in my book, some yummy caramel apple suckers--my fav!, some Chapstick, and some yummy smelling waxes for my burner which I waisted no time melting! :o)

Hannah enjoyed my suckers! :oP

I had a lot of fun getting to know Erin and I had tons of fun finding her little goodies for her box! Check out her blog for some pics!

Thank you so much, Erin, I love everything!!

House Update--Breaking Ground & Pouring Concrete

So I just realized that I have left you all hanging in terms of house updates. If you follow me in Instagram, you have seen updates, but I have not updated you on my blog.

A lot has happened in the last few months! I'll start off with our ground breaking and the pouring of our basement.

We broke ground in June.

Here is a picture of the kiddos sitting in the middle of our lot.

We officially broke ground on June 16, 2015.

Colson was pretty excited that he got to help dig the hole!

They started pouring the footings for our basement on June 24, 2015.

Then it was time for the basement walls.

They placed the beams and poured the garage floor.

Next up was framing! I'll stop this post here so it doesn't get crazy long. I'll post a separate entry about all of the framing fun! :o)

Family Photos-Sneak Peak

Here is a sneak peak from our photo session.

If these were the only good photos that we got I would be more than happy! I love them! 

Considering Hailey was crying almost the whole time, these came out great! Amy truly worked her magic!  It makes me very excited to see the rest, crying or no crying!!

Family Photo Outfits--2015 Edition

We had family photos taken yesterday. We lucked out with the weather! The past couple days had been grey and gloomy--so much so that we pushed our session back a day in hopes of some sunshine--and I'm glad we did because yesterday was sunny and perfect!

Now the kids--we'll miss sassy britches, Hailey was not super impressed with getting her pictures taken. At first she was all about it and cheesing for the camera but then she didn't want to be put down and was crying. So, we had to deal with that during session and by the end, I was just exhausted from trying to get her to stop crying and just give a little smile to the camera. :o/ 

I always come out of a session just hoping for one decent photo of all of us and then of just the 3 kids together and that is my hope again. We usually always get tons of nice photos but this time, with one crying, I am pretty nervous. :o/ 

But on to the outfits. Every year, I stress about coming up with the perfect combinations of outfits for everyone and this year was no different. I started planning for them back in August when I bought Hailey her Matilda Jane dress--the jumping off point. The rest of the outfits I kind of pieces together over the next few months.

I am happy with the outcome! I just hope they look as nice on us and in the photos and they did on my bedroom floor. :oP I guess we'll see soon! I am anxiously awaiting a sneak peak! :o)

Here are the outfit details: 

Hannah--dress-Old Navy, vest and boots-Target

Colson--shirt and pants-his closet, shoes-Sperry

Hailey--dress-Matilda Jane

Me--top-H&M, jeans-Marshalls

Nick--top and jeans-his closet, shoes-sketchers