5 Birthdays

Happy Birthday Jaxon! 

1st Birthday!

2nd Birthday!

3rd Birthday!

4th Birthday!

5th Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA

Jaxon & Maddox's Grandma turns 50 today.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!!

Jaxon & Grandma visiting Thomas the Train!

Grandma & Uncle Tony at his wedding!

Grandma & Cousin Alivia!

Grandma & Grandpa at Christmas w/ some of the grandkiddos!

Here's to another 50 years of being not only a great Mom & Grandma, but a wonderful friend as well! LOVE YOU MOM!!!

Photo of the Week - TP Memories

Max went missing for a few minutes yesterday... here's where I found him! He'd unrolled the entire roll of TP and eaten a few pieces by the time I found him. I'd just given Daddy & Brother instructions on closing the toilet lids after using them... luckily they'd listened!

Someone else I know enjoyed unrolling the TP rolls at one time too...

he had a little more hair though! (This was taken 5 days before Jaxon's 1st birthday so Max is a few months ahead of his time... YAY Mommy!)

Alivia In Wonderland

My sweet, little niece Alivia turned 1 on the 5th! Here are some candid shots of her Alice In Wonderland themed party!

Here she is all dressed up as Alice! So cute!

Here is the Birthday Girl w/ her Mommy & Daddy!

She's quite the little ham... as you can tell!

Opening presents wasn't nearly as much fun as chewing on her cards!

Playing w/ her birthday loot!

I just loved her cake!

And the cupcakes too!

Here she is enjoying her "smash cake"!

It was a great party! Made me sad that I don't have any little girls to party plan for! Alivia's Mommy, Traci, did an amazing job... HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIVIE!!!

Where My Adventure Began

Four years ago... this is where my Adventures in Motherhood began!Jaxon was born at St. Elizabeth's Regional Medical Center, a catholic hospital in Lincoln, NE. Every time a baby is born, the hospital plays a recording over the loud speaker of a tiny bell ringing... this was one of my fondest memories of his birth! Jaxon shares his birthday with his Great Grandpa Miller! I remember Grandpa telling me that I should try extra hard to make sure he was born on the 9th... wish granted! No one can prepare you for the feeling of becoming a Mommy! I read all the books, took all the classes and researched all the baby gear... never once did any of that information say to be prepared for the greatest joy life can bring you! I guess it's hard to prepare oneself for that!

The past four years have been amazing and as we celebrate Jaxon's last birthday as our only child, I can only imagine what great adventures the future will bring us!

Happy Birthday, Jaxon!

Jaxon's 1st Party w/ Friends

Since the first day of school, Jaxon has been begging to have friends come and play! Almost daily he asks if one of the 6 can come home with us! So to honor this request, we invited all six to our home for a fun first... a party w/ friends!

On Wednesday after school, the classmates (along with a few of their siblings) came out for lunch and playtime. While Mommy got lunch ready, a few of the other Mommy's brought the kiddos out and helped this Mommy throw the party. (Thanks so much to the other Mommy's... I couldn't have pulled it off w/out you!)

Cody's Mommy, Silvia, is a talented artist and brought face paint markers to personalize everyone's cheeks while washing up to eat. Most of the kids were too busy playing to sit down long enough to have her paint their faces! In fact, when I asked Jaxon if Silvia had painted something for him he looked at me puzzled and said, "I wasn't there yet Mom!" Oh well, maybe next time!

She also brought the cupcakes! These delicious treats were right up Jaxon's alley... there's nothing he likes more than some good old dirt and worms! The kids had lots of fun digging their worms from the yummy dirt and filled up more on the sweet stuff than the actual meal!

Andrew and Olivia's Mommy, Mrs. Amy (who is also Jaxon's teacher), came along for the ride too! She lead us in the most fitting lunch-time prayer I have ever heard in this house! The student's line leader for the day, Aiden, chose "The John Deere Green" prayer in honor of Jaxon's birthday... how very fitting! I need to have Mrs. Amy print me off a copy of this little, ditty! Jaxon has been asking to pray for the tractors a lot lately and Mommy doesn't know the words!

Aiden, Riana and Keaira's Mommy, Shawna, brought extra chairs so everyone would have a place to sit and eat. Shawna is a Mommy blogger too and was so sweet to include our party in her storyline! I must plug her blog... it's a good read! She is very focused on her kiddos and w/ three, still manages to take some time to share stories from their everyday lives. (I've got a tremendous amount of respect for that and her too!) She took some great pictures... check them out here at her blog http://thespiehsfamily.blogspot.com/!



Jaxon & I both were sad to see everyone leave! We had a great time and are looking forward to many more parties w/ friends!

Correct Me If I'm Crazy

Since becoming a Mommy I have been much better about my procrastinating... I plan better, love research and spend way too much time doing it and start a project 10 months in advance because I want to! I can't even tell you how many times I've been told that this will change when "Baby" arrives and to be quite honest, this annoys me! I know things are going to change... let me deal w/ it peacefully!

And so, the procrastination has already started setting in... starting with the birthday party planning. Normally at this point in the game I would have already done a practice cake, this time I don't even have the food color I need to decorate the cake with. I am struggling with the possibility that my useless hand is going to keep me from doing what I want to do and that makes me not even want to start the project.

The other matter that is stressing me to the max at this point is the food. Again, normally, at this point I have the menu planned and the food bought. But this time I am still trying to decide what to fix! I always think that everything on the menu should go with the theme and while cute, this doesn't always work for the crowd that I plan to serve. I am also very budget conscious and while ordering 10 pizzas from Pizza Hut sounds like the best option, the price is obviously not!

I still need to buy a gift, order a pinata (Jaxon is now requesting one after my nephew's party yesterday), finish the decorations, stuff the favor bags, make the cake and freeze it so I can decorate it and correct me if I'm crazy here but the party is less than a week away now! Oh, did I mention that we are having a party with the school friends on Wednesday, serving snacks at the field trip on Thursday, that I have a Dr.'s appointment this week and the library books are due?! And instead of working on all of these projects... here I sit blogging about it! What's wrong with this picture?!

Pirate Party Planning

Pardon my absence but I've been busy the last couple of days. For those of you who have followed my blog for awhile now, you already know that I am a crazy party planner! I love birthday parties and am excited to now have an excuse to throw two next year... (although Daddy has different ideas about that). He thinks that since our children will have birthdays so close together, that we should have just one big party for the two. I say, OK, but that means I'm going all out! And in case you were wondering, yes, I do already have ideas of how to do just that!

Normally I do a mural on one our basement walls to go with the theme of our party, but wasn't able to finish this year's painting due to pregnancy induced carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm really disappointed because it's something I love to do and Jaxon was helping this year. I plan to finish after "Baby" comes and the CTS disappears, but I'm going to be busy w/ a few other projects so it may be awhile before it ever gets done!

This year's theme is Captain Jaxon's Pirate Party. I have been wanting to do a pirate theme for some time now. There are tons of party supplies out there for this theme and it seems to continue to trend well in the party supply world. Here's the thing about this theme that really bothers me though... it's just not cute enough! Most of the supplies I have found have been kind of scary and I am not into "scary pirates" at all... I like my pirates cute & cuddly! Kent thinks I have lost my mind! "Cute & cuddly pirates? Only you could create a cute and cuddly pirate!" - Kent

I am fully aware that some day my children are going to come to me and say, "Mom, could we go a little less cute and do a little more cool?!", but until then, this Mom is doing as much cute as I can! And while all of the supplies are run by Jaxon first, I do admit that I am very strategic about picking and designing the supplies before they are run by him, making sure to not include anything that isn't cute enough!

Here are few of the things I've been working on! Everything pictured came from Hobby Lobby... I simply added the personalized touches to each product. The image at the top of my post is a serving bowl, it came as a set of two. I plan to use one as a "party favor" dish and the other will serve as a food bowl.

The banner pictured above was exactly what I was looking for but I did make a few changes to it by personalizing one of the tiles. The favor bags were given personalized touches by adding the names of each of Jaxon's party guests.

The formula cans are something I use every year... I simply wrap them in scrapbook paper and personalize them to fit with the theme. And finally, the little, wooden pirate hat on a stick is a fun "add-in" that I place in each of the formula cans along with a few balloons to make centerpieces for each table. These I have also been able to find each year at Hobby Lobby (I love that place)... they cost about 67 cents a piece. I hot glue them to kabob skewers and stick them into the weights for my balloons so they stand up straight.

I have a few more last minute things to finish up and I will be done with this year's party planning. It's bittersweet every year when we get to this stage, but even more so now that I will no longer be planning for just one child, but two!

Our Favorite Side of Beef

It's hard to believe that Crutch has been with us now for almost a year! I remember telling Kent about him and hearing him say, "Well, you are the calf whisperer, we'll see what we can do!" Dad had asked if we'd consider working with an animal who had sustained injuries from trying to jump out of his stall in the barn. He came to us w/ partial paralysis in his hind legs, which meant he couldn't walk or even stand on his own.

It was October 22nd of last year, my brother Tony thought I was crazy for taking on such a big project that would probably end in the calf dying. If it had been up to him, they would have put Crutch out of his misery then. Dad repeatedly told me there was a chance he'd never come out of it and to not get my hopes up, but I felt it was worth a try.

The first few days were tough! We had to put him in a sling two to three times a day and hang him from the ceiling of our barn which involved me raising him on a pulley system, by hand! Jaxon would help me secure a piece of carpet under his belly that wrapped around his sides and back, which we then attached to the pulley. Jaxon would sit on the bales stacked behind him encouraging both Mommy and Crutch, "You can do it guys!", he'd say!

Once I got Crutch lifted into the air, I would then place his legs in position to where they'd be if he were standing on his own. And eventually he got strong enough to do just that! We then were able to start moving him around the pen. We'd bribe him with treats and he'd follow. This took several months but the day finally came when he was strong enough to be let out with the rest of the group. I was a very proud Mommy that day!

We started out slow, letting him out once a day for about 30 minutes at a time. He would run around that pen kicking and jumping, things he could have never done those first months! I finally got comfortable enough to let him out permanently and he has blossomed ever since. We were never able to sell him since he suffers from arthritis, but deep down I never wanted to sell him anyway!

Kent thinks I'm crazy for being so attached to a 1000 pound steer but after hand raising him and spending so much time one on one with him, I couldn't help but fall in love! I swear he comes when I call his name, he bawls when I walk back up to the house from the pen, he follows me around the fence when I mow and he keeps me company when I hang clothes on the line! I truly think he sees me as his Mommy and the day he leaves us, I will be the one standing at the fence bawling! When I told Jaxon that Crutch was going to have a birthday, he asked if we could make him a cake! I told him that cows don't typically eat cake, but then again, this isn't your typical cow! Instead, we decided to serve him up some of his favorites... watermelon rinds, tomatoes and popcorn! It's important to celebrate all of God's creatures, BIG & small!

Happy Birthday Crutch... you are loved!