Maddy's 3rd Birthday Party

Sunday we celebrated Maddy's 3rd birthday with a party at Clemyjontri Park in McLean, which is one of the coolest playgrounds ever!

Sunday morning started off very hectic/stressful when Maddy woke up crying with a tummy ache, broke out in hives, and threw up on me!  And I had just woken up thinking, wow what a perfect day for a birthday party (the weather was amazing).  We scurried around deciding we'd still have the party, Matt and Camryn would go, and I'd hang back with Maddy and see how she felt.  After all, we'd already rented the pavilion, made 50 cupcakes, and ordered 10 pizzas.  After about 30 minutes Maddy started to feel better and wanted to go.  So off we went to set up.

Everyone arrived, we had pizza, cupcakes, and then the kids ran wild.  We had such a great time and appreciate everyone who was able to come to her party and help us celebrate.  We are truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family.  Everyone was more than generous and Maddy was spoiled!!

Here are some pictures:

Mud Pies

So the big project this weekend has been our front side yard and drainage issues along the side yard and in to the back yard.  When it rains, we basically have a river running down the side yard and into our back yard.  Matt worked tirelessly, by himself, trenching the back yard and laying PVC pipe to help with the drainage issues we have.  That along with the re-grading of our front side yard should hopefully resolve this issue.



After he did that in the back yard, we had 3 dump truck loads of dirt delivered so we could re-grade the side yard.  This is just 1 truck load.


I swear the people in the neighborhood drive by our house slowly, always wondering what we're up to.....

So this is the side yard before, see the big drop from the driveway to the yard at the top right of our driveway?  Well we want to expand our driveway to fit two cars, and re-grading the yard was a more cost effective way to get our driveway expanded as it requires less concrete now than it would have previously.  Also, this should help our drainage problems as well so it's a no brainer right :)



This is the after picture, see how the yard is now level with the driveway, exciting right?!



And a before and after from the back yard:



Here are some other pictures.  This was actually a huge undertaking which resulted in a very MUDDY weekend at our house.  They had to remove the fence and re-install it.  They had TONS of dirt they had to move and lots of sod to lay.  Funny how us wanting a screened in porch as turned in to cutting down two trees, re-grading our side yard, laying PVC pipe in our back yard, and then randomly re-painting our front door.

The girls enjoyed the mud!

loading the bobcat into Matt's truck

Eww Camryn....

No matter how much Maddy hates having her hair washed, there was no option after she put mud in her hair.

Oh and while all this was going on I also had a yardsale (at someone elses house) and we had Maddy's birthday party....nice calm Memorial Day weekend, right?  Post on Maddys birthday party will be coming soon.

Look Ma, No Hands

Last week mom and Anna took Maddy out to celebrate her birthday.  You can hear all about the fun here.

So that left me and Camryn to hang out, while Matt did some work in the yard.

At dinner time I was feeding Camryn and she kept trying to grab at the spoon.  I decided just to put her food on the table and let her feed herself.  Well I guess she didn't feel like getting her hands dirty (or she plans to participate in a pie eating contest sometime soon) because she proceeded to eat her food without her hands.  Glad I quickly got a video of it, you can see it here.

Camryn then decided she wanted a piece of the broccoli I had just roasted and I had to take a picture.  Sightings of my children holding, let alone eating, a green vegetable are rare.



We then took some self portraits.

We had so much fun having some nice one on one time together!