SEVEN.

Loves:  Star Wars, Legos (Hero Factory and Ninjago), snuggling, Kraft macaroni and cheese, drawing (mostly R2D2), the DIY and History channels and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, throwing the football in the backyard, playing with babies (Emmy and Thatcher), Angry Birds, using "facetime" on Ben's phone (and anything else electronic), reading, sausage patties, stuffed animals

Eats like a bottomless pit.

Remembers EVERYTHING.

Very scheduled/structured.  Not a big fan of plans changing.

Extremely responsible and trustworthy.  Never lies or tries to hide anything.

Great sense of humor.  Can be sarcastic and somewhat of a smart alec but comes by it very honestly.  Learning to purposely push Babe's buttons.  In fact, really only gets in trouble for trying to tease/frustrate/upset her at times.

Very smart.  Always wanting to "google" things.

Drink of choice:  lemonade.  Hates milk but willingly follows our "at least one glass a day" rule.

Interested in money:  making and spending it. :)

Becoming more and more confident and outgoing every day.  Still gets nervous/anxious in new situations but makes friends easily and handles social situations well.

FINALLY learning to ride a bike without training wheels.  (It's just not something we do a ton around here.)

Family-oriented.  Loves doing things with our "whole family."

Started to say things like "duh," "darn it," "I know what I'm doing," and even "shyster."

Always complimented, though, on manners.

Still can't believe he's seven...

Harry's Party.

Harris chose to have a "Laser Tag" party for his birthday this year.  He's played laser tag once:  last summer, with Tyler.  And they literally played one game.  He was pretty adamant, though, and so I googled "cheap laser tag" and found the perfect place for he and his friends to have a great time shooting each other! :)

Aside from the fact that it was a little on the stuffy side, we had such fun spending the afternoon with our friends.  I even think the adults (at least the men) enjoyed the games more than the kids!!!!

And I promise Ben wasn't the only adult to play.  Somehow, DB, Carter, and Cody managed to sneaky snake their way out of these pics. :)

If you're looking for a place to play, I highly recommend Laser Tag of Buford.  It was well priced and very laid back (all the mamas ended up walking around the course while our kiddos were playing--even Emmy walked around without a vest!) and the course itself was, according to Cody, one of the best ones around.

Our group played their first game (bonus:  our kids were the only ones on the course!) and then we headed to the "party room" for gifts and cake.

Harris chose to have Star Wars cupcakes.  Ben and I chose to pick up a double decker cookie cake.  Of course, the cookie cake was more of a spur-of-the-moment buy (they are sooooo hard to resist!) and the only one left had a huge "man cave" decoration in the middle of it!  It still tasted fantastic, though.  We devoured that thing. :)

Once we finished with cake and presents, the kids (big and little!) got to play their second game.  Babe didn't play the first time around but couldn't wait to get her gear on for the second trip in.  She LOVED it and has since declared that she'd like to have a laser tag birthday as well.

I don't think Ben would mind that one bit!  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if another laser tag outing was in our near future!

We finished off the afternoon with drink refills and popcorn (laser tag is a sweaty sport!) and then said goodbye to our friends.

For the last time this year, Happy Birthday, Harris!  We are so crazy in love with you!!!

Pre-Birthday Party.

Harris' birthday is tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  I will be the mother of a seven-year-old tomorrow.   SEVEN.

 Best seven years of my life. :)

We always celebrate birthdays with the fam at (where else?) Chick-fil-a with a homemade (thank you, Betty Crocker!), Daddy-decorated, birthday cake.  We typically just pick the Tuesday night closest to the actual birthday we're celebrating, but because Ben will be at school next week, Harry got to celebrate a little early. He didn't mind one bit!

Harris had some pretty specific requests for his cake this year:  it needed to be a "haunting" color, include a tunnel, and feature Obi Won and R2D2 battling a haunted dinosaur.  Oh, to be inside his brain for a day.  Or an hour.

Anyway, he and Ben worked hard on Monday night getting it just right:

Babe and I worked hard at cleaning up all the icing:

The end result was this:

We loaded that puppy up on Tuesday night to share with our peeps (both family and Chick-fil-a staff).  The kids were ready to dig in!  Especially Raven...

We didn't open any presents at Chick-fil-a but we did make a family trip to Target after dinner and Harris picked out a couple of small toys he'd like to receive from Ben and me.  Granti also bought him a Nijago Lego set for his big day AND let him take it home straight from Target.  He was pretty pumped.

I still can't believe he's getting so big...

He makes me laugh every. single. day.  He also makes me step back and take a deep breath every now and then.

Man, I love that kid.  Can't wait to continue his celebration this weekend!

ONE.

We celebrated our baby girl on Wednesday morning with our birthday tradition:  the birthday balloon(s) and powdered donuts.

I still can't believe it's been a year since we welcomed her into this world.  One whole year. 

Our family will never be the same. :)

We love you, Pickle Pants!!!

Emmy's Party.

We celebrated Emmy's first birthday this past Sunday afternoon with a small, low-key party with some of our family and friends. 

Because I'm a little (or a lot) crazy when it comes to having large numbers of people in my house at the same time, Ben and me decided to rent the local Activity Center at the park for an extremely reasonable price!  It was perfect...we were able to set up tables with food, a table for cookie decorating, and a table for a cute little Christmas craft.  The room even had a large wall of windows which allowed us adults to watch our kiddos run like crazy outside while we enjoyed the comfort of chairs and the easy access to food. :)

I'm not crafty AT ALL, so I was pretty proud of the "thumbprint light string" craft I found on Pinterest.  I actually think they turned out pretty cute!  We used these as our party favors and I've got to admit I much preferred spending money on the Dollar Tree frames as opposed to bags of dum dums...and everyone got to leave with a personalized Christmas decoration!

Emmy spent most of her time crawling around on the floor, eating crackers, and getting loved on by our guests.  I guess I didn't realize (until we had everyone in the same room!) how few of our family friends actually have babies around Emmy's age.  Most of the kiddos (with the exception of Livi) are older, so Emmy actually spent quite a lot of time around us adults.

We were able to coax the big kids inside for cake!  They were beyond excited to see Emmy make a mess.  They actually gathered around, sang "Happy Birthday," and then proceeded to chant, in unison, "Smash it!  Smash it!  Smash it!"  It was quite funny.

Emmy was slow to warm up, but I don't think she disappointed.

For the most part, she enjoyed the cake.  The attention got to her after a while and she was ready to get up and get clean.  I don't blame her.  I also think she looks just like Harris when she cries. :)

We had a few minutes to spare after cleaning things up, so we let Emmy open a couple of gifts and then finished the rest at home.

She had more of a fighting chance of actually getting to the gifts at home. :) 

I still can't believe that sweet baby is a year old already!  What fun it was to celebrate her all afternoon!

Happy, Happy Birthday, Emmy Doe!!!!

CFA Celebration

Granti made Daddy a birthday cake for his celebration at Chick-fil-A.  She used chocolate cake and vanilla icing (his absolute favorites!) and the closest number candles she had at home.

42, 36...at this age, does it really matter?

We had a fun time celebrating Ben...for the last time this year!!!!!!!!!!

Chick-fil-A really is our home away from home.  We love that place.  And that place loves us.  :)