Maps & Invitations

Isn't it amazing how kids soak up everything like super sponges?!  I have to really remember that sometimes...it makes for awkward social situations, lol!  (not that my child would ever repeat things like 'crap!') 

Let's just take a look at this picture above.

1) Maverick knows how to use the mouse and keyboard.

2) He is pointing to a map of the United States.

I am sort of proud to say that Mav knows almost all 50 states!  A couple of the small ones like Vermont and Delaware give him some trouble, but other than that he really has it down.  Even more funny is how he pronounces them all.  I think my favorites are "Bash-ee-go" (Washington), "Habee-ee" (Hawaii), and "Peepoopana" (Pennsylvania).

I have to blame thank my mother-in-law.  She bought this huge map/poster and started teaching him, and the kid is now obsessed.  Robbie saved a picture of a map on our computer, saved it to the desktop, and Mav knows where to put the mouse to ask for it.  My MIL has a world atlas and is threatening to start on Europe, lol!

Mav is getting pretty good at saying his own name now, too.  He pronounces it "Mam-ick" or "May-mick", ha!  And we've been working on changing his response to "How old are you?" from "One!" to "Two!".

Speaking of which, I started working on Mav's birthday invitations. I like homemade invitations. Mostly because I love crafty things. :) So of course I hit up Pinterest for some inspiration.

Last year we decided to go with a Thanksgiving theme since I knew it would probably be the only time I could get away with it.  From now on it will be, "But mooooooom!  I want laser guided robots!".  I made cute little turkey invitations that said, "Our little turkey is One!".  I still have the huge box of cardstock left over from that project, which is great for this year's invites!

Deciding on his party theme this year was pretty easy.  We knew it would most certainly have to be firetrucks, monster trucks, cars, airplanes, buses or tractors.  I was thinking just firetrucks, but Robbie thought it would be cool to incorporate a whole transportation theme.  And he was right--a lot more cool & fun ideas as a whole.

The 'hardest' part to my invitations was cutting out the little trucks, cars, tractors, and airplanes.  When I switched to my hair cutting shears, it was a lot easier, ha!  The pic above is my piles of transportation cut-outs.

I can't take credit for the cute poem.  I found a transportation themed party pin on Pinterest, and the poem was part of it.  All I had to do was cut out the little vehicles, glue on some black paper circles and add a little sharpie detail...and ta-da!  The back has another cardstock rectangle with our address and rsvp info.

I'm excited that we get to throw the party on his actual birthday, which falls on a Saturday this year. (Not that Mav cares).  Let's see, I think I figured out that every 6 (maybe 7?) years it will fall on Thanksgiving day again like his birth day.  So I don't know what we'll do as far as keeping his birthday and Thanksgiving separate.  (I know how that feels...my birthday is 2 days after Christmas)  Maybe he won't super care as long as there is pizza and cake...I know that worked for me!  :)

This year we're making it a lot more low key, too.  Last year we had a full dinner and dessert and I think it was a bit much.  So this year we'll have snacks with cake & ice cream.  (Sorry, ha ha!)

Can't believe my baby is going to be 2!

Bike!

Most of the time Maverick rides his little tricycle around the family room, but we've been venturing out to the driveway to enjoy these last few days of warm weather.  It's hard to believe that he got this for his 1st birthday almost a year ago!

This face cracks me up with those little "chicklet" teeth poking out. :)

Can you tell his father manages a bicycle shop?!  Ha ha!

Before he rode, he grabbed an extra tire pump and pushed his front tire up to the hose so he could 'air up his tires'.  Oh my.

This face also cracks me up!

What a goofball. :)

Oh that hair.

I swear I wet it down and brush it!  It just does what it wants.

Mav loves to get in the back of the Jeep. 

He is begging me to close the door, so he can poke his head out of the window.

Love that squishy face!

(and that pesky eczema patch that won't go away)

Hi Mom!

Have a great rest of the week!

GO CARDINALS!

Let's Go Cardinals!

Is that a great sight or what?!

Cardinal Nation is in a fever pitch right now with our beloved Birdies unexpectedly, and miraculously landing in the playoffs.

Last week my dad won a raffle at his work for some awesome seats to Game 3 of the NLDS here in St. Louis.

Best. Afternoon. Ever.

(mostly because I got to hang with my daddy!)

We went downtown early to avoid traffic from the President being in town, so we took advantage of the pre-game rallies and filled our tummies with classic Lou food.  St. Louis style pizza and fried mushrooms. :)

I hadn't done anything that spontaneous in SO long, and it was AH-mazing.  A million thanks to my hubby and my coworkers for giving me a full afternoon off at the last minute.  Plus--I got to scratch off going to a towel waving game from my bucket list. :)

Even though we ended up losing that game, it was SUCH a fun day.  I'm a little late blogging about it (about a week late, but hey, ha!).  In case you didn't know, we ended up winning the series...and now we're in the NLCS!

Let's Go Cardinals!

Beat those pesky, arrogant, know-it-all (but not really!) Brewers!!

This One is for Me

This is sort of a post just for me.  Mostly a theraputic rant. :)

When Maverick heard the monthly tornado siren test this morning he said, "BIRETRUCK! BIRETRUCK!"  I had to laugh because the kid LOVES his firetrucks.  And the fact that just about every other time he has heard those sirens its been in the middle of the night and slept right through it.

I almost took him to my work this morning because its fire safety week, and they had TWO firetrucks there.  I'm sorry--one firetruck and one fire engine.  (One learns a lot about these things when their toddler is obsessed with them, ha!).  He probably would've passed out from excitement!

I am so thankful that my job allows me to work a split shift, and I get to be home with Mav almost all of the day.  I work in the early morning when he's sleeping, and in the afternoon when he (for the most part) takes a nap.  Plus, it gives his Nana and Grandma a few hours a day to love on him.

I'm trying to work my next thought very carefully.  I don't want to diminish or belittle my husband AT ALL.  My goal is to lift him up and honor the incredible, selfless, awesome, amazing, and exhausting things he does to provide for us.  Robbie is beyond talented in what he does, and goes WAY past what is expected of him at work.  He is one of the hardest workers out there.  There is just no way to describe his awesomeness.  He is the best.  And I'm the luckiest girl to have him. :)

With that said, the industry in which he works doesn't exactly...how do I say it...have a high profit yield?  Sort of like being a school teacher: you do it because you love it--and not for the paycheck.  So I have to work as well.  Mostly for the incredible insurance I get through my work, that his small company can't offer.

I dream of being a full time stay-at-home mom.  But for now, this is what God has called me to do.  Sometimes I look upon all my SAHM friends with tons of envy, but then I'm reminded that is their story, where God has them on their journey...just like I'm on my own He has set for me and I don't want to miss the blessings He has in store for me.  I am beyond blessed to have a job that I love, and get to do what I love, and still be the #1 mommy to my son as well.  It gets pretty rough, but with God's help its making me stronger.

The downside is always being so exhausted.  I feel like I'm being pulled in a hundred directions some days.  Because I have to get up so early for work, and wait until Mav goes to sleep to get some other stuff done, I hardly get 6 hours of sleep everyday.  Or like today, I felt awful because I had a lot of paperwork to get done before returning to work in the afternoon and I had to keep one hand on the keyboard and one hand on a hotwheel...and Mav kept pulling my hand off the keyboard wanting my full attention.

Being the cleaning lady is one of my hats.  I feel victorious that I manage to sort of stay on top of laundry, dishes, and keeping the house decent.  Decent relative to toys strewn about all day. :)  By the way--what is it about kids never wanting to play with something until you're trying to clean it up?!  I save cleaning the front room for when Mav goes to sleep, ha!

I love that I get home from my early morning shift in time to greet Mav as he wakes up.  Then we get almost a whole day to play trucks, read a million books, color pictures, eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, go to the park, run errands, and have FUN.

I do have to admit it is nice when he, or I, am having a bad day it is nice to leave him in the afternoons with one of the grandmas for a change of scenery.  Grandmas are the best!  I come back a few hours later recharged and so does he.

But leaving him for a few hours in the afternoon is still hard sometimes.  Just the other day I teared up when I drove away and he was waving bye-bye to me in the big window.  It's just that he is only this little for such a short time, and I don't want to miss a minute of it. 

Okay.  Thanks for sticking around and enduring my back-and-forth thoughts.  I feel better now. ;)       

Red October

To me, Fall hasn't officially begun until October.  So to celebrate I made a seasonal wreath for our front door, which also fulfilled one of my life goals of making our house more homey.  I'm not into super decorating, but our house needs a lot of help! :)  I skimmed Pinterest for a while to get some ideas...heck, who am I kidding?  I just needed an excuse to browse Pinterest.

My awesome sister invited Mav and I down for breakfast, and Mav was having SO much fun that my sis lovingly offered to watch him so I could enjoy some 'me' time at Hobby Lobby.  That store is like my dream world!  I just walk down each aisle buggy eyed thinking of all the projects I could do if I had unlimited time and an unlimited budget.  It's probably a good thing that I have neither.

To begin I had to have some candy corn inspiration. :)

One of those cups may or may not be sitting next to my computer next to a full glass of iced milk right now.

Not too fancy schmancy.  No sewing or glue.  Just something simple for my first DIY wreath.

I knew I wanted to monogram it with a C for our last name.  I found this on sale for $2:

I originally thought about going with a foam ring, but that seemed like too much work.  So this twig wreath was perfect!  Plus, it can be so easy to remake into a Christmas wreath.  This was also on sale for $2!

Then I found these cute little orange-ish red berries, each twig on sale for $1!

A little glitter pizazz for $2.

With a little twisting...tweaking here and there...ta da!

A little fun for the door! :)

It was pretty hard to get a good outside picture due to the glass door, here's the best shot.

  

With a $3 door hanger, the whole project was $12.29 after tax.  Not too bad. :)

Although if you use the glitter twirly things it does make quite a mess.

I might be finding gold glitter for the next 3 Octobers, ha!

On my way home from Hobby Lobby the song "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates came on the radio.  This song always puts a smile on my face because it reminds me of my Uncle Jimmy who we lost way too soon, 5 summers ago.  He used to always tell me this super corny joke about Hall & Oates being a farmer's favorite music group.  :)

I miss him and I know that he would love his great-nephew Maverick.

He would also be so excited about the Cardinals this year, and love that Mav is already a superfan.

This is how we 'watch' games at home, ha ha!

We watch the Gameday feature on the Cardinals website since we don't have cable.  I wish that at least the playoffs would be broadcasted on a major network.  Oh well. :)

Go Cardinals!  Beat those Phillies!!