The Ballet

This past Sunday, Kennedy and I had what she kept referring to as "a Mommy & Kennedy date" . A few weeks ago, a local blog I follow advertised Beauty and the Beast ballet being performed by the Kentucky Ballet Theatre at The Lexington Opera House and I jumped on the chance to make that a special day with my big girl. Almost all of my Mommy friends have boys, but I do have one dear friend who has a little girl that I just knew would most likely enjoy this performance as much as Kennedy so I called her up and we made it a date!

After church I took Kennedy to lunch...just she and I. I didn't realize until I had all of that uninterrupted one on one time with her how much a) she REALLY needed/wanted it and b) how much I  have missed it. Now, I love our family time to pieces, but I think it's good to do stuff with your kids individually and I realized that day the only individual time I'd really had with the girls were related to errands...like only taking one to the grocery rather than both (well, I'm sure that's a real special treat for them, you know?) Anyhow - I was SO glad we made it happen because we had such a great and special time.

Here we are at Rafferty's (her choice: yum!) on the patio - we were the only ones out there when we first got there and the weather was amazing!

Sweet girl

The girls at the ballet - they LOVED it and we Mommies loved watching their faces!

Me and my girl

Our sweet dear friends:

The Opera House is gorgeous inside and out so I snapped a couple pictures of the girls outside before we left:

After the ballet, we took the girls to a sweet little cupcake and frozen yogurt shop called Naticakes. After they finished their yogurt they danced and spun all over the shop - it was so cute! They both really enjoyed it and I did too - it was a really sweet performance. Kennedy had some funny questions about why they were wearing certain things and why they were dancing certain ways but mostly she completely followed it all and related it back to the Disney movie...pretty impressive!

After the excitement of the day..this happened on the way home and I couldn't help but snap a picture real quick:

Our seats were wonderful - we were so close to the stage. I've never been to a ballet like that before and I was a bit concerned it may not be as "kid friendly" as I'd hoped but it totally was - tons of kids were there! I see many more of these in our future as special "dates".

1/2 way

I'm officially 1/2 way through my pregnancy - crazy! I will tell you this - this little kid will be seriously close to the kid I just had, like yesterday (okay..slight exaggeration but you follow me) but having them this close together has a tendency to make your pregnancy FLY by. When I was pregnant with Kennedy it was like clock watching - it seriously felt like it took sweet forevah. This little one - well it's a complete 180...I feel like I just found out.

Speaking of finding out things, we found out on Friday the 16th that we are having a BOY! We are so very excited I don't really have the words to describe it. I am from a family of four girls and as a family of four girls, we've also only had girls until one of my sisters finally broke the mold and blessed us with a sweet little boy in September. This news of another boy is just extra sweet because now my sisters little one will have a buddy instead of drowning in a sea of all things Disney, pink, dress up and princess (and all the momma's of boys said? Amen!)

When our ultrasound technician revealed the gender I was literally in shock, but thankfully not to in shock to ask her to take a picture with my cell phone. The picture she took is how we shared the news with family and friends via text messages and then later on Facebook. Because it's a cell picture, it's not the best quality but it's still cute enough to share:

He was very interested in his hand during the ultrasound...wonder if we'll have a little thumb sucker on our hands.

Kennedy's reaction to the news was pretty low-key to say the least. If I may paraphrase her general demeanor and reaction it went a little something like this: "Duh Mom, I told you it was a boy...now Avery has a baby to play with and I can finally have you all to myself again". (Creative liberties were clearly taken in the paraphrasing because if my 4 yr. old ever said "duh" someone may need to call the authorities). Bless her sugar sweet heart...she doesn't have a clue whats about to happen to her little world even though I remind you: we just did this a year ago! I digress...when the tech asked Kennedy: "do you see him sweetie" she looked a the floating side shot of his profile and was like "no" and then the tech flipped it over to 4D or whatever you call these fancy ultrasounds and then she saw him:)

Again with the thumb:

I chose not to embarrass him on Facebook, but I figure for my faithful 2 blog readers -it's ok: here's the proof!

When we were pregnant with Avery, we decided to be surprised by her sex upon delivery and therefore had picked out both boy and girl names. We still love our "boy name" and will be using it on this little guy - without further ado: his name will be Greyson Ross after a dear friend I had growing up named John Grey Young and Tim's Grandfather who is no longer with us: Ross Junior Taylor. I love that with each of my children we will be able to share with them the legacy of whose name they hold and why we chose it for them. We are undecided if we will refer to him as Greyson or just simply Grey but either way I love it and I'm loving just calling him son...it makes my heart happy!

Sundays are always crazy and that is when we took my 20 week picture so sadly due to scheduling sweet little Avery didn't make it in the photo :(.

The Birthday Party Post

Although you may find this hard to believe in a few moments, I did actually choose very carefully the photos I wanted to include in this post (all 40 of them - seriously). So....if you want to continue, I commend you. If you choose your laundry, child, husband, dog, lunch is more important - I totally understand. To my Mom and Mom-in-law, however...hope you enjoy ;). 


I have been LOVING my new camera and I mean lurving! Every now and then (as in like maybe 2 times a month if I'm lucky) I get a few spare moments where my kids are cooperating and I can actually try to switch lenses or settings and get a more artistic or close up or basically a non-automatic function shot. On Avery's birthday party morning before I put her down for her AM nap I got some cute pictures of her playing in the sheers on the playroom sliding door....they are sweet:

The whole morning nap on the day of her party was a tad nerve wracking and I remember it being so with Kennedy's 1st birthday party too. You want to get that nap in so they can handle the excitement of the party, but truthfully I think she's getting close to merging to one nap so I really didn't know if she'd take a decent nap. The nap time was pretty good, but it was one of those naps when she woke up I could tell she needed more sleep but oh well - the birthday show had to go on and she ended up doing great! 


Here are some pics of the decor:

I made the cupcakes and icing and little toppers - I thought they turned out super cute (if I do say so myself ;). I really wanted to make her a little "smash cake" like I did for Kennedy but as I've been discussing on this here blog - I'm admitting more and more that sometimes my expectations...they are a teensie to high so cupcakes and cookies it was! 

I had these little cookies made by a local bakery that I've been super happy with for cakes so I tried her for cookies and seriously..look how cute these little owlies are!?

The play/party room. It took so much effort to get Kennedy to sit still, you'd think I'd asked her to eat raw spinach! 

All dressed and ready for the arrival of her party guests!

I got the girls little owl dresses from Etsy and the hair bows were made by a friend of mine who makes custom bows...I got very few pictures of Avery with her bow because she kept pulling it off (maybe because it was the side of her head: ha!). 

I love it when they match...so cute!

Nana and Pawpaw came from WV to attend the party...always a blessing to have them and the girls just ADORE them! 

Sadly their trip was a quick out and back in the same day but the silver lining was that Grandma was willing to make the trip with them. She's not been to Lexington since I met Tim so to have her here for Avery's party was incredibly special!

She lights up around the girls and I'm so thankful that my girls will sit with her and love on her - it's just one of my favorite things to be around and watch!

Outside of Tim's parents we had very few party guests. Again - I'm trying to manage my expectations and #1: our house is not very large and therefore isn't superb for entertaining #2: I really want the girls birthday parties to be about them and their little friends and not so much about Tim and I and our friends and therefore we invited Avery's two best buds: Hudson (from church and her Mother's Day out program) and Adalyn (Abby and Jonathan's little girl) and their parents. Here is a picture of Janet with Avery...Avery loves her some Mrs. Janet!

These two are honestly thick as thieves...whenever I go to get Avery at her MDO class - they are always right next to each other and are always hanging all over each other (kind of like in this picture):

Here are the three kiddo's!

Hayden is Hudson's big brother and I've posted pictures of his precious little face before - he and Kennedy love each other to death so it was nice she had her own little friend at the party too. 

Cupcake time!

I had to give Adalyn a fork before she'd even consider touching this cupcake...such a priss!

Just to prove she did eventually dig in and enjoy:

A family pic: 

I had to attempt a few more "bow shots": 

Our family and the Brock's 

and the Burns's

She wasn't as "into" gift opening as her sister was "into" helping but she was excited with her little gifts. A tea set from Aunt Abby & Uncle J: 

Bathtub crayons from Mom and Dad: 

a wooden Melissa & Doug pull frog (also from Mom and Dad) and she also got a bubble machine and cute outfit from Nana and Pawpaw (unfortunately my pics of those were less than stellar, but believe me when I say the bathtub bubble machine is QUITE THE HIT!)

We finally got Avery down for her second nap after guests departure and clean up - she was one tired little peanut: 

Her birthday party was so much fun and I'm so thankful for those that got to share in it with us. I have to admit I'm kind of glad it's past us just because they are a lot of work...birthday parties. I went all out for Kennedy's 1st and promised myself I would try to do for A what I've done for K so I did my best to duplicate the party planning efforts. K's birthdays have gotten more simplified as the years have gone by so I have that to look forward to with Avery :).