a dump truck cake and a birthday!

Last week was Noah's third birthday and we celebrated with my dad and Noah's bf.  I went all out and made a dump truck birthday cake for him.  Before you get too impressed with my smooth as a baby's bottom icing and perfect piping {major HA! on that one} let me just tell you that I made this cake entirely out of cupcakes.  It was sooo easy and not to mention fun.  I used a Wilton cupcake kit that my friend found on clearance and then gave to me. It had instructions on how to make three different types of cakes, one of them being a dump truck. The kit also came with silicone cupcake liners in different shapes that you put together to form the cake design.

My favorite part about making this cake was picking out the candy to use for the "gravel" in the back of the truck.  I decided to go with m&m's and dots.  I also used half an m&m for the door handle on the truck

Of course Noah loved his cake and didn't mind that his momma has NO icing skillz what so ever! If you can't tell from the pictures Noah was singing happy birthday to himself while we sang.  This was the first birthday that Noah really knew what was going on and definitely soaked up every minute of it! 

And just for my own personal memory keeping.....................

You still like Lightening McQueen and Toy Story in case you can't tell from this picture! Not pictured are your bucket o' soliders and your rex flash light. ha!

You've recently discovered jigsaw puzzles and will seriously do them over and over again.  Looks like you take after your Mimi in that regard.  Your favorites right now are the Melissa and Doug puzzles in a box.

 

{via}

You also love for me to read with you and your favorite author of the moment is Richard Scarry.  You love Cars, and trucks, and things that go and have already memorized where Goldbug is on each page.  You really like "Where's Waldo" sort of books like this one and can't seem to get enough of them.

If I send you to your room to pick out some shoes for the day then you ALWAYS comes back out wearing your beloved cowboy boots.  What I love most of all about you at this age is that you are chatting up a storm and I routinely refer to you as my chatty cathy because you are always a talkin.  Your papa, my dad, mentioned on his recent visit that you remind him a lot of me at this age and that made me smile.  We love you sweet boy!

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homesick + the stella and dot giveaway winner

{cousins 09}

I've been feeling a little homesick as of late.  Probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't been home in a year and half. Plus my SIL is at home {and by home I mean our hometown in OK} visiting with her family/my in-laws.  I would love to be there too, visiting with them and my family.  The boys haven't seen their cousins in almost a year and it would be so fun to let them play and interact together.  Lucky for me though my dad decided to fly out and stay the week with the boys and I while Hubs is out of town.  This will be the second birthday of Noah's that his dad has had to miss and I'm thankful we will have my dad here to help celebrate.

Before I forget the winner of the Stella and Dot giveaway is Tricia S.  I hope you enjoy your new Goa Pendant Necklace!!  I'm so jealous.  :)

Didn't win the giveaway? Lauren is extending all my readers a 20% discount on any Stella & Dot purchase before July 15th and a 15% discount on orders before July 31st. You can shop at http://www.stelladot.com/editbylauren and then email your orders to lauren@editbylauren.com in order to receive your discount.

Lauren is also generously offering my readers at $50 Stella & Dot Gift Certificate with any Edit by Lauren booking before August 31st!  

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this. and that.

I wanted to thank those of you that left me sweet comments on my "What I Wore" post. "  The reason for that post was to help me branch out a little bit when it comes to my wardrobe.  I love to just wear my favorite OU tee and my favorite nike running shirts when I am at home with the boys but I have really been trying to break out of that rut. I would love to do more "What I Wore" posts in the future but as you can imagine it's kind of hard to find time to take semi-decent pictures of yourself every morning.  Right now I have more important things to do. LIKE SELL THIS HOUSE ALL READY!!!

We had our first showing last night {just 24 hours after I put it up for sale by owner} and I got some really good feedback from the lady about our house.  Hopefully we can get some more people to come take a look because it really is such a cute house and I am going to be sad to have to leave it. 

This is a this. and that. post so get ready for a subject change right about now. I've always had a thing for red geraniums.  No other color of geranium will do.  Ever since I have had a place of my own I have had a planter or two of red geraniums on my porch.  This year was no exception.  I love to mix different shades of greens in with the my red geraniums.

Lately the boys naps have not been lining up at all. Graham will take a morning nap and then by the time he gets up Noah is going down for his nap. And then Noah wakes up and Graham goes down for his second nap of the day.  It's been nice to be able to spend some good one on one time with each of the boys but I tell you what by dinner time I am a little worn out from not getting a few minutes of downtime.

Often when Noah goes down for his afternoon nap Grammy and I will head outside to play.  Graham doesn't seem to mind the heat at all so we'll find a shady part of the yard and play for a while. I remembered seeing how Ashley Ann gave one of her kiddos a plastic bin full of water to play in so I got my handy red ikea recycling tote and filled it up with water.  We stole big brothers toys from the bathtub plus a bowl and a cup from the kitchen so Grammy could have some playthings for the water. He had such a blast!  After about thirty minutes I had to refill his tub with more water because he kept drinking it and pouring it onto the grass.

While Graham played I was able to get a few things done around the yard.  Mainly I needed to touch up some exterior paint on the outside of our sunroom.  I also needed to snag some pictures of the backyard and the freshly painted barn. {It's not actually a barn it just looks like one.  It's a workshop complete with electricity and eight gazillion outlets.}

{new barn}

{old barn + new cutie}

{old barn}

When we bought our house there was this little green house {pictured above on the left} attached to the workshop.  We tore that down back in January and then recently Hubby replaced all the rotting wood on the outside of the barn. He also power washed the heck out of it {and our whole house for that matter} and then repainted it.  And yes that little red head in the chest carrier is Noah.  He was so little then!

Cody says he hopes you all are having a good week!

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everything but the kitchen sink!

Lately all of our time and energy has been going into prepping the house to sale.  Ben is doing some final touch-ups around the house on top of his job and his last semester of school {thank goodness only  four more months of that}. There are so many unknowns right now that it makes my head hurt: Will our house sell?  Should we try to rent it? If it sells should we rent another house until we move to R.I.?  Should the littles and I move home to OK for a few months? AND will we get our orders soon so we can actually have the Navy pack out our household goods should our house sell.  AHHHHHH.  I'm trying not to get too stressed out and really trust that God is in control and remind myself daily that I am indeed not.  If you have a second a prayer would be greatly appreciated.  

Now on to some more fun and interesting happenings...........

Last Wednesday we went to Lake Harwell with Hubby's department and his international students.  Every once in a while families or couples in the community invite the international students to their homes.  Often it is for dinner or BBQ but sometimes it is to their lake homes in the area.  I always try to go to these event if I can especially to the lake ones!

We went on several different types of boat including a paddle boat just the four of us.  Went to this same lake house last year when Noah was just shy of 2 and Graham was only 4 months old.  It was fun experiencing the lake through their eyes this year.

I love this shot of Grammy sitting with his daddy. Check out his new mini Sperry's!

The boys swim hats always remind me of Will Smith on Fresh Prince.  Did he have a baseball cap similar to these with the flap flipped up or did I just make that up?

This is what the Georgia humidity does to our hair!  Myself included of course.

On Friday night we left Graham with my friend and Ben and I took Noah out to eat and then to see his first ever movie at the "eater" {that's theatre for all of you not verse in toddler lingo}  We saw Toy Story 3 in 3D which he loved even though the glasses were giant for his face and wouldn't stay on.  

On Saturday evening we went to a minor league baseball game with our good friends.  They have two little girls almost the same age as our boys. Actually our little guys are going to marry their little girls.  I have already pre-arranged their marriages! just kidding. sort of.

We bought tickets for the lawn area as we thought that would be best for two families with four kiddos under the age of three.  As you can see they had oodles of bouncy things but only one of them appropriate for our toddlers. Talk about a tease!

Graham's future wife!

What's funny is that I couldn't even tell you who won the game or who the Braves played!  Actually I know it was the chiefs but I couldn't tell you what city or state they were from.  I really don't think I actually watched one single play. How sad is that?  Going to a baseball game with little ones is definitely not relaxing but I still thought it was fun and I'm glad that we went.

  I think this might have been the only time Graham actually sat down on our blanket.  The rest of the night either hubby or myself had to walk with him around the stadium.  That child is definitely always on the go!

We ended the week on Sunday with a lazy Father's day.  We got hubs a few small presents one of which was a gallon of his favorite sweet tea from a local eatery.  We don't get it very often {actually we never have before} because it is almost $5.50 a galloon.  Maybe I should go into the sweet tea business?

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

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