Granbury Beach

For our family fun day on Friday we drove out to the Granbury beach. We had wanted to go back in May, but decided to go to the Trophy Club beach....then we wanted to go in August, but Ryan reminded me that I probably didn't want to feel sick and be at the beach when it was 100 degrees....so Friday was finally the perfect day! It was actually only about 70 degrees and slightly rainy when we first got there around 10am. I was wanting a jacket for a little bit! It did warm up just enough to play in the water and the sun stayed behind the clouds which was perfect! 

Splashing into the waves! Her legs look so long! 

Family beach photo! Don't worry, I was able to ask the random people there shooting a music video to take this. Other than that we mostly had the beach to ourselves all day.

Eva would run out into the water....count 1,2,3.....

and then fall down and laugh a lot. It's good to know the proper way to enjoy a beach day.

We also brought the gazillion sand toys that we've collected at home. And a beach ball....that blew away somewhere never to be discovered again.

Okay, this is not a beautiful beach photo. This is what I ate for lunch! It was a grilled cheese sandwich stuffed with macaroni and cheese. A pregnant woman's dream :)

Preschool at home

Right now we are in our 5th week of doing preschool at home, so I thought I would share a bit of our experience. With my background in education, I believe that it is so important for little kids to start learning early. Their tiny minds are made to be like sponges, soaking up information and making connections all the time. I get asked fairly frequently when Eva will "start school," meaning when she will actually go to school. Honestly, I'm not sure. For now I want her at home with me and I feel like I can do a good job of teaching her. Also preschool programs aren't free so that makes a big difference for us. I know there are tons of fabulous programs in our area and sometimes I'm torn because I know she would love the social side of "going to school." Right now our plan is for me to home school her for most of preschool, possibly send her to pre-k a couple of days a week the year before kindergarten (she still has 3 more years) and then have her go to public school for kindergarten. But, who knows? I really want to just take things year by year, considering how she is doing, what she needs, and what our family life looks like.

For this year I looked at a few curriculums and decided to go with ABC Jesus Loves Me. I like this curriculum because it includes Bible stories, music, art, lots of literacy activities, number concepts, and ideas for gross and fine motor skills. You can find everything on their website for free, so if you're looking to sample some ideas I would really recommend it. I chose to order the printed version because last year I always took time to print off things and put them in a binder anyway. Plus the printed version includes a layout for what to do each day and I like that to help me organize our days. You do not need a curriculum to work with your child at home, especially now that there are so many great ideas on the internet, but it really helps me to focus on specific skills and have an idea of what to do each week.

The content doesn't have tons of science, so I plan on using pinterest to find activities that would be interesting for Eva. She also is really into helping me in the kitchen, so I am hoping to cook with her at least once a week. Cooking together is good for teaching listening, following directions, measuring, and observation - plus it ends with a yummy snack!

We do school for a couple of hours a day (spread out into a couple of chunks) 2 or 3 days a week depending on what our schedule looks like. The curriculum we're using has built in weeks for review, which is nice because you can go back and reinforce concepts. We start our school days by doing "calendar time" together on our refrigerator. I decided to do this since it is what most schools do, and it helps her get into "school mode" I also have a pocket chart on our refrigerator where I put cards that list each of our activities for the day like Bible, letters, numbers, art, etc. Eva really likes to see what we are going to be doing and will go back during the day and say, "Let me look at my schedule, Mama," to see what we still have left to do. She cracks me up.

If you're thinking about doing preschool at home with your child, here are my thoughts on what is most important. Play time. Hello, she is three years old. Her days should be full of play. Children learn so much through play time! Reading. Fill those little minds up with books. On school days I try to spend at least 30 minutes reading (spread out through the day) but even on days that we are just living life, we read a lot. Learning to be helpful. Not only do I want her to be educated, I want her to have age appropriate life skills. Lucky for me, Eva will shadow me all day long and ask to help me. So I put her to work! She is helpful in the kitchen and probably has more laundry skills than some college freshman. She's learning how to put things away and keep a house clean. When the baby comes in February I fully plan on using Eva to help me out, I might as well start training her now!

Which leads me to the one thing I'm most nervous about...doing home school with a newborn in the house. It is much easier now when I can focus on Eva and the house. My mind explodes a little bit when I think about adding caring for a baby into our schedule. But I know that mamas have managed multiple children for a long, long time. I remind myself that I don't have to be able to fully plan and picture how things will work. We will get there when we get there. Eva will be learning. Eva will be loved. Life will change but that will be okay.

And what am I most excited about for this year? To see Eva learning! Can you tell where she was trying to write the letters in her name???? The long lines with lines across are her "E's", the up and down diagonal lines are her "v's" and the circles with the line next to it are her "a's". I thought that was so awesome for a kid that just turned 3! Already she has been learning more letter sounds and her number recognition and counting have improved so much. The other day we were drawing letters in shaving cream and she was wanting to draw lots of letters and even a few numbers! Her ability to cut with scissors has improved so much over the past month and she holds her pencils and crayons with a more standard grip. It's so cool! Most importantly, I love seeing that Eva LOVES to learn! I want her to see working on school together as something she "gets to do" instead of "has to do." Ooh, I am so excited for this year!

In search of shoes

 

This weekend we sent Eva to stay with my parents so we could have time for a date night. Ryan had to work Saturday afternoon, so I figured it would be a great time for me to do a little bargain shopping. Eva's feet keep on growing, and those little feet need some fall shoes. I hate paying full price for kids shoes since they only wear them for a season or two. After dropping Eva off in Grapevine, I headed to the nearby Kid to Kid. As I got out of the car, I could smell the delicious aroma of the Chinese restaurant next door. I debated getting an egg roll to go but decided to skip it. I might have accidentally gained a few extra pounds this pregnancy so I am trying to make healthy choices. I browsed Kid to Kid, and they had lots of cute shoes, but every single pair I liked was a size 5. Not much help when I was looking for size 7. I walked back to my car, once again having the egg roll debate, and decided to go to a different resale shop I had heard about. On my way out of the parking lot, I pulled over for a second to pull up the directions on my phone. I considered going to a Once Upon a Child in Flower Mound but instead went with my initial idea to visit a new place, Little Hang Ups, in Keller. I was greatly influenced by the fact that I had read online that they had a decent selection of resale maternity wear, which I am needing to stock up on. So I prepared for a bit of a drive. Along my way I saw another resale shop in Southlake. This store even advertised "maternity" on their store front window. I pulled over, hoping that this would be a hidden gem I hadn't heard of and that I wouldn't have to drive so far. It was no gem. Their selection was limited and I didn't find anything I liked. Back to the car....as I was driving and driving and driving. I kept thinking about how much I wished I had bought that egg roll. Who really cares about a few extra pregnancy pounds? Weight I can eventually work off....a tired, hungry pregnant woman is a way more serious situation. I remembered another store only slightly off my path, but decided to skip it.....I was determined to get to Little Hang Ups. After sitting in some agonizing Keller traffic, I finally reached my destination. According to google maps I was in the right place. The store should have been right there. And yet it wasn't. Hmm....I decided to call the number I found online. Disconnected....I searched more on my phone and suddenly realized that all the reviews I could find of this place were from a few years ago....oh man. This magical resale shop no longer existed. I had driven all that way for nothing. Bummer. Nevertheless, I was determined to get Eva some shoes. I headed back through Keller to visit the Kid to Kid that is in Watagua. I was a bit hesitant because in my mind I remembered that the store always smelled like feet. But I didn't have a child with me, so I figured better to just look at all my options than to try to shop another day. As soon as I stepped inside I could smell it. The stinky foot smell. How do those people work with that smell??? They did have tons of cute shoes....but once again they were either size 5 or size 9, not one single cute pair of size 7. I wasn't even that picky, I just wanted a fancier black or silver pair and a colorful everyday pair. Don't other kids wear shoes like that? I was able to find one pair of maternity jeans and one maternity top so at least I had that one glimpse of sunshine in my life. Still hopeful to get shoes for Eva, I decided to make one last stop at the Watagua Target. Wait, did I mention that I had already been to the Grapevine Target with Eva before meeting my mom? So this was my second trip. At the other Target I had seen a few shoe options, but I was really wanting to find a better deal. The shoe aisles at the Watagua Target looked like a land mine! I can only assume every other mother in a hundred mile radius had dragged their children their that day, and that their children had run rampant through the store, throwing shoes everywhere. I totally get it. My child gets a bit crazy during shoe shopping too, which I why I DESPERATELY wanted to buy shoes when she wasn't with me! Their selection was abysmal, and the one pair I liked was only available in...you guessed it....size 5. Agghh! Let me tell you, if you are in search of size 5 shoes, this is your lucky month. Finally I left. Frustrated. Shoeless. HUNGRY. I gave in and drove through Panda Express to get an egg roll to eat on the way home. Maybe I will just order some shoes for Eva online....or maybe she will just go barefoot all fall. She would probably like that best anyway.

A special day for a special 3 year old

Birthdays are a big deal around our house so we wanted to make sure Eva's special day was great. One day she will have to spend her birthday in school, or even at a job, so for now I make sure to plan a day that is filled with everything she likes to do. We started the day off with opening a few birthday presents. She got a couple of books, an ABC Bingo game, and a cowgirl dress up outfit. 

Then it was time for birthday breakfast! Ryan woke up extra early to go get us donuts before Eva woke up. I know she isn't looking at the camera in this photo, but doesn't she just look so content and happy? Just the way you should look on your 3rd birthday.

Next we went to the park and splash pad for some playtime with friends. Since we only did family for her party this was a good time for her to get to see her little friends. 

 She loves all of these kiddos so much! I think it made her day so special to get to play with them.

What birthday girl (and mama) doesn't need a pick me up after a sugar filled morning and outdoor playtime? We had a Starbucks date, milk for her and coffee for me. She got to use her own special Starbucks card that she got for her birthday to help pay for her milk box habit.

 

I tried to plan so that we wouldn't have to go to the store on  Monday like we usually do but we ended up needing just a few things. I decided to just run into Tom Thumb and I let her ride the silly outdoor horse. She ALWAYS asks to ride it and I NEVER say yes, so this was a treat. Good thing I had 50 cents in my purse!

When Ryan got home we all went to our neighborhood pool. This girl has mastered the art of enjoying a good pool raft. Next up was dinner and playtime at Chickfila but I didn't get any pictures there.

And finally we wrapped up her big day with a trip to the toy store. She had a Toys R Us giftcard that she got for her birthday and she decided to use it to buy a Frozen umbrella and the Let's Go Fishing game. It was fun to teach her that she had some money to use there however she wanted. Of course she was drawn to a few really random things but we helped her narrow her choices down to things that we thought she would actually like. The cutest moment was when she was looking at the Jessie dolls (from Toy Story). She wanted one that talked but I was explaining to her that the talking ones were more expensive and she could only get a small, non talking one with her gift card. After a long thinking time she finally said, "Well maybe I could get a Jessie doll for Christmas...." Haha, it cracked me up the way she said that. So I told her that maybe if she still liked it at Christmas that would be a possibility. She is so funny. I hope she enjoyed a day that was all about her!

Eva's Toy Story Birthday Party

About two months ago I started asking Eva what kind of party she wanted for her birthday. I was honestly loving the idea of a Frozen party because I know how popular all things Frozen are and had pinned some really cute ideas. But it was her party, so I let her decide. She was pretty adamant, she wanted a "Buzz" party. So I decided to grant her wish and put together a fun Toy Story birthday party. Starting with these cute birthday party invitations.

Right away I knew I wanted to stick to our plan from last year to keep things small and relatively simple. Just family. Easy decorations. It's hard because I really do like crafting and could spend hours finding ideas online. I try to keep in perspective that it's a child's birthday party...not the Emmy's. She would have probably been happy with a giant balloon and a store bought cake that had Buzz Lightyear on it. I chose to have a bit more fun :) I am really proud of myself because I think I spent maybe $20 total on decorations, including balloons and tableware. There are so many fabulous ideas on Pinterest that include FREE printables. Plus the printables I found were way cuter than anything at Party City. Party City has deemed Toy Story a "boy's birthday" theme and therefore all of their selections were way too boyish. I went with red, blue, yellow, and cow print as our basic party colors and most of the printables I found went along with this. 

I couldn't get a great photo, but I was able to print a birthday banner and hung it back behind the table.

I kept the table setting really simple by incorporating a cow print table cloth - one of my FAVORITE finds, thanks Hobby Lobby - along with a few Toy Story toys, most of which were borrowed from a friend. 

I set up a smaller table in the playroom for the girls to eat at. This worked well because they would eat and play without me worrying about how much of a mess they might be making.

I printed off several sheets of these Toy Story icons. I made three small banners for the kitchen to hang about the food. I used some to glue on the food labels and saved the rest in case I wanted them as cupcake toppers. I ended up not doing cupcakes, but at least I was prepared. 

I found a few 8X10 character printables and borrowed some extra black frames from my mom. This was an easy way to dress up our bar top. 

Aside from the cow print table cloth, my other favorite decor were the food labels. I realize that most people at the party probably cared 0% that the food was labeled but it was such an easy, cute way to add a few more Toy Story images throughout the party.

The food was simple, so it was obvious what you were eating, but I thought having each food match a character was so fun! 

The labels were meant to be folded in half to make them stand up, but instead I glued an icon picture on top and them hot glued each label to an upside clothes pin to make it stand up by itself.

My Pinterest success! I debated this cake versus cupcakes for a while (like up until a few hours before the party...) and I am so glad I went for it. I just used two bundt cake pans, cut of the extra parts, and added globs of frosting to put them together. This cake looks way harder than it was, really the longest part was picking out all the M&Ms. 

Since Eva has been enjoying learning to play new games I thought we would add a few in for her party. I found a printable Toy Story bingo that the girls enjoyed...even my Grandma Dede played along. 

And a free Pin the Tail on Bullseye.  The photos of the girls blindfolded crack me up.

And to be a bit edgy, we did Toy Story tattoos. 

Next it was time for presents. Our family spoiled Eva with wonderful gifts, and one of her favorites was this nightgown handed down to her from her cousin Mallory. She wore it for about three days after the party until I had to pry it off her to put it in the laundry. Hand me downs are the best!

She also got lots of cool new games like Hungry, Hungry Hippos! We've played this about a thousand times already.

And finally she got a Barbie jeep. Okay, so Ryan and I have this thing about trying not to spoil her, and not going overboard with gifts. Really we had just planned on giving her an ABC Bingo game and a couple of new books. Then our friends happened to be getting rid of their Barbie jeep.....we couldn't turn that down right??? So Eva ended up with her first car. 

I "mustache you" a questions....how stinkin' cute are my nieces? At one point they all had on mustaches but one of the cried, and then the other one cried, so you know how that goes. Still cute.

I love this photo of Aunt Amanda with Kiersi and Kayden. Silly girls.

To infinity and beyond! Her daddy sure throws her high in the air!

 With Mamy and Baba.

 With Great Grandpa Hank.

With Nana and Papa

My sweet family. It was a great party day!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Eva!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Eva Kate! We are so happy to celebrate another wonderful birthday with you. You are still as energetic as ever and have a great big caring heart for others. You love being around other people and are always asking to go somewhere fun. You know all of your colors, most of your shapes, most of your alphabet and are working on learning more numbers when we do school together. 

You weigh 26 pounds and are 35 inches tall, just big enough to wear some 3T clothes now. {You only added 3 pounds and 2 1/2 inches this past year, but you seem so much bigger!) You wear a size 7 shoe. In the past year we have moved you to a big girl bed, said goodbye to your binky, and {mostly} conquered potty training - such big steps for my big girl! You have a giant vocabulary and can carry on conversations so well now. You like to sing songs by yourself. You usually sleep from 8:30 PM - 8 AM (although it takes much longer for you to actually fall asleep now) and nap from about 1:30 - 3 PM usually. Lately you've been eating a lot and sleeping extra so I think you're getting ready to grow some more! 

You've just been learning how to play games and this has been SO FUN for us to do together. You like Candyland, the Princess Cupcake game, Memory,  Go Fish, and Old Maid a lot - you always want to be the "old maid." For your birthday you got Hungry Hippos, Twister, and Hi Ho Cheerio so I'm sure we will be playing those often now too. You have been learning to cut with scissors and love any art that uses scissors, glue, and GLITTER! We read books together all the time and your favorite ones right now are the Duck and Goose series. You favorite bedtime animal is the moose Daddy brought you from camp, although you usually sleep with at least 20 other stuffed animals, 4 extra blankets, and your favorite fuzzy green pillow. You pray almost every night for Tabala, the child we sponsor in the Congo, me, and the baby...such sweet little girl prayers. This summer we swam a lot....right now you swim best with your arm floaties and love to jump in and practice going under the water.

This photo collage makes me cry a bit to think about how much you've grown and changed since you were that tiny newborn, but it also makes me smile at how much you've just become a more "big girl" version of that same baby. You have always laughed a lot, always been a cuddle bug, always been a wiggle worm, always wanted to be in the middle of the party, always loved your family, and always been so very beautiful. I feel like three will be such a wonderful age for you as you do more things independently yet still want me and Daddy right there. I am excited for you to be a big sister because you love babies and other kids so much. Sometimes the years pass by too quickly...sometimes the day passes by very slowly....but I am always so thankful that I've gotten to be right beside you almost every single day. I am excited for all the new memories we will make together this year!!!

I am so blessed to be your mama and pray all the time that I would love you well and continue to point you towards Jesus. You are more special to me and Daddy than you will ever know.
love,
Mama