Happy Birthday Grandma Bug!

I am very blessed to have such a wonderful person to be my mom. I wanted to celebrate her in a big way. I wanted a carnival in the backyard, a guest list of at least 100, a taco bar, and of course a DJ. When I ran this by my dad, he told me that mom would be much happier with something low-key, just small and sweet, and he was completely right. Instead of her walking in to a room full of people, we decided to just have people show up to her house. My family and I were first. My mom didn't know why we stopped by, but she was happy. She went to go get ready and then her friends started to show up. While she was distracted and talking with her unannounced friends, I managed to decorate the house. She couldn't get over it, and was thrilled with her 60th birthday party. My mom is a strong, strong and did I mention strong woman. Growing up she was always there for me. She was always a loving mom and now that I have children of my own, I pray that I can be a mother to my kids, like she was to me. Happy Birthday to the best mom in the world.

Happy 4th of July

Happy Birthday America. We had our annual block party again this year. We set up our tables, BBQ, pool, ping pong table and toys in the front yard and had Mom and Dad D. join us in the festivities. We played with the neighbors, the kids tried out all of slides and bouncy houses available. I had to go to work that night, which was a bummer, but Trisha joined me and it made it a little easier to tolerate leaving my red, white and blue family.

Human Food

 

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This month Ashley Marie was introduced to solid foods. She is 6 months old, which is much older than Andrew and Allison were when they started solid foods. I am not sure why I waited so long this time around. Maybe becuse I am so busy with the other two kids, that I simply didn't have time to make the food like I want to, or maybe it's because she is such a dedicated breast feeder, that I didn't want her to give up on my milk once introduced to the other wonderful foods God has blessed up with.

This month I made sweet potatos, carrots, pears, and peaches. We also gave her avocado and bananas. The above photos are of her eating rice cereal. She wasn't much of a fan until we mixed in some bananas. Andrew and Allison were very excited to see their baby eating and the best line came from Allison when she said "Look Andrew, Ashley is eating human food!"