Thursday, May 30, 2013

Steven's Big Boy Room: Ideas and Inspirations

Ideas for Steven's big boy room have been swirling around in my head (and on my Pinterest page) for a while now. Steven really loves trucks. He especially loves construction type trucks like diggers and dump trucks. I thought doing a construction theme for his room would be really fun.

We still have some of Steve's stuff from his construction days so I thought I'd start a costume bin with that stuff. We have Steve's hard hat, tool belt and a construction shirt. My parents also bought him super hero cape, pirate costume and a few other things to get the dress up bin started. Steven is going to love that.

Another thing I want to do is put some pictures of trucks on the wall. Something like these:
I hoping Jordan can help me make them because they aren't cheap to buy!

We got
Steven a workbench with all the toys for his birthday. He played with one at Jake's house one time and loved it. I think that will be a big hit and fit in with his big boy room nicely.
I want to make something for over his bed. I think letters with his name on them would be cool. Something like these:

 
My parents already jumped on the idea and bought us these cute decals for his room. I was thinking he can help me decide where to put them and I'm excited to get them on the walls.
 
 
So far that's all I've got. I was hoping Steven's grandma Riegerix will make something but I'm not sure what just yet. We have some sheets that my parents bought with cars on them so that will be cute too. Steve and I need to paint in there and clean it up. Hoping to get to that soon and I'll post progress when we have some! 


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Gulf Shores Vacay Part 2

Are you ready for part 2 of our Gulf Shores Vacay recap!? Besides visiting the zoo one day, we mostly hung out on the beach and by the pool at the condo. Steven really enjoyed playing in the sand. He didn't like the ocean too much, but it was pretty cold. We did make him dip his toes in the water. Big Steve loved swimming in the ocean. He would swim out so far!
 
Fun in the sun!
Cheeseburger!

My handsome beach dudes.
One day we busted out water guns to play with on the beach. That was a big hit! Steven also loved knocking down other people's sand castles...luckily we were usually the first ones there and the sand castles were from the night before. Stinker.
Another really cool thing that happened on the beach one day was we saw a big flock (group?) of stingrays! There was a sandbar close to the shore and they were swimming back and forth over the sandbar. It was so cool to see them in the wild like that! It was a bit freaky to me at first but they pretty much avoided us. Steve, of course, tried to chase them and touch them (being a stingray expert he is, ha!).
 
 
One morning it was too cold to go to the beach first thing so we went to the Tanger Outlet Mall. OMG, it was amazing. I am a shopaholic and it was like heaven for real. This place was HUGE. They had so many good outlets, LOFT, Toys R Us, Children's Place, COACH, etc etc etc. It was awesome. Unfortunately we were only there for a few hours when Steven got sick. He had been sick on and off that entire night before but you could really tell he was not feeling well as we were walking around. Steve and I ended up taking him to Urgent Care. They just recommended Dimetap and Benadryl/Tylenol. Steven ended up feeling better after a big nap later that day so that was good!
 
Another night my parents let us have a "date night". It was SO nice! I should have taken a picture of the cute restaurant we went to but I do have a picture of the food we ate. Which was SO delicious by the way!
 
I had crab stuffed flounder. OMG so good!

Steve had Oysters...gross. But he liked them!
 
Key Lime Pie for dessert. YUM!
 
Another night, my parents went out on a date and we went out as a family. We ate at this cute place called Shrimp Basket where they had an outdoor patio. It was really fun.
 
Lucky lady with these dinner dates!
We walked to some souvenir shops nearby and Steven had a blast playing around in them. He's still at that golden age where he can play with toys in stores and have fun with it for a few minutes but his attention span is still short so you don't have to buy it for him. Its pretty awesome. ;)
 
The giant octopus souvenir place! ha!
Afterwards we walked to an ice cream place. Steven decided he loves mint chocolate chip ice cream like his momma! So we got him his own cone. You can imagine it was very sticky and messy but very cute too!
Twinkies!

Yum!
The last night we tried to all go out to dinner but that was a bust. The place was gross and the food was not good and Steven was a hot mess. Oh well. I think we were all ready to go home at that point. We did get this cute family photo off the balcony at our condo though!
 
Overall it was a GREAT trip! We all had so much fun and Steven had a blast with his grandparents. We are so lucky to have been able to take this trip with them. And we will remember it for a long time!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Gulf Shores Vacay Part 1

Last week Steve, Steven and I along with my parents went to Gulf Shores, Alabama for VACATION!! It was SO nice. We planned to go with my parents because, well the more the merrier for sure. I always went on vacation growing up and we always had a great time. I really wanted Steven to get that experience before we have another baby in the mix. My parents are amazing with Steven and he loves them so much so we thought that 4 on 1 would also be a better ratio for a rambunctious 2 year old. It worked out great and I think everyone had a great time!

We decided to drive down there and break it into 2 days of driving so Steven wouldn't go crazy (or drive us crazy). I think that worked out really well. Steven was actually really good in the car. This is him all ready to go and start our drive! I really think he had no idea what was happening. I mean he doesn't know the words "beach" or "vacation" ha!


I packed the car with things for him to do and lots.of.snacks. It went pretty well I think. He loved some of the silly toys from the dollar store/Target bins as well as coloring books, stickers, some new truck books, his LeapPad, my Iphone and his portable DVD player. He actually did really well watching movies in the car. (we know all have Hook memorized LOL) So well we had to charge that sucker whenever we stopped for lunch halfway through because he used up all the battery. He spent a lot of time looking like this:

"Need sucker, Mommy"
We spent the night in Mississippi in a hotel. My parents were there too so I think he was glad to have some time with Grandma and Grandpa. We swam in the hotel pool a bit and he didn't seem to into it. He was actually pretty scared/wary of the water at first. But he warmed up a lot to it as the week went on, which was really cool to watch.

We finally got to the condo the next day. The next morning we hit the beach first thing. The weather was a big chilly early in the AM (Steven woke us all up like 5:30am all week. Awesome). It was pretty cool to see Steven's reaction to the beach for the first time. He was a bit confused by all the sand but he dug right into play with Grandpa and Daddy!

What's this sand stuff?

Fun in the sand!

Blue Beach Family
One day during the week we went to the Gulf Shores Zoo. My mom had suggested it and it ended up being a really fun day! At first we were a little unsure, having experienced the amazing St. Louis Zoo, and this one was a lot smaller. But it ended up being really cool. Since it was small, you got to get really close to the animals. They also gave you food to hand feed them which Steven really liked.

Great day for the Zoo!

Here ducky, ducky...
I can't even stress how much Steven enjoyed having his grandparents there with him for a week. Every morning he ran to their bedroom and constantly asked where they were if they weren't within sight. LOL. He asked for them alllll day the day we got home. He loves his Grandma and Grandpa!

Feeding the goats with grandpa. They were hungry!
Steven and daddy did the Kangaroo Encounter they had at the zoo. It was really cool.


That was our first few days on vacation. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Bday Zoo Trip

Last year for Steven's birthday we took him on a trip to the zoo, just the 3 of us. We thought it was a really fun and special way to celebrate his birthday and decided to make it an annual event.
 
So Sunday morning, we got up and went to the zoo! Since we are up by 6am most days anyway (Thank you for that, Steven) we usually try to go to places as soon as they open. We can avoid crowds that way and the cool thing about our zoo is that everything is free the first hour its open. (We really have a super awesome zoo).
 
So we hit up the stingray exhibit, that's usually $4 a person. Steven is a bit too little to be able to touch the stingrays on his own and he got a bit freaked out when we tried to lift him up over the water. But he did enjoy looking at the stingrays going by and they even have a few sharks in there that he liked to look at.


Steven was obsessed with the geese that were around. He is really into birds in general actually. He's so funny, he has gotten too close to a goose a few times so now when you ask him what does a goose say, he will tell you it says, "Hisssss" ha ha!

Don't get too close!

We hit up the reptile house which was awesome. Steven loves to look at the crocodiles, turtles and snakes.

This snake was right up on the glass and Steven wanted to give him a kiss. LOL

We have a membership to the zoo (thank you Grandma/Grandpa Gooden!) so we got to rid the train. Steven really loves riding the train. He loves to say, "All Aboard!"

We ran into this random birdcage in the Wild exhibit and this really pretty bird was right up to the edge of the mesh cage. Steven really wanted to touch him and I kept telling him to not poke the bird because he will probably snap at you (the bird couldn't actually reach him bc of the mesh). Well my stubborn boy wanted to learn on his own so he poked, the bird snapped and it scared him and he cried. Lesson learned. LOL
He looks happy here though right? ha!
Steven was scared to go near this fake snake. Ha ha!
Good boy!
We saw a ton of animals and there was hardly anyone there. It was a great day even though it was a bit rainy!

Monday, May 13, 2013

Steven's 2nd Birthday Party!

We had a small party for Steven's 2nd birthday on May 4th, his actual birthday. It was really fun. The weather wasn't super great but at least it didn't rain. It had rained the day before and rained that evening so we lucked out!
 
The grill master for the day!

The only decent picture of Steven and I from the day.
Steven's uncle Dan built him a dump truck. Isn't that crazy! How creative is Steve's family? Steven had a blast with his cousin, Willow, too.

Steve's brother Matt, his girlfriend Ruty, and her son, Eli were in town that weekend so they came. It was so much fun having them over. Eli is such a good kiddo. They are going to have a baby in July too and we can't wait to meet him/her.

Some brave souls outside in the cold.
Great smile Nathan!
Steven was obsessed with Uncle John that day. He kept leading him around by his finger all over the house and backyard. Poor Uncle John was such a good sport. It was pretty cute.


Steven loved this little motorized Buzz Lightyear bike we got for him.
Yay Craigslist!
Julie came and brought 3 week old Baby Nicholas. OMG! Isn't he just the cutest. She is looking great too. I can't believe I didn't get a picture with her.
I could snuggle him all day.
The kiddos were super excited about the baby too. Its so sweet.
Don't squish the baby!
Steven blowing out his birthday candle. Side note: We got the cupcakes on Friday, and had them on the counter and Steven tried multiple times to break into them early. On the morning of his party he actually moved a chair over to the counter, got the lid open and managed to stick his finger in the icing before I found him. STINKER!


Steve and Hannah came. Always great to see them!

Kids eating cupcakes. YUMMO (and messy).

Cupcake face!
Present time, aka mass chaos. Steven got a ton of presents that he loves to play with!
Steve looks a bit overwhelemed, eh?
Ruty and Eli made Steven a birthday crown. Isn't it so cute?

Grandma Riegerix made Steven a teepee. How cool is that?
He called it PeePee for a while..ha ha!
It was a great day!