Steven's 3rd Birthday

Remember that time I forgot to do a birthday recap post? No? Me neither. So pretend this is early May...

We celebrated Steven's 3rd birthday this month! Kind of hard to believe that my little baby is 3 years old but at the same time, he seems so big lately! Steven was SUPER excited about his 3rd birthday party. I asked him weeks before what kind of party did he want to have and he kept saying , "Blue!" I suggested all kinds of themes but he was very consistent, "Blue party, mommy." So blue it is! He kept talking about it as it got closer to the party day which was so adorable. Kind of a huge difference from last year when I'm not even sure he knew what a party really was. So big!

We had the family over to the house for a party and BBQ. We had a great turnout. A lot of people came which was so nice for Steven.

The birthday boy with his loot

Steven really super loves his cousins. I was so glad that they could both be there. I know it means the world to him. Dan actually brought Willow in just for the party so I thought that was so sweet. Steven was so happy to see her and Eli. 

Aren't they so cute! They are all getting so big.

Steven actually enjoyed opening his presents this year. Which is such a change from years past when he has cried and hated it. He DEFINITELY knows what presents are now and definitely likes them.

The only bad part was he would open something cool and want to play with it and ignore all the other gifts. Oh well, can't really blame him too much for that!

Of course, Willow was very helpful.

Steven was really excited about this bubble gun that came with a holster. He wears it all the time still. Sorry for the bad picture quality. Our living room has great natural light which ruins pictures, unfortunately.

He also really enjoyed this SpiderMan car given to him by our friends, Carrie and Kevin. It was really sweet of them to come. Carrie also made cake pops for the party, which were delicious!

Some other family pics. Of course grandparents were there. Jordan and Kim actually took Steven to a parade during the day so that was a really fun day for him! He said he had a blast.

Grandma and Logan

It was a really great party. Steven had such a great time and it was so awesome so many members of our family could make it to celebrate with him. He's a lucky kid.

The next day was Steven's actual birthday. It is our tradition to go to the zoo and then Ted Drewes on Steven's actual birthday. We usually go just us but this year Dan and Willow were in town and spent the night at our house so they came with us. 

We actually forgot to sing to him at his party so they got donuts (his favorite) and we sang happy birthday to him over donuts. ha ha!

Then we headed out to the zoo. I was totally annoying the men (and kids) with the camera but it was his birthday! I think I was also having a bit of a sad mommy moment because he just looks and acts so big now! Sniff.

The brothers and their babies aw!

Steven and Logan at the zoo. Aren't they the cutest?!

Steven is actually getting pretty good at posing for pictures when he wants to. This is in front of the big cat country. Steven demanded to see the lions FIRST! lol

There was a peacock near the restrooms which was I think maybe the highlight of the visit? Ha ha. They were able to get pretty close to it. I was impressed no one stomped on it or anything. Whew.

It was pretty hot that day but we got to see a lot of cool animals. They were a bit crazed, Willow runs at a very high pace, even for Steven but I know he had a blast.

Cousin love

Look we got a family pic! One bonus kid but I'll take it!

Can you tell I'm literally holding Steven there? lol

In typical cousin fashion after a few hours (sometimes minutes) they were fighting over everything.This picture cracks me up, can you see the pouty face? She won't let him look at it. Boo hoo. ha ha!

I'm such a mean mommy. :P

Me and my boys. This is a great pick of them mostly. Steven was doing this thing near the end of the day putting his hand in his mouth. I think he was getting tired. Poor guy that was a big weekend.

We were on our way to leave but we had to stop by the new sea lion exhibit. It is my favorite! I love how you can walk through underwater and they swim above you. It's so neat.

So then we headed off to Ted Drewes. Of course Willow (who is a bit older) was trying to work us for other things to eat. "I don't want ice cream, I want cotton candy/popcorn/etc/etc" So we said, "Ok! No ice cream for you then!" LOL Maybe we are both mean parents.

The knuckleheads at Ted Drewes

There's nothing like Ted Drewes on a hot day! We all enjoyed some! (Yes, we bought her some ice cream lol We aren't cruel!)

So that was a great day together. They were both zonked out in the car pretty much after a few rounds of "Let it go". Lol

This just cracks me up. Later in the day I had my camera out on the kitchen counter and Steven decided to steal it and take some pictures. He took like 50 pictures! But they all pretty much looked like this one.

Lol

Except he did take his first selfie!

That's my boy!

So it was a really great 3rd birthday for our big boy! Filled with lots of fun, craziness and family. Happy 3rd birthday Steven! Can't believe you are growing up so quickly!

Steven at 3 Years

Steven, you are turning three this weekend. But it feels like you should be turning 4 or 5! You have always been more mature than your age developmentally and also you have always looked older. It sort of feels like you've been 3 for a while now. Sometimes I think you might be a teenager! You act so old and big.

So proud of his school work.

You are really wanting to do a lot of things by yourself these days and you can do so much! You can get dressed by yourself, you can even put on your slip on shoes. Sometimes you put them on the wrong feet but you are quick ot fix it. You go to the bathroom all by yourself sometimes. I will walk by and you'll be coming out pulling up your pants, toilet flushed and everything correct. You are getting so good at cleaning up your toys by yourself. You even take your plate to the sink after dinner. Recently you figured out how to turn on the TV, turn on Netflix and even how to put in and take out a DVD! It's crazy!

On the other hand you have a temper! You run from emotional highs and lows very quickly, which I think is really normal for your age. The smallest thing can set you off into a temper tantrum with screaming and crying. Sometimes when you get determined to have something your way you can be SO stubborn! For instance if you want mommy to put on your shoes and I won't (because I know you can do it by yourself) you will cry and scream and be so determined to win that fight! You are persistant for sure!

Vegging out.

You have a really sweet side to your personality as well. You will do sweet things for other kids like give them their coat if they forget or comfort them if they are crying. You get really concerned when other kids are upset and that is so sweet. You will cuddle with me and give me spontaneous kisses and hugs. I love it! You get sick of mommy always attacking you with kisses though and I can see my baby boy growing up in that way.

3 years old!

As you can see, you have many sides to your personality. You are equal parts rough and tumble and sensitive and sweet. You love to climb, jump and run and be silly. You also love to sit and play with my jewlery or makeup for pretend. Your favorites right now are Spiderman and My Little Pony. I love that you are diverse in your interests and I am just encouraging you to explore everything right now.

My boy. 

Steven, you have developed into such an amazing big brother. You LOVE Logan and it is so sweet to watch you develop a relationship with him. You want to be around him all the time now. You love to help us hold his feed him or go get a bottle or blanket. You will go get his pacifier all on your own when he is crying. You share your toys with him and give him kisses in the morning and kisses goodbye. When we bring him to your daycare to pick you up and the other kids swarm him, you will protect him. It is so sweet.

Brotherly love.

You love to make your brother laugh and you will be silly to get him to laugh. You are so proud of yourself whenever he does. You are just the best big brother to him already and I know you two will only get closer as he gets bigger and is able to play with you more.

Two goofballs in the morning.

Three years old already, Steven, and you are an incredible kid. You have so many different facets to your personality as well as being incredibly smart and mature for your age. You always keep mommy and daddy on their toes. You are developing into an amazing big brother and I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us all!

Happy Fourth of July!

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July this year. We have been having some unseasonably cool tempertures last week so the weather was just perfect for Fourth of July. It was warm during the day and nice and cool in the evening. Perfect weather!

We weren't sure what we would do for Fourth of July this year till almost the last minute but our good friends the Elders invited us over to their house to BBQ and go watch fireworks. If you recall, they just had a beautiful baby 2 months ago so I was super excited to see all of them and get some baby cuddles in too. Steven loves to play with their son Jake as well so it worked out great!

We went out to their house in Festus and made dinner. We had sliders off the grill which I've never had before but they were really yummy. Julie and I made some fruit, salad and she and Jake made us a snickerdoodle cake which was awesome. Delicious!

After dinner we went out to Heculanium to watch the fireworks there. It was really fun! Like I said the weather was perfect. The boys had fun playing and there was a band so Steven got to show off some of his dance moves. Look at our babies!

The fireworks show didn't come on till late probably near 10pm. I was worried about a tired boy/crabby monster meltdown but Steven did pretty good. I think they were both pretty tired by the time the fireworks were over though so we got out of their quickly!

So our Fourth of July was really great this year! I hope everyone else's was as well.

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! 



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!

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.