iPad madness!!

Do you iPad? We do! And, we’re all obsessed with it! It’s a little ridiculous, honestly! Ours gets A LOT of use. So much so, that I’m almost tempted to just buy everyone their own! Well… if they weren’t $800! I bet Chris don’t even use it half as much as the kids do!! They love it!! My cute little polka dotted Kate Spade case quickly gave way to something a little more safe for the kids. Meet iGuy! He’s awesome and I LOVE him! Great little protector this one is!!

One of our favorite apps is the Disney Cars AppMate.. Ethan loves playing it! The app is free but you have to buy the cars. Luckily, we found them on clearance at Target one day for $10, so we snatched them up! Great purchase!! The cars interact with the app and you “drive” your car around Radiator Springs!!

   

We also love all of the Crayola apps! The Color Studio HD with the “marker” is a big hit in our house!!

Here’s some more of our faves:

• LK & E – Where’s My Water and Where’s My Perry, Alphabet Fun, Disney Spotlight Karaoke, Jake and The Neverland Pirates – Pirate School, Highlights Hidden Pictures, Speedy Biker, X-Men and Avengers games, and Lego Nijago. LK has a lot of more “girl” apps on her iTouch that she likes, but I don’t really know what those are. It’s a lot of Barbie Make up apps, American Girl apps, and baby doll stuff. I also have a lot of learning apps for Ethan, like the Bob Books app and some sight reading, abc, and number apps. There’s TONS out there!
• Gray – Mickey Mouse Road Rally, Press Here, Curious George, Sesame Street Monster Book, Peek-A-Zoo HD, PeekABoo Barn, Zoo Train, and the Dr. Seuss books.
• Mommy and Daddy – The eBay app is awesome!! The pinterest app, not so much! I love the picture cookbook app. iPhoto and iMovie are great. And we’re also hooked on Temple Run: Brave. Oh wait, that should totally be in the kids category! ;) (Seriously.. get it! You’ll be hooked in no time!) There’s a lot more, I just can’t think of anything!

So.. what are you favorite iPad apps??? I’m always on the hunt for new and fun apps.. esp for the kiddos!

Birthday Fun!

The day of Gray’s birthday (July 6th), Noni and Papa brought over a special treat for him! A new water table!!! Gray LOVES playing in water.. the pool, the bath, the dog’s water bowl.. ha! This was the perfect gift for him. As soon as he saw it, he went right over and started playing with it!

    

Loving the water!

    

I’m pretty sure that Huck thinks it’s just a big water bowl for him!

Look at that happy face!! Thanks, Noni and Papa!

    

My sweet boys!

LK ended up spending the night out that night with my mom, so we took the boys out to eat. I tried to snap a few pics of the birthday boy before dinner, but this is the best I could get!

    

Smiling…. to…

         

OVER IT! Oh well.. that’s life! ;)

At least the other two were good sports about it!

Gray turns 1 {Part 2}

 

Just a few more party pics! ……

      

We had such a fun time at the party! Everyone stayed for several hours and then a few friends even hung around for a while afterwards to play in the backyard.

G absolutely loves his tractor and is sure to put up a fight with just about anyone over it! ha! Look at that face!

       

When is started to get a little darker outside, we finally broke out the sparklers! The kids loved them!!

 

Let’s NOT pay attention to Mommy’s gigantic thighs, and pay more attention to the madness of kiddos wanting sparklers! ;)

Gray even got a BIG sparkler!!!

      

      

After a while, and some major convincing from the kiddos, the moms climbed in the trampoline! It was SOO much fun! Although, I will warn you.. if you do a toe touch and you haven’t done in about 10 years… it will hurt.. BAD! And you probably wont be able to walk right the next day. Just saying! ;) (Totally worth it though to hear your child say, “You are the coolest Mom EVER!”.. yep, totall worth it!)

      

It was WAY past bedtime by the time everyone left, but this little man had the time of his life! Thank you to all of our friends and family that came to celebrate with us! We had a great time and are so thankful for all the love that you show our sweet kiddos!

Yankee Doodle Dandy of a Party {Part 1}

On July 6th, our sweet little man, Gray Davis turned a year old! We can not believe it!! Where has an entire year gone???

We decided to have an all out, all American birthday bash! It was SO fun to put together and everyone really seemed to have a great time!! Of course, things were going crazy trying to get everything ready, so there were tons of ideas that I didn’t even get to execute. But I really think what we did get done is perfect! It hadn’t rained in Memphis for over a month and OF COURSE it rained that weekend! It did ruin the plans of everyone being outside for the entire party, so we moved the food inside. Luckily it stopped raining just before his party, so we were still able to hang out in the backyard and the kiddos got to play. It actually turned out better! (just more mess for me to clean up when everyone left! ha!)

I am so excited to share his party pics!!! The birthday boy had a blast!!

 

Cake and Desert table… I’m pretty sure I bought Hobby Lobby completely out of red, white, and blue supplies! haha! It was just as I had imagined.. perfect! (you know.. b/c Gray SO noticed! ha!)

      

Firecracker Fruit Kabobs and Watermelon Stars (my krispies were falling apart!! luckily, they don’t look TOO bad in this pic!)

      

I was going to have someone make him a smash cake, but ended up just doing it myself. I just wanted something really simple and I think it looked just fine!

      

My favorite thing about the entire party….. SnoCone cupcakes! Yes, those are cupcakes!!! Like I said, it was an All American 4th of July bash theme, so what better than red, white, and blue snocones???! When I saw this pin on pinterest, I knew that I had to make them!! I ordered the “ice cream cups”, spoons, and twine on etsy! They were AWESOME!!!! Everyone loved them!

I just had to have an old Coke crate and it ended up holding the Firecracker Popcorn cones perfectly!

      

I ended up just ordering his banner on etsy. I just really didn’t have the time to do it myself and when I saw this one, I just fell in love with it! It was perfect!

      

Whimsy Cookies came through yet again with FABULOUS cookies!!! I love love LOVE them!!

      

more food and candy!

Gray’s party goodies.. hat (which he did not wear! ha!), cup, diaper cover, and bib!

I did make his water bottle labels! They match his invitation and book labels!

Lemonade, water, mason jars, and patriotic straws!!

Since we had originally planned for the party to be outside, we bought sparklers for everyone hold while singing “Happy Birthday”. Since that didn’t happen, the kiddos all got to play with these after the party! (I think they had more fun doing that anyway!)

Party Favors.. what’s more American than glass bottle Cokes and Cracker Jacks??!

      

Perk #246 of hiring a summer nanny…. she’s an AMAZING chalkboard artist!!!! Thank you, Alyssa, for the welcome sign! :)

Of course, the stars and stripes were flying on the front porch!

Summer crab on the front door!

more Whimsy Cookies! These are her “whimsy bites”.. soo cute!

      

Aunt Lyns and Ole RP were there!!! Even if we did have to drag them away from Pickwick! ;)

 

The kids LOVED the trampoline!!!

Obviously, we didn’t inherit the same “tanning” gene! ha!

      

Food tables outside… menu – burgers and hot dogs! We also had chips (in the brown bags) and mac & cheese! Keeping’ it All American! I even found old fashion burger and hot dog trays! It was perfect!

Birthday Boy got a chance to jump too! He LOVES it!

He wasn’t really sure why everyone was staring at him!

      

      

Then he saw cake and that seemed to make up for it! ;) He seemed to love his Happy Birthday attention!!

He dug right in!! He ended up eating about 1/2 his cake!

      

Mommy, Daddy, and our baby! The last “1st Birthday” we’ll ever have!!! My babies have gotten entirely too big!

Our little family! I am one incredibly blessed lady!

Lu and her monster grubbing on the sugary goodness!

      

more decorations! The popcorn was DELISH!

Favor table with sign that Lyns made for me!

   

Getting cleaned up from his cake! Goo Goo and Sally were huge helpers! They love their boy!

Once it cooled off, guests were able to relax outside and eat. It ended up being a great evening!

G got some of is fave… HOT DOGS! He was happy!

This is going to be a table of drama and TROUBLE in about 8 years!!! Oh boy!

      

The girls were showing off their flips on the trampoline. They had so much fun!

Stickles Fam!

Ethan couldn’t let Uncle RP leave without a mini archery lesson! Of course, he didn’t mind at all!

A few of my favorite ladies!!! I am so lucky to have such great friends!!

Gray’s invitation! And, yes.. that silhouette is Mr. Gray himself!! :)

      

In lieu of gifts, we asked for books. We have WAY too many toys so I thought something different would be fun. I made bookplates and mailed them out with him invitations. We also had a patriotic book that we had everyone sign like a guest book. I LOVED the book idea!!! We now have so many fun new books and Gray will have something to keep for a long time! :)

 

I have more party pics to share!! We had an amazing time! Part 2 to follow….