Tag: Family

Latest & Greatest News, November 2014

Our Happy Thanksgiving

casademurphy

Yes, I know…I am a solid week late with posting this 😉 ….Busy times, peeps, buuuut, but better late than never, right?!?! LOL!

We had a great day & I wanted to share some highlights. What Turkey Day isn’t complete without the Macy’s Parade? Liam was thrilled to see Thomas! I believe the announcer said this was the biggest balloon to ever make it’s debut in the parade.

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We spent the afternoon at Stephen’s uncle’s house with his family, which included Stephen’s Grandma {Liam’s Great Grandma}. More family was in town from out of state, so that was an added bonus. Liam really enjoyed himself.

Stephen’s uncle is super creative with the food spread, as you can see. He is also a wonderful cook. Everything was delish!

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I found this shirt for little man at Old Navy and thought it was hilarious. Never thought he would actually REALLY LOVE turkey, but he totally did! That’s almost all he ate 😉

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Such a cutie!

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quick family pic ❤

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Cheese with Great Grandma ❤

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The weekend was dedicated to getting the house full of Christmas cheer! To say that Liam was excited is an understatement. He was a big help with decorating the tree. We also had our elf {Mr. Elf} come back from the North Pole to visit us, but I’ll post more about that soon.

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On Black Friday morning, Stephen & Liam headed out to Lowe’s to snatch up this great deal for just dollars. Liam has affectionately named him, “Donner” because he knows that’s Rudolph’s Daddy’s name 😉 ….so stinkin’ cute!

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We have a few fun things planned as we get ready for Christmas & can’t wait to share them with you! Really love this time of the year. It’s a magical time!!

Until next time!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, November 2014

Happy Birthday, Timber!

casademurphy

Today, we celebrate the 12th birthday of our fur baby, Timber ❤

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It’s honestly hard to believe we have shared so many smiles, laughter & love with this awesome little guy. We are definitely looking forward to several more years to come of the same! To see a brief account of his story with us, you can check out his page on the blog HERE.

This picture below is from several years ago. His hair is much longer than what we keep it now, but he still LOVES to play outside like that on any given day. He is an avid chaser of lizards & squirrels 🙂

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Although, he spent 9 years as an only child,  he has been the best big brother  we could ask for. These two really love one another….cutest.thing.ever!

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And, he is one dog that is NOT afraid to get comfy. Hahaha! Most nights, you find him asleep on the couch like this before any of us have even sat down yet 😉

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We love you so much Timber!! Our “boo boo man” xoxo ~~ Happy Birthday, little dude!!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, November 2014

Thankful & Blessed

casademurphy

Today, we pause & reflect on how much we have to be thankful for, and all that we are blessed with. While I realize we should do this each & every day, today, we give it just a little bit of extra thanks ❤

My heart is full from each & every one of you, my family & friends. Thank you for caring about us and investing yourselves in our lives, and especially in the life of our sweet little man. That honestly, means more than I could ever express to you.

I am thankful today for all the little things that we sometimes take for granted…..the little things that are actually BIG things to many people…..a roof over our heads, our jobs, our health, laughter, & love.

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Feeling a bit nostalgic on this beautiful morning, so here’s a look back on the last few year’s of Thanksgiving with our sweet little dude 🙂 — can’t wait to add a new pic to this group later today!

[2011] – baby’s 1st thanksgiving!

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look at those toes!

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[2012] — check out the 2 teeth on the bottom! — he also took his 1st two steps on this day!

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[2013]

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[2014] — obviously, this is taken pre- Turkey day, so we’ll be doing more photos today 😉

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Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, November 2014

Recent Happenings

casademurphy

Remember me? It’s definitely been awhile….this momma was sick these last few weeks & honestly, the thought of sitting at the computer (for anything other than what I had to do for work) was just not appealing.

In the meantime, life moved on, as it always does, right?!?! LOL…I just tried to keep up. Thankfully, I had Mr Murphy there to help and lucky for him, he didn’t get it. Liam got a touch of it, but I’m happy to report that we’re all feeling much better now.

So, here’s what we’ve been up to the last few weeks….

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Halloween was so much fun! Liam was ALL about it! He was allowed to dress up for school, but yes, I was afraid his costume would get messed up soooooo he wore a back-up {go ahead & laugh….it’s ok}. He had a great time sporting his ‘Sheriff Woody’ costume all morning. We even saw from the cameras that he kept his hat on! — way to go, dude! 🙂

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Halloween night, we went over to our friend’s, the Bengels, and hung out for dinner {delish homemade pizza!} and then the kiddos trick-or-treated together. The ‘Hulk’ made his appearance for this main event!

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Getting ready to hit the neighborhood! Liam walked the entire trip. Such a little trooper! He loved going up to the doors & saying, ‘trick-or-treat’ …he’s still talking about it, a few weeks later 🙂

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The next night, we headed back out to gather with our friends for a 2nd Annual S more’s Roast. It was the 1st cool night of the season, so it worked out perfectly! The adults attempted a roasted marshmallow Kahlua shot….pretty tasty, I must say.

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The kiddos had a blast roasting marshmallows & making s more’s out back once it got dark.

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Last weekend, we headed downtown for the Touch-A-Truck event. This is a community event where the kiddos can explore various big trucks, construction vehicles, and public safety equipment. Liam LOVED it!

Here he is checking out a steam roller.

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There were a few mini monster trucks there. He thought they were the coolest things ever.

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We even got to squeeze him into the driver seat of one. Such a big, little man 😉

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Fire Truck!

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Saturday evening, we headed over to Mimi, Papa D & Aunt Heather’s to celebrate baby cousin, Sierra’s very 1st birthday ❤

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Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

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On Sunday, I got a little creative while daddy was watching football & made this turkey with Liam. I asked him for 5 things he was thankful for to write on each feather….He said: mommy, daddy, timber, rainbows, & letters ❤

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It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving will be here next week, but we’re definitely excited & looking forward to it.

Until next time, friends! 🙂

~H

Latest & Greatest News, October 2014

Week-In-Review

casademurphy

Last week was such a fun week at gymnastics! Liam overcame his fear of flipping upside down and did his pull-over on the un-even bar with Coach Elyssa! He was super proud, as were we! Even more exciting was that his coach sent him a ‘star student’ certificate in the mail later in the week to recognize this awesome achievement 🙂 …that really was such a sweet gesture from her! Much appreciated by this momma & daddy!!

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We enjoyed a busy, but super fun weekend, as we geared up for the upcoming Halloween celebration. The festivities kicked off on Friday evening with our annual bash at the Bengel’s. Liam sported his costume and looked awesome!!

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Lisa had the house all decked out and I was in love with her ‘floating candles’ in their family room. Great touch!

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The kids decided to break out some pretty sweet dance moves. Liam definitely has some moves of his own, people….so cute!

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On Sunday, we took our little guy out to UCF for ‘Trick or Treat on Greek Street’. This was the 1st year we made it out there, and it was fun for him. He definitely was happy about the early trick-or-treating, and he did pretty good participating in a few of the games that they had set up.

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Trick-or-Treating is hard work 😉 …..water break!

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Sunday evening, the boys did a little pumpkin carving out back. Even the fur baby got in on the action 🙂

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Posing with his finished ‘jack-o-lantern’ …the smaller pumpkin is a fake one but he insisted that it was ‘the baby’ and that the one Stephen carved was ‘the daddy’, so they had to stay together….LOL!!! Too Funny!! What an imagination!

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By the time the candle burned out on this guy on Sunday night, I was exhausted….such a busy weekend, yet so much fun…..and, so many wonderful memories! Lots more Halloween fun to come this week. We are looking forward to sharing with you soon.

Until next time, friends!

~H

Latest & Greatest News, September 2014

Week-In-Review

casademurphy

I am that mama who always has the camera in hand (or within reach), and is ready to take a picture at a moment’s notice. I am not ashamed of that, and I literally have thousands of pics of this amazing little man, at this point, in his young life. One day, he may think I am a crazy mama, and I am totally OK with that:)

That said, yes, I am also THAT mama who has been stealing moments at gymnastics. I can’t help it. It is just too cute….and we’ve only just had our 2nd lesson! I am SO in trouble! Last week went much better than the 1st….in that, I mean, Liam was much more comfortable with the class & listened well. This class focused a lot on the balance beam. He was not a huge fan of that, but we were really proud of him for giving it a 100% effort. You can really see it on his little face….how focused he is & how hard he is trying. At one point, he came over to us and said, “I can’t do it” …*sigh* break my heart…we are softies, this is true…but, we stayed strong and told him, “Yes, you can. Just go back out there & your teacher will help you.” And, she did help him. She held his little hand as they walked across the beam. Then, he “beamed” because he was so proud of himself and jumped up & down and said,

“I did it, I really did it!”

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On Saturday, Daddy had to work {bummer}, so Liam & I decided to go check out Bithlo Park. Umm, hello…..this place was so cool! A park AND a splash pad! Liam had a blast! There was hardly anyone else there and at one point, it was just us in the splash pad area. Awesome!!

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The splash pad was so big! He called that feature in the middle the “shower” because of how much water it dumped on you….it looked like a shower to him 🙂 ….He literally ran laps around this place.

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Under the “shower”…lol!

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Had to get some swinging in before we headed back to the car.

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On Sunday, we decided to get a bit creative with our grocery shopping outing to Publix. Lately, Liam has boy-cotted any kind of ride in the shopping cart. He wants to walk. MR. INDEPENDENT! — OMG! It definitely has made shopping….umm, challenging? Getting him to hold my hand while Stephen pushes the cart or vice versa doesn’t always work. Usually, one or both of us would end up completely frustrated by the end of the shopping adventure. For some reason, we glanced at his shopping cart Sunday morning on our way out the door and thought, yeah, why not take this with us? He could push it and it would keep him busy. He was game for it, so we went with it.

It ended up being a great success! He loved it and pushed the cart around the entire store. He also loved ALL the attention he was getting …people thought he was just THE.CUTEST.THING …..I thought his little head was going to explode by the time we were done. Such a little hamm!

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We also got some power-wheels fun in this weekend. I did not realize how long it had been since Liam had drove his Jeep until he sat down in it….Wow, he looked so much bigger sitting in it. We practiced with him to show him how to steer this time, instead of just driving in circles. He did pretty good!

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Sunday night, Daddy & Liam baked cookies. Yummy! Don’t judge, peeps, but yes, they were “break & bakes”…lol! That’s as fancy as we were getting up here in Casa de Murphy this weekend! Ha!

Liam loves the Macadamia Nut cookies so that was the flavor, but it was hilarious when he blurted out & called them “Mouskadamia” cookies. It was too cute for us to correct. So that’s what we’ve been calling ’em!

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Until next time, friends!

~H

August 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Liam’s 3rd Birthday Party {part 2}

casademurphy

If you missed yesterday’s post with the 1st part of our birthday party fun, you can catch up here.

The kids really had a ball at My Gym with the staff and all the train themed activities that were intermingled with their free-play time during the 2 hour fiesta. Stephen & I honestly didn’t have to worry about anything. It was perfect!

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Bubbles — Bubbles — Bubbles Everywhere!!

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It’s a “train wash” 🙂 …this was so cute! The kids could ride through the bumpers to “wash” their “train” with the bubbles….lol. Gotta love that. Very creative!

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This is a few action shots of another creative activity. Just before this, all the children were sitting in a circle on the carpet, and Ms. McKenzie told them that one of the train’s, Diesel, came by and made a big mess. Ms. Kendall then scattered all these bean bags , balls, and pom poms across the gym while they had their eyes closed. The kids were then asked to help clean up the “train yard” by putting each type of item together in it’s own bin (e.g., all the bean bags in one bin, all the balls in another, etc.).

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They all did so good and enjoyed helping to clean up. Again, really cute! ….even the smaller kiddos liked to join in 🙂

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So happy to have cousin, Sierra, to celebrate with us ❤ ….although impossible to get these two to look at the camera together 😉

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Taking a spin with our friend, Brandon, on the “birthday train”

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Way to go, Kenadie! Great balancing!

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I caught this little gymnast hanging from the uneven bars like this several times. Ha! Perhaps he is trying to tell us something?

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The ball pit was a huge hit with all the kids!

Below, Crosby was getting a kick out of his big sister Kenley playing around.

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Nathan & Liam plotting mischief 😉

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Brandon!! 🙂

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I ,most likely, was telling him to NOT fall in while snapping this shot 😉

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Trampoline! This was the very 1st thing Liam ran over to once he got into My Gym. The ladies at the gym even complimented how good of a jumper he was….haha!

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Activities ended with this super fun ride on the zip line! Liam actually did not enjoy it that much, but he had just taken a little spill just before this began so I think that played a part. Poor little dude.

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What a great celebration for this little man! We could not have asked for a better time. To everyone who came out to play with us — THANK YOU!! It meant so much to us and to Liam. He really did have the best time. To others who were not able to make it there, but celebrated in spirit and/or helped out in other ways, we thank you, as well, and you know who are!!

I know I said it before on my personal Facebook page, but I want to say it again here…..thank you ALL for the sweet birthday wishes to Liam over his whole birthday weekend. We really felt the love for our little guy and his tender heart appreciated it, as well. It was awesome ❤ ❤

We could not have asked for a better 3rd birthday celebration!! So blessed.

~H

August 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Liam’s 3rd Birthday Party {part 1}

casademurphy

We had a fantastic time at Liam’s 3rd birthday party a few Sunday’s ago!

I have been dying to share the invites that went out but wanted to wait until after the party, for obvious reasons {note: my contact info is whited out for privacy}. I ordered these from the most wonderful little shop on Etsy, MaitriDsigns. The shop owner, Rhianna, was so great to work with & had excellent customer service! She was super speedy with her design and delivery. She even custom designed the cute inserts that we used for the party info that some of you all received. I highly recommend for any party needs and we will definitely use her again!

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My regular local gal for Liam’s holiday & special occasion shirts was on hiatus this summer {to spend more family time….can’t blame her for that}, so I had to seek out someone new for little man’s party shirt. I found someone via Etsy. While I was happy with this shirt, below, overall….I have to say there was absolutely no customer service. So, that was disappointing. No acknowledgement of my order….not even a business card dropped in the bag with the mailout. Bummer…but, again, super cute shirt.

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With the help of Liam’s Grammy & Papa Rock, we were able to order these yummy Thomas the Train decorated cookies to distribute as party favors. They came from Favor Bakery in Winter Haven. What a wonderful job these ladies did! They tasted as delicious as they looked ❤ ….Liam’s 1st pick was Thomas, of course 🙂

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The idea for a Thomas the Train themed party really 1st came from Liam {naturally}. It sprouted from him seeing this Thomas Signature Cake on display at our Publix for the last few months. Everytime we went by it while shopping, he would tell us that he wanted THAT cake for his birthday. So, once I eventually asked him what kind decorations he would like for his birthday party, he matter-of-factly told me, Thomas, and asked if he could have this cake. There was NO WAY, he was forgetting about this cake.

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When we 1st went to order the cake, the bakery told us they thought it was discontinued. Talk about a heart attack….long story short, Publix came through and did a FAB job. It really was an awesome cake….and deceptively large {very tall}. We ate cake for a week, peeps! LOL 🙂

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Liam’s party was held at My Gym in Maitland. It was amazing! What a great facility for little one’s to play. As part of the birthday package, Liam & his guests received free passes to enjoy another class, and we can’t wait to bring him back! The staff that assisted with our party were so friendly and worked great with all the kids.

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I love this pic above! We literally had to snatch Liam up really quick as he was running around the gym & tell him to say ‘cheese’.

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The kids had free time to explore and play throughout the facility, but then the staff would also periodically gather them together to conduct group activities that were all train themed. It was such a fun time!!

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Liam dancing in center stage during once of the activities 😉

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During this activity below, the kids went for a ride on the “choo-choo train”. Liam wasn’t too sure about this one, at first, as you can see him checking out Kenley & Karsten in this pic, here.

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However, then he decided they were having a great time. so he hopped on & it was all smiles! Kenadie, Thompson & Brandon also enjoyed the train 🙂

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It was so nice to have Great Grandma & Uncle Kenny come to the party, as well!

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We have a lot more pics of the kiddos to share & I have decided to break those up into a 2nd part post for tomorrow, so this one isn’t as long.

However, let’s skip ahead to the CAKE …yum!

Look at that face when the girls brought it over…..is that priceless, or what?!?! {I didn’t even notice the super cute folded hands until I was looking at these pics days later…..heart.melted }

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Lighting 3 candles for the 3 year old birthday boy!!!

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Singing Happy Birthday! Again, I LOVE his face…..there is nothing better than the sheer joy you see. All the planning & prep for the day — THAT makes it ALL worth it.

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Make a wish….Blow out the candles little dude!!!

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Everyone hanging out …enjoying yummy cake & pizza!

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One of my fav pics of the day ….so hard to get everyone smiling at once but that’s okay. Wonderful memories!

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Stay tuned for Part #2 of the Birthday Party tomorrow!! 🙂

~H

Note: The reviews expressed are solely my opinion & I do not receive any compensation or kickback.

July 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Liam’s 3rd Birthday Fun

casademurphy

Hard to believe a whole week has gone by now, since Liam’s 3rd birthday! While Stephen & I were pretty wiped out by Sunday night, we definitely had four fun-filled days of celebration with our little guy 🙂

If you caught my last post, then you know that he had a special wake-up call on his big day. Most of those balloons are still hanging around his room. Not sure we’ll ever be able to pop those little suckers….haha! He’s really enjoying them.

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We kept his birthday day pretty mellow, and it was just the 3 of us. We ventured to the movie theatre for Liam’s very 1st experience with the “Big Screen” and chose to see Disney’s ‘Planes Fire & Rescue’. He is in love with the Cars movies, and we watch those repeatedly. We got the 1st Planes movie through our DMC, but he wasn’t as into it. Thus, we weren’t sure how this trip would go over.

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Walking into the theatre was exciting for him & we had to explain what everything was. We got lucky & had almost the entire theatre to ourselves so he could walk around. There were SO MANY previews! — that definitely was a bummer….lost his interest a bit.

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Thoroughly enjoyed the movie theatre popcorn & his Hi-C drink 🙂

But folks….we only got through about 2/3 of the movie and he asked to go home….literally! Ha!

He was done. So, we headed out & went to lunch at Crispers. We’ll have to catch the end of the movie on DVD 😉

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After nap, we headed over to Sweet by Miss Holly for our most fav cupcakes. I think you tell by this super awesome smile that we enjoyed this treat!

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Later that evening, we enjoyed a visit from Mimi, Aunt Heather & cousin, Sierra. Liam was thrilled to get some awesome birthday gifts, including the Radiator Springs town from the Cars movie, as well as play with his cousin ❤

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The next day, we headed over to Grammy & Papa Rock’s house for a visit. Of course, this guy got some more presents and was all about it. This time, it was Thomas!

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My little conductor! All Aboard!!!!

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The fun continued on Saturday, when we got to celebrate one of our very bestest friend’s graduation from UCF with her doctorate degree in Education!! We are SO very proud of her. I am loving this pic below, but have to laugh because Liam was NOT happy that I pulled him away from playing in the pool to snap a quick pic. Can you tell? LOL

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We have TONS of birthday party pictures to share! I am working on those posts now.

Stay tuned!!

~H