Holiday – Page 4 – Casa de Murphy

Our Easter Egg-Stravaganza! {2015}

April 19, 2015 casademurphy

As usual, I am a bit behind with my post but luckily, not as late as I was at this time last year 🙂

April just ends up being a busy month for us. Lots happening — Liam got a new room, we just finished up his swim refresher lessons, me & Stephen’s anniversary, and all the other fun day-to-day business that keeps this family afloat. I will definitely be sharing some of this with you soon!

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We knew Liam would be doing a few Easter Egg hunts throughout the Easter week, so on Easter weekend, we decided to do something a little different & headed out to the City of Oviedo’s Annual Marshmallow Drop.

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It was pretty cool. Liam got to see a helicopter drop an enormous amount of marshmallows on the field & we ran out to gather them up in his basket. He just made the 3 & under age group, so that was fun. The event separated the kids by age, so there were several “drops”. The kids then got to exchange their marshmallows for candy. Cute!

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The Easter Bunny came while little dude was asleep….I’ve mentioned before that Liam does NOT like characters in costume (e.g, the Easter Bunny). We had told him he was coming while he would be sleeping to leave him a basket of goodies. Well, normally, he would come out of his room as soon as he woke up…not Easter morning. We had to go in & get him — he wasn’t scared but he definitely asked us to make sure the bunny was gone 😉

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Most of his basket came from the Target dollar spot (so dangerous but I LOVE it!!) …he was super excited to see Baymax in the mix and the new Tinkerbell movie!

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After he had some time to explore the findings in his basket, we headed out front in our pj’s to discover that EB had left many eggs hidden all over the yard 🙂

Later that morning, we enjoyed lunch with several of our friends. Yes, I took a pic of the dessert — it was only fitting….haha!

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There was an egg hunt for the kiddos after we ate. Serious business, peeps! Some of those eggs were really hidden. So funny! The girls did a great job putting it together for them.

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Liam was thrilled to have his buddies, Allie & James, to play with. Here they are after the hunt exchanging their finding from the hunt 😉

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There was even a pinata! Look at the swing on this kid! I think T-ball is in his future 🙂

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We really enjoyed our Easter weekend and had a great time with great people!

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Until next time, friends!

March 2015

St. Patrick’s Day Fun

March 12, 2015 casademurphy

Hi Friends! Hope you’re having a wonderful week! 🙂 I’m over on Orlando Mom’s Blog today with a little fun for St. Patrick’s Day!

You can check out the post HERE

February 2015, Latest & Greatest News

Valentine’s Wrap-Up

February 17, 2015 casademurphy

Last week was a lot of fun in Casa de Murphy….naturally, there was a lot of EXTRA love floating around, as we celebrated Valentine’s Day ❤

Liam was super excited to have a party at school on Friday, as well as exchange Valentine’s with his friends. I had found two different Valentine’s that I thought he would like, but this is the one he picked:

I found this awesome FREE PDF to use for the Valentine card from Simply Modern Mom. I bought a 24-pk of bubble sticks from Target for $3.99 and found a fun roll of washi tape, also at Target to tape the sticks to the card. It was perfect!

I brought back last year’s fav bag toppers from Makoodle to use for our teacher’s gifts. This, again, is another awesome FREE PDF. I am so in love with Liam’s enthusiasm of the holidays this year! He was SO into walking around all the rooms and hand-delivering these bags….it was THE cutest!! ❤

For a look back on what we were up to last year for Valentine’s, check out our post here.

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I was so tickled when I found Liam’s Valentine’s shirt from last year in his closet and realized it would still fit him this year. Ya know it’s just these little things that make us mommy’s super happy, right?!?!

And, just for a little bit of loving nostalgia of this heart-filled holiday, here’s a look back on our other Valentine’s with little man:

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On Friday morning, before we headed out the door, I couldn’t help myself on the cuteness overload ❤ & snagged a quick pic {thanks, Daddy!}

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After school on Friday, Liam had a ball looking at all his little Valentine’s from his friends, and a few from his teacher, Ms. Tamie. I loved that he listened very carefully, as I told him who each Valentine was from 🙂

Valentine’s Day morning started out as a sweet one. We had a few gifts for Liam to open when he woke up. He has really been into the Duplo Legos, lately, so he got a new set, as well as pretty cool Hulk mug that we found at Target.

Stephen surprised me with this totally awesome black & white canvas painting of a picture of my two boys ❤ ….definitely an understatement to say that I am in love with it!

This was done by a local artist, Nikki Bentley. For info on prices or how to order, you can contact her at Bentleyspawprints@yahoo.com

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I am not going to post pictures or get into much detail, but since it happened & I am about sharing our “real” life here….I will tell you that ad mist this crazy love fest of Vday, we had an unfortunate accident later in morning on Saturday. My poor sweet baby splashed very hot water on his arm in the kitchen & got a 2nd degree burn 😦 …it was a scary incident but happy to report he is okay. We have a few weeks of healing ahead of us, but he is doing great. It was heart-breaking to see him in so much pain, though. I feel horrible that it happened and so many times wish I could re-do the whole situation, but I guess that’s why we call them “accidents”. Still hurts my heart.

The funny thing is that after we left the urgent care center, and we were on our way home….I was planning an afternoon of rest {well, at least, in my head}. I {honestly} felt like we were all emotionally spent by that point and it wasn’t even noon, yet! However, when everything happened, we had been preparing to leave to go to Sea World and Liam knew this. Sooo, he actually cried so hard in the car {again} when we told him that we didn’t think Sea World was going to happen, afterall. By that point, neither of us could watch him cry anymore, so we caved 🙂 ….and decided to just go for a few hours. He was all bandaged up, and it seemed to really lift his spirits and take his mind off of what had happened. So…. win! I took a few cute pics, as this was our 1st family trip there, and will share those later this week.

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We hope you all had a fantastic Valentine’s Day weekend! Until next time, friends!

February 2015, Latest & Greatest News

Valentine’s Fun for the Little Ones

February 3, 2015 casademurphy

Hi Friends! I’m sharing two super fun posts over on Orlando Mom’s Blog to get you & your little one’s ready for Valentine’s Day ❤

The 1st one is a LOVE Art Canvas Project that you can check out here.

The 2nd project is cute AND magical! Definitely sure to get some giggles 🙂 …It is Growing Heart Lollipops and you can check it out here.

We had SO MUCH FUN with both of these projects! 🙂

Until next time!!

January 2015, Latest & Greatest News

Our Winter Break {Part 2}

January 15, 2015 casademurphy

Good times continued during our winter break with our 2nd trip to the Magic Kingdom with little man. It, again, had been almost a year & a half since our 1st trip there {for his 2nd birthday celebration}. Just like with Legoland earlier in the week, he honestly didn’t remember being there before, so it was fun to re-introduce the park to him. This age is SO MUCH different than 2 years old, so it was a whole different experience, for us, as well.

We knew the park would still be crowded for holidays, and since I had never seen the Electrical Parade before, we decided to head out later than normal…..so, we didn’t get out to the gates till about 4, but the weather was gorgeous! Special thanks to my mom & her hubby for getting us tickets from their friend, who is a cast member….nothing beats that!

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One of the main points of our plan for visiting the Magic Kingdom that weekend was to catch their Christmas decorations before they took them down. We had actually never been to Disney to see them before….so this was a nice “1st” experience for all of us! In true Disney magic, they really do the park up extra fancy ❤

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Over in the Storybook Circus area of Fantasyland is The Barnstormer ride. This is a junior roller coaster that guests must be 35 in. or taller to ride and just has small drops. We asked him, and Liam wanted to ride it….so, he did with Daddy 🙂 ….his 1st roller coaster experience!! Oh my goodness!!

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In true fashion, they sat in the back car….Liam enjoyed it, but he did tell me afterwards, that he was “alittle bit scared” ❤

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Dumbo was a fav ride this time around, again. He rode with me last visit….so Daddy got a turn this time 😉

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Such cuteness…..

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This was on The Magic Carpets of Aladdin in Adventureland ….he loved this ride! The flash caught his eye in this pic, so he looks a bit sleepy 😉

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Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland ….he enjoyed this one, but wasn’t crazy about the little drop that you feel while in the dark on the boat ride. He has totally been singing the ‘Yo Ho‘ song since that night, though….hysterical!!

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Cinderella’s Castle was decorated & lit up with a Frozen theme for the holiday’s ….absolutely beautiful!

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There were a few moments that I wasn’t sure we would make it to the start of this, but YES….we held out till the 10:15 pm start of the Electrical Parade (wow, I felt old but man, that was late for us….lol!!) …poor little dude, was PASSED.OUT.COLD in his stroller by the time everything began. There literally was no waking him up….he wanted no part of it. I felt so bad, but he did wake up towards the end and managed to catch a few of the floats 🙂

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I know we kept Liam out WAY past his bedtime, but it was such a pretty show. Really glad to have finally seen this!

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….And, here we all were on the tram back to the car at 12 AM ….what a little trooper ❤

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Here are a few pics we took in front of the castle! …this 1st one is super cute — Tink is super-imposed in our hands 😉

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All in all, it was truly a MAGICAL DAY…and night ❤ ❤

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Until next time, friends!!

December 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Our Winter Break {Part 1}

January 12, 2015 casademurphy

Over Christmas & New Year’s, I had off of work {so nice!! …definite perk to working in higher educ}, so I also kept Liam out of school. Stephen was fortunate to have a few days off, as well, over the actual holidays, so we enjoyed some quality family time.

We were also fortunate to have a few expeditions to surprise little man with during this winter break. Just before New Year’s, I took him for his 2nd trip to Legoland 🙂 — Our 1st trip was about a year & a half ago. This time around, it was just me & Liam, as Daddy had to work that day. However, they are currently running a fantastic deal for residents, where you can pay for a day & get admissions for the rest of the year for free — we definitely want to take advantage of this for the family this year! Liam & I were lucky to get comp passes for the day from my mom’s neighbor so that was awesome!!

I loved that we made it there in time to see all their Christmas decorations! Nothing like a Christmas tree made of Legos 😉

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Liam was more impressed with the snowman….of course, he asked to touch him…lol!

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Super excited to ride the carousel again!

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Santa brought Liam the Duplo My First Train Set for Christmas & it came with this conductor guy. He was amazed that this was his same little guy. He kept saying how he was as big as him! Loved it!!

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I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot had changed since our last visit. Not, in any way, that the park was bad before, but there actually was so much more for us to do this time around. The Duplo Play Area really expanded, and there were several more rides for little man. This train ride was new for us & as luck would have it, when our turn came up in line, Liam got to be the conductor for the drive! He was thrilled 🙂

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Inside the Duplo Barn ….we spent a lot of time running around in here. So fun!

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I think I was just as excited as Liam to discover all the little animals and treasures throughout the park that were made of Legos! So detailed…

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We had a GREAT day together!! Can’t wait to come back to visit again soon! 🙂

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On New Year’s Day, we headed down to South Florida to spend the day with Stephen’s family & have dinner. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with them, and Liam has really taken to his great Uncle’s ….we love for him to spend time with family. It’s precious memories that will last a lifetime for him! ❤

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Having a quick music lesson with Uncle Glenn 🙂

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Stay tuned for “Part 2” of our winter break adventures tomorrow!!

Until then…….

December 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Happy New Year!!

December 31, 2014 casademurphy

We were blessed with another year in 2014, and what a year it was!!

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Some highlights from 2014 …..

Our biggest goal was Potty Training & we can definitely check that off our list. Liam accomplished that with flying colors! I am not going to say it was a breeze — hard work for sure, but he was definitely eager to learn. We also said good-bye to the beloved paci.

We even ended the year, today, with our very 1st trip to the dentist for a cleaning…but more about that later 😉

Stephen changed jobs in March & is kicking butt! Same kind of business (fabric restoration), just for a different company.

I started blogging for Orlando Moms Blog in August, and it’s really been a joy to be a part of this fab team of moms! Not to mention, the experience I have been gaining is awesome!

HUGE KUDOS to those of you who keep up with us here ❤ ….this little hobby of mine has really grown this past year and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I am still just doing this to mainly keep our family & friends abreast of the latest & greatest news of Mr Liam & the fam, but it’s also led to some new exciting opportunities. Our most popular posts were Liam’s 3rd birthday celebrations (here & here). The most commented on were when we said good-bye to paci. 🙂 We had over 2,000 page views this year!! While that may be small potatoes for some blogs, that is pretty amazing to me! Most of our visitors came from the U.S., Brazil & Canada.

I am anxious to see where 2015 will take us!

Here’s a quick look back as we bid farewall to 2014 🙂

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{song credit: Dave Matthews — Baby Blue}
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Looking Ahead to 2015 ….

Liam will be starting official Pre-School in August!! Oh my goodness! Where is the time going?!?!

We want to find a solid church home and a place to give that foundation for Liam that is vital so he can learn & grow in our Lord. It’s time & has been heavy on my heart.

Stephen and I have some projects we want to tackle around the house.

Overall, we just want to live each day to the fullest, savor each moment, and be thankful!! ❤

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Happy New Year!!

December 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Our Merry Christmas 2014

December 30, 2014 casademurphy

How many times have I used the word “fun” in 2014? I have lost count, but I will tell you that having a 3 year old at Christmas time has been FUN 🙂

While we kept things pretty low key around here, we did enjoy ourselves by visiting some family and partaking in a few of our family traditions last week.

On Christmas Eve, we baked some yummy cookies for Santa. Liam really enjoys helping in the kitchen. We love to cook and bake with him ❤ …..look at those little hands using the cookie cutters!

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After cookie time, we headed over to Mimi & Papa D’s to have dinner and celebrate the holiday. We also got to spend some time with Aunt Heather & baby cousin, Sierra.

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Liam got to open some presents and it was awesome to see his excitement. He had mentioned a few times over the last few months that he would like the Mickey Mouse Club House, so he went bananas when he opened this. He actually said, “Oh, I always loved this!!” ….I mean, really….how hysterical is that?!?!

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Last year, he took FOR-EVER to open presents, as he very carefully unwrapped each one. This year, we explained to him how fun it is to “tear ’em open” and he quickly got it…and loved it! He was going through his presents like a champ! Opening each one with great enthusiasm! That continued on into Christmas day, so it was super fun to watch 😉

We have quickly become fans of Imaginext toys from Fisher-Price. This gift below from Mimi & Papa D, as well as the loot from Santa have given little man quite the super hero collection 😉

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Once we got home, it was time to get ready for bed…..but 1st, we had to sneak outside to feed the reindeer! Mr Elf had left Liam this cute bag of food on his last morning with us. We also said bye to him, as he headed back to the North Pole that night, & put out Santa’s cookies before heading off to sleep. If you recall my recap post about Mr Elf, I had mentioned I had wanted a good bye letter from him to Liam….we ran into some time difficulties & that didn’t happen this year {unfortunately}, so I’m saving that for next year.

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Christmas morning was a flurry in our house! Little dude woke up before the sun and was a joy to listen to as he snuck up to the tree to check out what Santa brought. He was so excited and happy……from our room, we could hear him whispering to himself — “Look at all the presents! I love you, Santa!” ❤

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In the months leading up to Christmas, the only thing Liam would say he wanted for Christmas was a Mickey Choo Choo Train. Naturally, you can imagine his excitement, when he opened just that! He said, “oh, I got it! I love it!“

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After a nap time, we headed down to Grammy & Papa Rock’s and shared Christmas dinner & celebrated the day. Santa came for little man, there, too….by that point, I would say we were on toy overload. Definitely a blessed little dude 🙂

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We have been seeing Liam ride a trike at school & wanted to get him something he could also enjoy at home. He still has the trike Santa brought last year, but it seems to be very heavy in weight & a bit hard to pedal. It wasn’t hard for us to brainstorm on this Original Big Wheel, which has recently made a comeback.

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It was so nice to also have my Grampy at my mom’s for a bit. Love spending quality time with him! Liam gave him a great big hug & it was so special!

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Liam was not smiling in this pic because we made him take it before he could open presents….LOL!!

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It was a great holiday, and I would say, our most fun with Liam, thus far! Hope you all enjoyed, yours, too! Merry Christmas!!

December 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Christmas Blessings!

December 25, 2014 casademurphy

Wishing you & your family Christmas blessings!!

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May your holiday be filled with joy & laughter….

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….peace & love ❤

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Merry Christmas!!

December 2014, Latest & Greatest News

Happy Christmas Eve!

December 24, 2014 casademurphy

There is something about today, Christmas Eve, that always feels magical, right?!?!

Maybe it’s from when we were kids & knowing that it would be impossible to go to sleep that night knowing that Santa would be coming. Now, it’s so much fun for Stephen & I, as we feel like we get to relive aspects of our childhood, like these moments, through our little man’s eyes. Magical….

I have been loving to dress Liam up in his Christmas pj’s each year & put him by the tree, along with Timber, & sneak a pic or two….I guess, it’s become our little tradition in Casa de Murphy. Here’s a look back at my little collection of memories ❤

2011 ~ Baby’s 1st Christmas ~ 5 months old

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