Splash pad – Casa de Murphy

Splashing Good Birthday Fun!

July 29, 2016 casademurphy

Last weekend, we had a splashing good time celebrating Liam’s 5th birthday with family & friends. While his actual birthDAY is not until this weekend, we opted to hold his party a week early due to venue scheduling. We had such a great time at the Oviedo Splash Zone last year for his party, that we held it it there again this year. It definitely did NOT disappoint!

Little Man selected STAR WARS for his theme this year. I found these clever invitations on Etsy:

The quiet before the storm of kiddos. The weather was already hot at 9:00 am, but we were thankful for gorgeous FL sunshine! Wee-man was ready to get his 5th birthday par-tay on 😉

This place is seriously amazing. It wasn’t even a question to not come here again this year. It’s literally a playground in the water ❤

Since we are surrounded by water and everyone is playing, we keep the decorations simple. We decided to go with cake pops this year in lieu of cupcakes, and they were THE BEST. Ms. Lauren from Little Boy Blue Bakery in Oviedo completely outdid herself with these fantastic Star Wars themed pops. Be sure to follow her on Facebook and Instagram (@littleboybluebakery) and see all of her amazing creations!

What kiddos doesn’t love a good party favor? Keeping with the simple, yet fun, theme, I found THIS idea online and was thrilled with the result! The TAGS were another find from Etsy 🙂

One of my fav shots of the R2-D2 cake pop! // photo credit: Little Boy Blue Bakery

I really have to brag about these pops because all I told Lauren was the theme and she completely delivered. We had Darth Vader, the Death Star, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and Stormtroopers. And, of course they ALL were SO delish!!

Here’s a snap of 4 of the 5 masterpieces ….all of the Death Star pops were eaten by the time I thought to take this…lol!

Jase & Liam 🙂

Liam & James….

Trying to get these boys to stop playing for 5 seconds and say cheese was IMPOSSIBLE…hahaha! // Brandon, Bryce, Liam & Jase

Love these girls! They always have my back ❤

And this lady has had my back since birth 😛 …my momma! So happy she’s back in the sunshine state with us!

Sillies….

Liam & Matthias…

double trouble 🙂 ….Liam & Kenadie

My heartstrings….my boys ❤

We had ordered a Darth Vader cupcake from Sweet! here in town so we could put a candle in it & sing to him. As cute as they made this for him…..he loved Ms. Lauren’s pops so much that he never ate this 😛 …he later declared that he “loves loves loves cake pops” ….so, I believe we have a new fav around here!

Love this family of mine….

Munchin’ on a Darth Vader cake pop!

….and, back in the water to play some more! All the kiddos had a great time & played ’till the facility literally turned the water off on the playground equipment to signal the party was done. Then, all of us parents had to pry them out of the pool 🙂

One VERY happy & blessed boy!

{who shockingly did not fall asleep even on the drive home from the splash park}

Thanks to everyone who came out to splash around with us! It really was such a great day & a super fun time to celebrate this sweet boy turning 5.

Hugs!

Latest & Greatest News, September 2014

Week-In-Review

September 16, 2014 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!

July 2013, Latest & Greatest News

Latest & Greatest News — Weekend Randomness

July 23, 2013 casademurphy

Hello Everyone! Hope you had a fantastic week & weekend 🙂

The big news of the week is that Mr. Liam officially started transitioning into the Early Preschool Department! I am proud to report that he has been doing fantastic and seems to really enjoy the new room & his new teacher, Ms. Jenn. I think it helps that since he is one of the youngest of his little group of friends, he is then one of of the last to move to the “new room” as the kids transition. So, as he’s transitioning, he’s going into a familiar setting with his little friends he likes to play with. He has to have his very 1st backpack in his new room [yup…already ordered…and yes, it’s super cute]. I will be sure to share pics in the coming weeks.

He won’t be full-time in this new room for another 2 weeks. His new teacher, Ms. Jenn, has asked us to start working with him on drinking out of a regular cup to help with weaning off the sippy cup so we’re starting to work on that slowly at home. It’s honestly something we hadn’t even thought of yet until she mentioned it to me last week. We bought little bathroom dixie cups to practice with, at Ms. Jenn’s recommendation and so far, not too shabby in the spillage department 🙂

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The weekend got off to a bit of an early start, as we had to keep Liam home from school on Friday due to him not feeling well on Thursday. He felt good enough by late Friday afternoon that Daddy took him for a swim in Mimi & Papa D’s pool. He is LOVING his new puddle jumper float …definitely a WIN for us!

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Having Liam in a toddler bed is becoming a challenge when out & about on the weekends, here lately. In particular, going down to my mom’s house for the day, he used to nap in his pack-n-play. That’s not really an option any more. Not too sure what we’re going to do at this point, but here’s my make-shift option we utilized this past Saturday ….

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Napping in Grammy’s bed. Sooooo, cute, right?!?! ….yeap, sure. But, it only lasted 30 minutes :p ….not a successful nap.

This next picture is REALLY what our weekends are all about, people. Yes, we do try to do at least one fun thing with Liam every weekend, but let’s be honest…every working family knows ya still gotta clean & grocery shop…so, we try to do ours with a bit of entertainment in the mix! This is what I like to call race car shopping [thank you, Publix]

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Finally, on Sunday, we decided to check out the Tanja King Park in Avalon. It has a splash pad and a playground. It was a very fun time for our little guy. I don’t every remember going to splash pad’s when I was little….maybe it’s a new thing…or a Florida thing….either way, Liam’s making them his thing [or maybe just playing in water outside]. He is seriously SO CUTE sometimes [most times] that I can’t even stand it!! LOL …man, we love that kid SO SO MUCH!!

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