Kamdyn's Actual Birthday!

Kamdyn had a great birthday on her actual day.  Aside from the April Fool's antics that people try to pull on her, it was a great 9th birthday.  

First of all, she dressed in the cutest little yellow and navy outfit complete with a chevron bow.

Then, Karcie and I took Chick-fil-A to her school and had lunch with her.  We also stopped by Dunkin Donuts on our way to Chick-fil-A to get her requested birthday treat for her class.  6 glazed donuts.  6 strawberry frosted donuts.  6 chocolate frosted donuts.  6 double chocolate donuts.  

After lunch, Karcie and I went back to her classroom for her birthday treat.  The class sang Happy Birthday and were so sweet to our Kamdyn.  They were having centers afterwards so I agreed to stay and run one of the learning centers.  Ours was an Easter game so Karcie got to play, too.  She actually won the game which had the older kids scratching their heads.  

For dinner that night, our girls chose her favorite Apex Mexican Restaurant, Arranda's.  Last, we got home and she opened all of her gifts from our family.  She is one lucky duck who is loved by so many!!

Beautiful!

Lunch with the birthday girl!

And a sweet treat with the birthday girl!

Ms. Moonan's birthday message.  

Karcie won!!  She completed the rabbit first!

Daddy and his girl at dinner.

Mommy and the baby girl at dinner.

Kamdyn got The Voice for the Wii from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jim.  She couldn't wait to play it!

Think she got enough?  And this was JUST from the family.  Her stack from her friends was just as tall!  

Easter Egg Fun

In an attempt to make letter recognition more fun, I created this letter game with Easter Eggs.  Each egg had an upper and lowercase letter on it.  Karcie had to find the matching upper and lowercase paper letter to put inside of the egg.  This kept her attention for about 10 minutes.  Then, she was bored.  Oh well!  I tried!  :)

My Mom bought Resurrection Eggs for Kamdyn several years ago.  Kamdyn decided to get them out one night and share the story with Karcie.  It was the sweetest thing.  Well, until they got to the white empty egg.  Karcie said she was sad that it was empty.  We had to explain to her that the white empty egg was the best egg of all and that we were happy that the tomb was empty.  She gave us a funny look, but hopefully she got it!  

Library with Campbell

Karcie invited Campbell to go to story time with us a few weeks ago.  These sweet girls had a great time.  The Letter of the Day was "K," the story time theme was kites, and the girls got to take home a paper kite.  Super sweet friends!!

Kamdyn is 9!!

Kamdyn had so much fun at her Jellybeans Skating Party!  I loved watching her skate with all of her friends.  They all seemed to have a really good time.  I tried to take as many photos as I could, but I was a one woman show.  I missed having Richard there for photos and videos.  It was hard to get everything on camera while enjoying the party.  Plus, I was half asleep. ;)  

Our favorite part of this party was that it wasn't very expensive and EVERYTHING was included.  All we had to do was show up!!  Georgia did make the adorable applique skate shirts the girls with each of their names on them.  We got so many compliments on them from others at the skating rink.  My favorite comment was, "Your shirts are so cute!  Who made them?  Are you girls in a skating league together?"  I tell you, after the many parties I've planned and the amount of time, money, energy and stress that I've put into them, I can say without a doubt that I enjoyed this route the most.  I was looking forward to actually skating if Richard had been there.  But that was hard to do when I was in charge of watching all of these girls.

Check out the video of Kamdyn doing the Hokey Pokey!!  It was so cute!!

Emily, Kamdyn, Mia, Emily, Morgan, Abby, Sydney, and Ella.  One of her other friends, Abigail, got there a little late and wasn't in this photo.  It was the perfect number of girls!!

Morgan, Sydney, Abby, and Kamdyn

Morgan, Sydney, and Emily

Kamdyn skating with Ella.

Kamdyn was sad because Ella was moving back to Michigan the very next day.

Emily, Sydney, Emily, Abby, Kamdyn, Ella, and Morgan

Morgan, Ella, Kamdyn, Abby, Emily, Sydney, Emily

In the middle getting ready for the Hokey Pokey

Eating Pizza!!

Kamdyn and sweet Mia!

Happy???

All of her little friends and two little sisters.

They even provided the cookie cake.  Would mine have been cute??? Yes!!  But, mine would have cost A LOT more and the girls probably loved this much more than cake anyway!

Kamdyn's tickets from the arcade.

A Mom's Rite of Passage

Look how precious these first photos are.  The guys in our neighborhood were having poker night so Colleen, the kids, and I got together at her house for dinner, drinks, and playtime.  It all looks and sounds so fun and sweet!!  AND, it was!!  I was oblivious to the fact that in a few shorts hours my night was about to get flipped upside down.  

We left Colleen's around 9:00.  I got the kids teeth brushed and their PJ's on.  I was rocking Karcie while saying her prayers and she told me that her tummy was hurting.  I didn't think a thing about it.  I put her to bed and I went to bed shortly after.  

Around midnight, I heard a door squeak open and assumed it was Richard coming home.  I kept hearing noises and realized that it was coming from Karcie's room.  She stood beside my bed and said, "Mommy, my bed is wet!"  THEN, I got a horrible whiff of her and knew immediately that she had thrown up.  It was the most putrid smell ever.  I still had no idea!

I went in to her room to find her and her bed covered.  I will spare you some of the details, but I felt so horrible.  She had tried to clean herself and her bed up using almost an entire box of wet wipes that we kept on her dresser.  Needless to say, that cute little box was thrown away because it had yucky throw up all over it.  I also didn't know until the next day that she had hidden dirty wet wipes in her closet, behind her bed, and all over her room.  I guess she didn't really know what had happened.  Maybe she thought she had pooped in her bed.  I don't know, but it broke my heart that she was up trying to clean it up by herself.

Anyway, I stripped her bed.  Got her in the bathtub and texted for Richard to come home and help. Did I mention that Kamdyn's birthday part was the following day at 10 AM at the skating rink!!  WHAT?!?!?  There are 365 days in a year.  Why?

Well, I still didn't know what was to come.  I thought she just had an upset tummy....maybe ate/drank too much before bed.  We got the bed changed and Karcie bathed.  We put her back into bed.  We got into bed.  Not 10 minutes later she threw up in her bed again.  I also forgot to mention that I've been a Mom for 9 wonderful years and I've never had to endure a stomach bug.  Kamdyn has thrown up probably twice or three times in her life, but never more than once at a time.  Get ready, Mom, because the stomach bug just entered YOUR house!!

My sweet girl was up every 30 minutes to an hour throwing up.  It was so pitiful!  I felt so helpless.  I slept in the floor by her crib.  She would wake up and say, "I gotta go!"  I would whisk her away to the bathroom and she would get sick in the toilet.  She was so weak and tired.  I was so tired!!  (WAIT, I've got a 9th birthday party to get to at 10:00 AM!!   I've had less than one hour of total sleep and it was while sleeping on the floor.)  Surely, this was going to go away soon.Oh, but no!!  By 6:00 AM, I got Richard out of bed so he could tend to her and so that I could sleep until 7:30. I was up showered and ready to go by 9:30.  Richard stayed home with Karcie.  I hated for the two of them to miss Kamdyn's party.  We didn't have a choice.

Poor Kamdyn heard the commotion all night, too.  Nothing was going to stop her from being excited about her party though!  10 little girls were ready to skate in a LOUD skating rink.  I couldn't wait!!  Luckily, all I had to do was show up and pay my money.  All of the details were taken care of.  It was the easiest party ever!!

Kamdyn and I came home to one sick little girl.  She and Richard napped in my bed until almost 1:30.  Richard got up to take Kamdyn to our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.  365 days in a year!  Why?  Karcie had to miss the Egg Hunt, too.  I jumped in the bed with her and she and I slept until around 4:30.  I knew she was sick because she NEVER, EVER lays down to take a nap with anyone.  She's just too busy!  At 4:30, I convinced her to get up and drink some juice.  It stayed down and she didn't throw up after around 9:00 AM.  She was running a low grade fever so I gave her some Motrin.  Within a few short minutes she started to perk up.

Then we were going through her goody bag from Kamdyn's party.  We were playing with the crazy vampire teeth.  It was good to see her personality peeking back through.  

I got in on the vampire action, too.

She was still puny and would not eat for several days, but she was back to her normal self by the following day at noon.  Luckily, no one else in our family got it!  It was a miracle.  Maybe it was because I washed everything in the house immediately and bleached all of the bathrooms.  Be gone stomach bug.  I hope we NEVER see you again!!  I survived my rite of passage, but barely!

Monogram Mama

On top of chasing Karcie around each day, I do manage to get a little work done for The Smocked Shop.  We are busy with Zulily sales and occasional Facebook and Instagram sales.  I even find time to monogram items for people every now and again.  I enjoy it much more when they aren't paying customers.  I get nervous when people bring me things that they have purchased.  I do much better when I have purchased gifts to monogram for others.....then I don't worry too much if I were to mess up.  Let's just also say that monogramming was MUCH easier when Karcie took naps.  Now it's challenging to find the time.  

Two Easter basket liners for a neighbor!

I embroidered my FIRST EVER Tiger Paw for Banks!

I also made Banks all of these adorable shirts for his birthday.  Forget the fact that his birthday was in DECEMBER and I"m just now getting this done!!  In my defense, this is what his Mom suggested that I get for him.  It took a while for the Spring t-shirts to come out!!

Kirk Kiddos

Colleen's oldest, Cade, had a dentist appointment a few weeks ago.  Colleen was picking him up early from school.  It was a beautiful day outside and I planned to take advantage of it!!  I told her to leave her two youngest with me and Karcie.  She was reluctant to leave Declan because he had not had a nap.  I told her that he would be fine!!  However, I seriously thought he was going to take a nap on our concrete.  He laid there for over five minutes playing happily with Barbie.  I texted Colleen a photo and asked her if I should leave him there if he fell asleep!!  NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!!  :)

Anywho, these kids had the best time. It was literally the first warm day we had had.  It was so great to be outside in the fresh air.  It gave us all Spring fever, but the cold temps returned for one last reminder!!  I am so thankful for these sweet neighbors.  They have made our time in NC so much fun!!

Night, night, Declan!!

Playing on the front porch!

Time for chalk!!

Then we got out the art easel and painted.  There wasn't room for Declan.  That little stinker got me back, too!  A few days later he got into the paint and started painting my garage floor!  ;)

More Preciousness!!

It seems that I am always posting stuff about Karcie these days, but I am with her most of the day.  I only see Kamdyn in the evenings and she's usually doing homework or I'm shuffling her to some activity.

These were Karcie's Spring Preschool Photos.  While I thought the photos were adorable, I chose not to purchase them.  They were very similar to her Fall photos.  I did, however, purchase the class photo and I can't wait to see that one!!

This is where I found this girl one afternoon.  We were about to go outside so that I could do a little outside Spring cleaning.  She obviously decided that she couldn't wait on me and made it outside before I did.  Look how precious and innocent she looks!!  To make it even more precious, she's reading a "Jesus Calling" book for kids.  Be still my heart!!  

She has no idea that I'm taking a pic of her!

No words for such sweetness!!

And I've been spotted!!