Brynn is 3!

How can that be?  She was just a baby, sucking on two  fingers and scooting backwards across the carpet.

This year Brynn was beyond excited for her birthday.  She talked about the theme, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, since last summer.  Thanks to some help from my sister-in-law Julie and my friend Erin she loved it.  Erin made a great personalized banner with a Mickey Mouse theme.

04-Feb-2012 12:02
04-Feb-2012 11:47
 

Julie made this amazing cake.  She really did a great job on it and Brynn was in love with the cake.  She was particularly excited that she got to keep the figurines to play with at home.

04-Feb-2012 14:02
 
This party was on February 4th and it was to celebrate not just Brynn’s birthday but her cousins’ Maiah and Zoie’s birthdays as well as their Dad, my brother Danny, we got the best party ideas from http://www.jumpersjungle.com/south-gate/.  Julie was so clever because she created “another” cake on the backside of Brynn’s Mickey cake for Maiah & Zoie.  The girls had told Julie what colors they wanted on their cake and Julie hit it dead on.

04-Feb-2012 14:04
 
Not to slight Danny she made him his own cake.  I will say he was a bit selfish and didn’t share his cake with anyone.

Since Brynn’s birthday was on a Saturday we made cupcakes for her to take to school on the Friday before.  Both Rylee and Brynn helped to mix up the batter.  I decorated them after Brynn went to bed and she was so excited to see these in the morning:  

16-Feb-2012 19:26
 

Here are photos of her at school on her special day.  She was excited because she got to be line leader too.  That means she was first whenever they went out side to play and to come back inside.  Her teacher, Miss Erika, made her the cute hat that she has proudly worn ever since she got it.  Note the big difference in the before and after shots!

17-Feb-2012 14:48
17-Feb-2012 14:57
 

Love ya like Brynn love cake!  I like the bit of icing on her nose the best.  (Of course she commented on how messy Ryland’s face is in the background.)

On Brynn’s birthday, this past Saturday, we headed out for a fun day that Bill and I planned a few months ago. Brynn couldn’t wait to get started on her fun day.

Our first stop was Adventure Aquarium.  We took Maiah and Zoie many years ago when it was first remodeled.  There’s a lot more fun stuff now and there’s still one area, for the kiddos, that is under construction and will open in the Spring.

Brynn’s favorite part was the Hippos.  We had to go back to the exhibit about four times because she wanted to “see them again!”.

Bill and I really enjoyed the shark tunnel..

18-Feb-2012 11:14
18-Feb-2012 11:36
 

18-Feb-2012 13:10
 
Rylee said that “everything!” was her favorite.  She really did enjoy the touch pools they had.  Brynn wanted no part of them though.

18-Feb-2012 12:00
 
We got to see a 4D show too.  We saw Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and Sea Monsters.  We really thought the girls would enjoy it, but we were wrong.  Also, the 3D part of it was rather blurry.  But didn’t Brynn look great in her glasses?

It was such a fun time for all of us.  We’re thrilled that we got a super deal on an annual pass because we all want to go back again soon!

18-Feb-2012 15:30
 
After leaving there we headed toward home and Chuck E. Cheese.  The girls really have a lot of fun playing the games and riding the few rides they have there.  Rylee is definitely getting better at the games.

Once the girls turned in their tickets and gathered their loot it was time to head home for our family party.  Brynn loved her ice cream cake and the gifts she got to open too!

18-Feb-2012 19:01
18-Feb-2012 19:12
 

Happy 3rd Birthday to my Baby!

Love, Momma

 

Mom’s Pantry Organization

My mom’s pantry has always been less than organized.  It seems that within the last few years it has seen an overload of items.

I offered to help my mom organize it and she was quick to take me up on the offer.  What came as a surprise to her was my emptying of the entire pantry in order to assess just exactly we were dealing with.  She kept commenting that she couldn’t believe I was going to empty the entire pantry, she thought I would take it shelf by shelf and drawer by drawer. Had we done that we would have created at least double the work for ourselves.

By pulling everything out we were able to discover a few things that needed tossed due to being expired.  This is what happens when you have an overload of items put away anywhere since sometimes this can even bring problems as house pests, but for this you can contact to golewisvillepestcontrol.com to help with these issues.  We were also able to find items that needed to be relocated to another area of the house.

Mom has been ridding her kitchen of plastic containers and replacing them with glass. Whilst we’re on the subject of kitchen design a decent coffee machine is a must for any new kitchen. Fortunately for this makeover mom had been saving glass containers for this project.  Since there were different kinds of flour and dry goods the label maker got quite a workout that day as well.

Here are some before and after photos:

Full Pantry Before

Full Pantry After

Pantry Drawers Before

Pantry Drawers After

Pantry Drawer After

Pantry Drawer After

Pantry Drawer After