Last month, Stu turned 40. At first I was thinking about celebrating his old age with a handful of close friends at one of his favorite restaurants. But Stu told me (several times) that he did not really want that. According to him, he wanted no celebration of any kind. Sure, bud. Like that'll happen.

The kids and I came up with the idea to throw a poop emoji themed party. Who doesn't love that ridiculous emoji? It worked perfectly: Holy {poop}! Stu is 40!

I sent an evite out to our friends. And at this point, I had not mentioned the party to Stu at all. He was blissfully unaware. I knew I wanted to make poop emoji cupcakes, but for the rest of the decor, I took to Amazon. Below are links to the actual products I ordered. They are all PERFECT, and I HIGHLY recommend them. 

I realize I am WAY behind on the blog. And yes, Easter was almost a month ago, but I still want to share ours with you. 

We didn't do much in the way of Easter at home. We painted eggs like normal (which I wanted to skip, but Riley insisted), and the kids stuffed some plastic eggs. I opted for larger, more adorable plastic "eggs" this year. At Michaels and Publix, I found these cuties:

There are many odd things about me. One of my favorites is my obsession with shower curtains. 

You heard me. 

It is important to both Stu monsters that each holiday be properly represented at our house. They expect some decor in the house to change throughout the year. I think it's funny. 

One of the ways I am easily (and relatively inexpensively) able to acocmplish this is by switching out the shower curtain in their bathroom. It is a small space, and the shower curtain actually makes a HUGE difference. I do other things, like change out some frames for holiday pictures from our past, but that's a different blog post. 

I decided to skip St Patty's day this year (buying a curtain, I mean). It is only two weeks separated from Easter and it seemed silly to do both. Maybe next year. I removed the Valentine's shower curtain and hung up the newest addition to our home. 

Anyway, I was thinking that I should probably get a head start on the ones I know I still need... like an American flag one for our patriotic holidays - ie, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Veteran's Day, next year when the Pats are in the Super Bowl. You know, the important days. 

I came across 2 that I really love. I am leaning more toward the traditional flag, but I REALLY LOVE the skull one! Picture me right now with giant heart eyes. That's how I feel. Take a look and tell me what you think. Which would you buy? Which one should I buy? 

These are screenshots. If you want one of your own, keep scrolling. 

Here you go, as promised, links for you to snag your own. Again, they are affiliated. You can read about that here.

Christmas seems to last all month long... decorating the house, decorating the tree, baking/decorating/eating Christmas cookies, holiday parties, buying/wrapping gifts. All that before the main event of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

And I love every crazy, stressful minute of it. 

This past weekend was the Fall Festival at our church. I thought it was a SUPER success, and I am so proud of the way it turned out. 

Stu was up first in the dunk tank. It took several tries, but he finally got dunked. 

Riley told me his favorite thing was the dunk tank... He spent most of the festival in line trying to sink his dad and James (our preacher). 

Reagan gave the dunk tank a few tries...

Well, that was fun. 

I seriously cannot believe how fast this year is blowing by! It doesn't seem possible that it's already November. And yet it is. 

Halloween was a howling good time. We stretched it out for as long as possible. 

First things first. The house has to be decorated. 

This is might be my favorite part. It's like the house gets to wear a fun costume for a month! Actually, I began spooking ours when September appeared on the calendar. 

I feel like Homer Simpson. I completely left out the best part of Halloween 2010. Doh.

Yes, Reagan was Captain Hook at the Disney party that year. And she was seriously SO cute. The photo above is her trying on the outfit at the Contemporary gift shop a few weeks prior. 

But what I failed to include in my last post was the amount of costume changes Reagan had that Halloween. 

The first is Captain Hook - obviously. She wore this costume to Mickey's party at the Magic Kingdom. 

Our neighborhood had a Halloween costume block party a few days before the 31st. For this party, Reagan was a red crayon. 

Today we picked up the kids 2017 Halloween costumes. I know, we are "way early". Both kids knew what they wanted to be, so I figured we get that shopping out of the way. I don't want a repeat of the 2015 Halloween fiasco. And I wanted to get out of the house...

Both Stu monsters have assured me that they will NOT change their minds before October 31. And since we arrived home, they have been in total character. I will be waiting to reveal their costume choices (sorry). 

First, I must begin by saying thank you. Thank you to the men and women who have given their lives in order for us to have and continue our current lifestyle. Thank you to the families of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms. Stu and I know, and we are teaching our children that freedom is never free. 

I've shared our crazy, busy, jam-packed weekend fun in Our Memorial Day 2017 Recap. 

This post is dedicated to hosting a party with a red, white & blue Americana theme. 

Time to decorate eggs for the Easter Bunny! 

I gave up on the dye cups a few years ago. Painting and drawing on them is so much more fun. 

Reagan painted most of hers. But Buddy prefers to draw. We used Sharpie paintbrush markers. They were PERFECT!