Kim

I've had this weird urge to see Ireland for a really long time now.  I finally decided I was going to book it and talked three sisters (Kate, Karyn and Kami)  and one SIL (Linh) into coming.  I was shocked how easily it all came together and everyone was basically just up for some good old fashioned girl time.  It seemed like a good trip to take without the kids since I knew it would just be a lot of driving and sight seeing which they would definitely not be that into.  It was so fun just being able to be as carefree as you can be while driving around on the left side of the road.  The flight getting there was an absolute fiasco since storm Stella decided to move in the day we were scheduled to arrive in JFK.  Five scheduled flights later, Aer Lingus eventually rescheduled us out of Orlando after a day of being on the phones and we were able to get out and arrived just a few hours later than originally planned.  We had a bunch of layovers but at ...

It was no surprise when Bella chose to have a dog themed birthday party considering she wears a dog costume nearly every day.  We got rained out so we moved the party up to the cabin to have more indoor space.  We ate out of bowls, played a scratch and sniff game with their noses, everyone got a dog collar and face paint.  At the end, everyone got to adopt a plush puppy and take it home.  This year was so funny because I taught Bella how to work Pinterest and she was pinning all the ideas she wanted to do for her party so she planned nearly the whole thing.  Happy Birthday Bells!

Our big boy had his birthday last month.  We ended up having to reschedule his party because while at the doctors for his first year check up we showed the doctor an area on his bum that looked red and swollen and the pediatrician immediately sent us to a pediatric surgeon who felt it needed to be resolved that day.  (I had noticed it the day before but figured I'd wait a day since I knew I already had an appointment so my insurance covered the well check instead of a sick visit they don't cover). Well we had to wait for the window of when he last ate to be far enough out and at 5:00 he headed into surgery.  We were home by 8:00 and it was all resolved aside from a drain they left in for 10 days to help any residual infection to clear out. We just moved the party to the following day and it all worked out great. Originally,  I was going to skip all the party stuff and just let him smash a cake since I felt like we just threw Bella a party, but Scott said there was no...