Our Last Month with our Koda Bear

September seemed to fly by, until the very end of the month. Kinsie celebrated her 8th birthday, so that was a positive, but it was also a tough month because we had to say goodbye to our loyal companion, Koda. He got to spend his last days with a lot of family time, which was his absolute favorite thing. 

Here is how the rest of our month went.

Cousin Sleepovers

Out of the 4 weekends in September, we had sleepovers for 3 of them! My sister’s kids were supposed to come over for a sleepover at the end of August, but it didn’t work out so we had to switch it to Labor Day weekend. The whole family (my parents and my sister’s whole family) ended up coming for the weekend. The kids had a blast together. We watched movies, explored campus, and had a family baseball game.

The next two weekends, the whole family came again because IU Football season started and we have season tickets. One of the weekends was also my sister’s birthday, so we got to celebrate with her. The fam got to tag along to watch Brax play soccer as well!

The kids LOVED their weekends with their cousins. They made lots of forts, played outside a lot, and played lots of games. They all get along so well and had a great time together!

Another Quarantine

This time, Brax’s entire class was quarantined after one of his classmates tested positive. Luckily, the whole class wears masks, but because they eat lunch in the classroom, they thought the safest decision was to have the whole class quarantine for a week. He was bummed, but he was at least glad that it was his whole class, so he wasn’t missing out on anything. Luckily nobody else in the class got sick, so again – masks work! He was a champ doing his schoolwork at home, and he enjoyed the extra Brody time!

Football Season

Ryan and I bought season tickets to IU Football this year with my parents. When we were in college, IU Football was never good, so we were excited to go to games where we were actually a decent team! To be honest, I was nervous going to an event like this when we’ve been so careful throughout this entire pandemic. But IU requires their students to be vaccinated, and the majority of the crowd most likely is as well. We’ve still been wearing masks during the games just to be extra careful – mainly to protect our kids. But it was nice to be out and about again – it had been way too long!

Fun at School

Braxton has been rocking Kindergarten. He has made SO much progress so far both academically and in maturity. He makes friends very easily and loves all the fun activities they do in school. This month, he was the “Wise Owl of the Week,” where he got to bring in pictures and share information about himself with the class. He also got to go on a field trip to the fire station!

Life at Home with Bro

This kid keeps me busy! He gets into everything all the time! He is hilarious and so much fun though! We try to go on walks when the weather is nice, but other than that, we hang at home. By nap time, I’m worn out and sometimes need a short nap myself to charge back up for the afternoon. I’m sure glad I have this little ball of sunshine to fill my days!

Enjoying the Outdoors

Fall weather is my FAVORITE. We got small glimpses of lovely fall weather this month. We also had some extremely hot days. But when it was decent out, we did lots of chalk, baseball throwing, car riding, bubbles, frog hunting and trail walks.

Kinsie turned 8!

Our beautiful girl turned EIGHT this month! We started our day with birthday donuts. She enjoyed her day at school, where her class made her a birthday book. She also passed out Harry Potter pencils and mini erasers, which she thought was the greatest thing ever! 

After school, she opened her presents. She loved her Lego set, pop-its, and the animation studio we got her, but she especially loved the new Nugget she got in the mail from Grandma Bev and Papa Tim! The kids already have one, but Kinsie always wants to build her own forts with it, and the boys always destroy it because they want to climb and be rough. So now she has her own, but she of course shares with her brothers so they can make extra cool formations!

After she opened her presents, we went on a walk around campus. The weekend before Kinsie’s birthday was when Koda started not acting like himself. He wasn’t eating and he was more tired than usual, so we knew something was up. We wanted him to be with us, so we took him on our walk too. He moved slowly, but he enjoyed being with us.

After our walk, we got Mother Bear’s Pizza and some ice cream to celebrate our girl! She had a great day!

Zoo Date

The Saturday after her birthday, Kinsie’s request was to have a Zoo Day at the Indianapolis Zoo, and then a swim party at my parents’ house afterwards. We kept it small – just our immediate families. We spent the earlier part of the day at the zoo, and all of their cousins eventually met us there. The kids were in heaven! 

We had to get a picture of the Mexican cousins with the Dia de los Muertos display!

The kids all had SO much fun together. By the early afternoon, it was getting pretty crowded and we saw everything we wanted to see, so we headed back to my parents’ house for Part 2 of Kinsie’s Birthday Celebration.

Harry Potter Party

My girl has been obsessed with Harry Potter lately – not that I can blame her! She wanted to have a Harry Potter themed swimming party. Since it was just immediate family, and we had a lot going on with Koda the previous weeks, we didn’t go all out like I would have liked, but we still made it cute and fun with some fun decorations and snacks.

The weather was great – in the low 70s. Probably not quite warm enough for swimming, but the kids didn’t care. They kept warm in the heated pool and had a blast.

After swimming, we had Subway for dinner (Kinsie’s favorite), ice cream cake and cookies, and then she opened her presents. She had a wonderful day!

We knew our sweet Koda was declining quickly, and we brought him along for the trip. We are so glad we did because he got to spend his last weekend with all of his favorite people. Both of our families got to give him some love and say goodbye.

Our Koda Bear

At the end of the month, we had to say goodbye to our sweet, loyal, almost 13 year old pup, Koda. We started losing him the weekend before Kinsie’s birthday and he declined pretty quickly. We think he had something going on with his intestines – whether it was cancer or something similar. The last week was so hard seeing him so miserable. He wasn’t eating anything and he was so weak. Ryan and I had to make the difficult decision to put him down. We stayed right by his side throughout the process, hugging him and loving on him while he left this world.

Ryan got Koda as a puppy before we were even married, so he has been through many different seasons of life with us. He lived in 6 different houses with us and helped us welcome 3 children into our family. He was such a good, loyal dog. He was so laid back and easy going, but also extremely protective of us. I always felt safer with Koda around. He was happy anywhere or doing anything as long as he was near us. As he got older, he got overwhelmed by the high level of noise and chaos in our home with our 3 crazy kids – but he always remained right in the center of it because he simply wanted to be with us. We have so many wonderful memories with him that we will carry in our hearts forever.

It definitely is not the same at our house now that he’s gone. Little every day things are so different now. Pets are so interwoven into our everyday lives and you don’t fully realize it until they are gone. I I will miss not having to sweep the crumbs under Brody’s high chair because Koda would lick them up. I will miss hearing his claws tapping around on the floor when he got excited and chased his tail. I will even miss his hair tufts that I found everywhere in the house and had to sweep up constantly. But mostly I will miss his comforting presence and sweet companionship. We will love you forever, Koda bear!

Overall, we had a great month. We were devastated to lose our Koda, but we are relieved that he is no longer in pain. He’s probably running around heaven chasing rabbits with Addie!

We are ready for October, one of our favorite months. We love all of our fall traditions so we are excited to do them in our new house.

Enjoy our September 1 Second Everyday!

Wild ONE!

A few days before Brax’s birthday, we had a lumberjack “Wild One” birthday party for him at the lake. I love how both of my kids have birthdays in months where we can spend time outside…or at least we SHOULD be able to. The weather lately hasn’t exactly been typical of late April and early May…it has been cold and rainy for weeks now. It poured all morning the day of Brax’s party…so it became an indoor party. I was a little bummed, but I knew he wouldn’t know the difference. Actually, once it was time for the party later in the afternoon, it stopped raining…but it was still too wet to do any of the festivities outside. We still love our home away from home, even if we don’t get to be outside.

Thanks to Megan for making Brax’s outfit and the awesome “1” banner!

Ryan was a huge help for the party…making the “Wild One” sign and the “Trail Mix Bar” sign, as well as drawing and painting the lumberjack man! Also, thank you to Bev (and Tim) for hosting and making a lot of the food, as well as Aunt Renata for the amazing cookies!

Brax had the BEST time at this party. He barely napped that day, probably because he was too excited for his party (no joke…he knew something exciting was about to happen!) Even without much sleep, he was a champ throughout the afternoon. He partied hard, visited with everyone, and played with all of his cousins. Kinsie helped him open his presents, which was quite a chaotic adventure! As you’d expect from a one year old, Brax was more entertained by the boxes and bows than the gifts themselves. Kinsie was pretty excited to play with all of Brax’s new toys though!

Next was probably Brax’s favorite part of the afternoon…being sang to and eating cake! He LOVED when everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to him. He was absolutely giddy. He giggled, wiggled and laughed the entire time. When it was time for cake, I figured he would dive right in because that is how he usually approaches food, but surprisingly, he was cautious. He wasn’t too crazy about getting icing all over him at first, but once he realized that this stuff that was all over his fingers tasted delicious, he was all in!

We had one very happy little boy that afternoon. Kinsie had a blast too! We love getting all of our family and close friends together for occasions like this. It fills my love tank. It is hard to believe that the next several birthdays the kids will have will be in Arkansas. However, even though we are moving, we still plan to spend the kids’ birthday weekends at home to celebrate with all of our family and friends. Kinsie is already planning her 4th birthday party, in which she claims that she’ll have another dinosaur party. We’ll see if she changes her mind by September!

Happy FIRST birthday my little WILD ONE!

Kinsie-saurus’s Dino Party

As you already know, Kinsie loves dinosaurs. This started around this time last year when we took her to the Children’s Museum for the first time and she loved the dinosaur exhibit. Ever since then, her love for dinosaurs has only grown. This year, when I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted, without hesitation, she said she wanted a dinosaur party at the lake. So that’s what we did! We invited family and very close friends and the party was a huge success!

Grandma Bev helped make most of the food, Ryan carved the dinosaur watermelon, and Aunt Renata made the awesome dinosaur cookies! We ordered the cake from Shug’s Cakes.

 

“Kinsiesaurus” shirt made by Aunt Megan!

Some of the entertainment for the kids included digging for dino fossils in the sandbox, and the bounce house. We also had a dinosaur pinata that was a big hit! Dean ended up busting out the candy from the pinata!

Kinsie said her favorite part of the party was opening her presents. She got some awesome stuff! Ryan had to build new shelves in her room just so we could fit all her new toys in the house!

Our girl was pretty pumped about her dinosaur cake. When it was time for cake, the spot that we had set up was right in the sun, and I didn’t want to be in full sun for the pictures…so we moved the whole set up to the shade. Ryan (my brother-in-law) and Nate untied the banners from the tree and held them up over our new set up so we could have them in the cake pictures! World’s Best Uncles!

It was an awesome day! Kinsie had so much fun with the people she loves. Brax had a great time too in his little dinosaur hoodie! We are so appreciative to everyone to helped out and came to celebrate our girl’s birthday. We jammed out to her birthday mix CD the whole way home!

O-FISH-ally Two!

We had Kinsie’s birthday party at her favorite place…the lake! Based on the fact that we were having her party there, we decided to go with a “fishing” theme. She was all about it from the moment we told her. She talked about her fishy party for weeks leading up to the party. We knew we were going to have one happy little girl when her party came! I honestly wish it was my full-time job to plan birthday parties for toddlers. It is too much fun. Thanks especially to Pinterest and Etsy, I found lots of cute ideas to make the party unique and fun.

Thanks to the help of my mother-in-law Bev, my mom, Ryan’s aunts – Rita and Renata, and my aunt Mary Lou…there was plenty of food to go around. And of course we had to add some “fishy” fun with the food as well! The main course included hot dogs, hamburgers, and Bev’s famous chilli. Dessert included cake (Brenda’s Cakes), dirt and worms (Aunt Mary Lou), fish cookies (Renata), and fishy chow (rather than “puppy chow” – made by my mama). The food certainly did not disappoint!

Ryan and I both worked hard to have plenty of fun activities for the kids. There was a coloring and craft station, fish cornhole, a magnetic fishing game, and of course, boat rides!

I was really curious to know how opening gifts would be with Kinsie this year. I had a feeling that she would want to open and play with each gift as she opened it, and would be overwhelmed with all her new toys. Well, I was kind of right. She did want to open and play with each gift as she opened them, but after she opened about the 5th gift, she was done. She obsessed about the toys she had already opened, and didn’t want to open anymore! She just sat and played with those toys while I opened the rest of her gifts. Once we got home and got all her new toys out though, she was a happy camper and played with everything!

Kinsie has been really into the “Happy Birthday” song lately, so when everyone sang to her, she was on Cloud 9. She certainly enjoyed being in the spotlight and eating cake and ice cream!

The only down side to her party, was that her cousin (and best friend), Briggs had to leave a bit early. He woke up that morning with hives, and a swollen face. He still tried to have fun and enjoy the party, but you could tell the poor guy just didn’t feel well. He started getting more swollen as the evening went on, so they left early to take him to the hospital. He got worse before he got better, but after a couple days, he was pretty much back to himself.

Other that the issue with Briggs, the party was a huge success!! Kinsie had a blast, and of course, if Kinsie was happy, mommy and daddy were happy too. All of the guests seemed to have a good time as well, and we were lucky to have a beautiful day on the lake!

Our Little Lady’s Birthday Party

Our sweet little lady had an awesome first birthday party! Kinsie had so much fun celebrating her first birthday with her grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had a ladybug themed party, which, I’ll admit, was more for me than for her! I always loved ladybugs growing up, and since we’ve always called her “bug,” it just seemed to fit! I love doing crafts and planning parties like this, so it was honestly more fun than work to plan out Kinsie’s birthday party!

We had lots of delicious food at the party, which really was a group effort. Thank you so much to my Aunt Mary Lou, my mother-in-law Bev, Ryan’s cousin Nicole, our wonderful friend Missy Davis, Ryan’s Aunt Renata, and my amazing mom for contributing to the menu! I could not have done it without you all! A special thanks to my mom…not only did she help with the food, but she helped tremendously with decorating and getting the house ready for the party. Thank you mama!

Kinsie received SO many new gifts that she absolutely loves. While opening her gifts, she didn’t really have the attention span to sit and open each gift, (imagine that!) so she had a little help from mom, dad and her cousin Briggs. Each time she opened a gift, she wanted to just run off and play with whatever she got. She especially loved the walking toys, and she’s been showing off her walking skills ever since. She still isn’t walking independently yet, but she is getting a lot of practice!

Then came the birthday cake (credit goes to Aunt Renata for ordering the awesome ladybug cake). To no surprise, Kinsie was a huge fan! We gave her a slice of her cake and she just picked at it first, then once she tasted it, she was all in! After filling her little belly with sugar, she was wound up like you wouldn’t believe! While I got things cleaned up, she was bouncing around on the couch and rolling around having a blast with her daddy. She was not very happy when we packed her up to go home…she could have partied all night!

Thank you again to those of you who were able to come and celebrate with Kinsie! She loved seeing everyone and sharing her special day with the people she loves most!

How many kids can you spot?

Loving her daddy time!

Grandma sandwich!