Celebrate

The past 3 weeks have been a non stop celebration.  This will be a post of many pictures and a little bit of words to describe the happiness these weeks have brought to our family…

Gigi’s birthday started us out.  We celebrated with breakfast at Ellen’s Kitchen, pedicures with Isla, and Sunday night dinner at our house.  Happy birthday, Momma!  The world became a sweeter, kinder, unselfish one the day you were born. 

Then came Valentines Day.  Rub-a-dub-dub, 3 loves in (and out of) a tub. 

They melt our hearts and are as sweet as can be. 

Palmer loved his first Valentines Day and I have a feeling these two are going to break some hearts in the future.  Wingmen for life!

Next was my birthday.  I got to spend it with all my loves.  Dinner at Mezzaluna with John was amazing and the party continued the next night at Bonefish with family and friends.  I’m one lucky girl!

I made a wish on this cupcake with ‘past wishes come true’ standing around me…it was kind of surreal 

She made some more wishes too.  There is a new dandelion in our yard every day and every day she makes a wish.  I don’t have the heart to tell her that dandelion wishes only come true if you blow all the seeds away with one breath.  I mean that’s pretty much impossible. 

Then we celebrated a cold night, maybe our 3rd one this winter.  It’s been such a mild one and we knew this would be our last opportunity for a fire outside so we jumped on it.  John chopped up the wood, we grabbed some smore ingredients, and headed to our backyard for the evening. 

It was perfect.  One of my favorite scents ever is the smell of firewood smoke.  I’m just drawn to it and so while John put Isla and Leo to sleep I sat out on our back porch under the stars until the last flame went out.  A wonderful night for sure! 

And where do I even begin with Palmer?  He has taken off, developmentally, in these past 3 weeks.  First off, this little thing took his first steps on my birthday, at 9 1/2 months old.  I couldn’t believe it.  He beat Isla by one month and Leo by around 3 months.  He is so anxious to get going and he is full on walking across the living room now.  He’s amazing!  He continues to smile at everyone he sees, he claps, waves while saying “ba ba”, says “mama” specifically to me, does “so big” with his arms, eats everything that’s placed in front of him, and sleeps so well at night!  Palmer is one determined little boy, but I’ve know that about him since my first trimester.  He won’t let anything stand in his way and I love that about him. 

Happy 10 months, little P-Nut!

Finally we celebrated at Disney World!  The Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios were a blast and we even got to eat with the princesses for a second time.   Palmer was wrapped up in the Moby wrap all of last visit but he enjoyed the view from the stroller this time.  He was so great the whole trip.  Isla and Leo were in heaven and never stopped smiling.  I love the happiest place on Earth! 

We rode the usual rides, but added in the Haunted Mansion.  It’s safe to say we probably traumatized our kids for life.  We’ll have to skip that one for the next few years.  Isla was tall enough to ride Splash Mountain this time and after a little bit of coaxing and a few tears, she finally agreed to ride it with me.  I was the one actually a little nervous for that huge drop.  I gripped her little body so tightly as we went down while fearing her reaction at the same time.  However, when we got to the bottom, she threw her arms up and yelled, “woo who, I wanna do that again!”  Our little daredevil!  Leo’s favorites were the Carousel and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Palmer by far loved the Country Bear Jamboree.  Every time the Bear’s played their Banjos (which was the entire time) he clapped his little hands right along to the beat.  Cutest thing I’ve ever seen! 

Round two with the Monsters Inc. gang went A LOT better.  Leo forgave Mike for stomping his foot at us last time and gave he and Sully big hugs.  Isla wasn’t so convinced so she stayed a safe distance away. 

After an afternoon of swimming in the pool (all three of them are water babies) and a meal at Benihana Steakhouse, we called it a night and a great 3 weeks.  Oh boy have we had fun but it’s nice to have a clear calendar for the month of March.  Because come April we have Easter, Brannon’s wedding, and 3 birthdays that will call for some big time celebrating.  Until then, “TTFN, ta ta for now!”

Isla’s Special Night

She’s been talking about her special night forever and we finally set a date to take our baby girl out on the town by herself, no brothers allowed.  Only Daddy, Mommy, and Isla Shea were invited.  Her 3 words to sum up the evening…”Best Day Ever!”  Isla must have given John and I a thousand kisses by the time the night was over and said a thousand “I love you”s as well!  She LOVED this night and so did we.  The thing that gets me the most is that it didn’t have to be an extravagant evening out, she was content with burgers from MShack and a late night trip to the bookstore.  Really all she wanted was some undivided attention from Mommy and Daddy and the time alone she remembers having with us before brothers came into the picture.  Hard to believe that was almost 2 1/2 years ago.   It was a perfect night with our angel and I look forward to doing this with each of our babies monthly. 

The night went something like this:  She picked her favorite outfit to wear and had Mommy do her hair, we drove to MShack to chow down on the best cheese burgers ever and sip on the most melt-in-your-mouth milkshakes in the world, we stood in the parking lot and marveled at the full moon hanging above us in the sky, we drove to the bookstore while Isla wished on the first star she saw, and at Books-a-Million Isla picked out a book for Leo, one for Palmer, and one for herself (a wedding sticker book).  We read books, looked at toys, ran around the aisles, and soaked in this special night with this amazing daughter of ours.  Isla, our first born, our baby girl, we thank God that he gave you to us.  We love you more than anything in the world!     

Fun

This weekend was just plain FUN!  It started Saturday, which happened to be this little baby’s 9 month birthday.  Palmer is cruising around the coffee table, pushing his zebra walker across the room (and getting dragged by it too), eating all sorts of table food his favorites being bananas, black beans, and avocado, and he loves having me sing the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to him (especially the ‘washed the spider’ out part).

Later in the day I asked Isla if she wanted to go get her ears pierced.  I’ve been asking her on and off since she was 3 years old and I always got the same reply, “NO!”  Well this day, at a ripe 4 1/2, she didn’t quickly respond no.  Her answer was “will it hurt?”  I was so excited that she actually might want to have it done so I told her what all mothers tell their little girls, “It’s just a little pinch that only hurts for a second.”  So she agreed to go have it done and was really excited about it.  Especially getting to choose her earrings.  She asked me about when I had mine pierced and I told her the story of how my neighbor took me and her granddaughter when we were 6 (without my mothers knowledge).  I choose a pair of gold ice cream cones and I didn’t even remember it hurting at all.  Well, fast forward about 30 minutes more and this was Isla’s poor face after getting her ears pierced…it did not go quite as smoothly as my gold ice cream cone story. In fact, only one of Isla’s ears was pierced at first.  They had a girl on each ear and counted down 3, 2, 1 and bang, one went in and one did not.  The other one was bleeding and the girl told us we could come back tomorrow and have it redone.  Yeah right, I said.  I wasn’t about to get out of that chair because if I had, Isla would be wearing one earring for the rest of her life.  After a while the lady snuck in the other earring and the trauma was over. 

Isla looks even more like a little lady now.  She chose her April birthstone, diamonds…also known as cubic zirconia at Claire’s.  After the drama of “the piercing gone bad,” we ended up walking out of Claire’s without paying a dime.  We took our money to the Ice Cream Parlor instead…

After a cookie dough and sprinkle cone, Isla was all better and went prancing around the turtle pond proudly showing off her newly pierced ears.  She loves them!  And I love the memory!

Good thing Leo doesn’t have to worry about getting that done, brother was just happy to be tagging along for the ice cream and turtle pond part. 

Sunday rolled around and we had a trip to St. Augustine planned for the kids.  The Black Raven, a pirate ship, goes out on the inlet and takes the passengers on a treasure hunt.  Isla and Leo were beyond excited but at the last minute we got a call that the hunt had been cancelled.  We didn’t want to disappoint them any further so we decided to drive down there anyway to explore the fort.   It was a beautiful day and even though they didn’t get to hunt for treasure they did get to roll down hills and to them that was just as great.  And Papa came too, double score! 

We saw a live cannon shoot, posed with some soldiers, explored hidden “caves”, and enjoyed each other’s company. 

(and I seriously doubt we will ever have a family picture where everyone will be looking at the camera ever again)

That night we went to Brannon and Heather’s for Sunday night dinner and Isla got into Ava’s makeup kit…girl knows how to work it! 

Yes, a good ole FUN weekend it was!

My wish is for many many more weekends like this…I wonder what she wished for?