My boy...my sweet little boy. He was the third boy to steal my heart and continues to melt me from head to toe. He squeezes the hardest, and loves long. He is passionate about what he wants and is so willing to help others. Many times I have heard him trying to break up fights between others. He adores Logan and is such a silly boy with him. He loves his Momma and wants to be just like Daddy. This week he turned 3 years old. This will be a fun year of seeing his personality shoot out even more, growing taller, and becoming even more independent than he is. So blessed to have this little man in my life and as one of my sons.

We decided to have a Top Chef Birthday party

Played "Pin the wooden spoon on the Chef". Blind-folding a bunch of toddlers is hilarious!!

Plates all ready for the decorated cupcakes

Balloon city!!! 

Austin was in awe of the transformation of the house

Cupcakes ready to be played with and decorated by the mini-chefs

Chef-hat cupcakes for the adults...yum yum!!

The chef hats that were created....nice culinary academy huh?

Austin was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning with all the people and the cupcakes out in the open. At least Logan was smiling well!

Austin's masterpiece:-)

Gotta have some good grub for the adults!

Mini-wraps and fruit kabobs for the kiddos

"Happy Birthday to you....Happy Birthday dear Austin!!!"

What a fun day he had! After it was all done and everyone had gone home, I asked him what was his favorite  part of the party. He seriously looked at me with no hesitation and said "All my friends". Awwweee! What a sweet man...thanks so much for those who celebrated with us!!!

TV Wall remodel!

A little after the new year, Mike and I were discussing this TV wall. We were sitting on the couch, having good conversation and lightly talked about filling in this wall. Before I knew it, Mike was ripping out the fireplace and setting up his last free week for the year (yes the whole 2012 year) to remodel this wall. It was actually quite a smart move for us. The fireplace, that was electric, wasn't working right any more and to be honest the alcove wasn't that ascetically pleasing. In thoughts of one day selling the house, we thought that by mounting the TV it would give more people a choice with what TV size they wanted. 

So here we went! As you can see, he had already started ripping the fireplace out before I got our "before shot"

Here it is...all taken out!

We thought about putting in a recessed desk, but with the time frame we had to get it done, and having no where else to put a TV cable, filling it in was the way to go

A church friend of ours came over and helped much the second day. They framed it out and started getting the wires all sorted out.

Had to leave our mark. Who knows if some day someone might see that again!

Starting to fill it in. I believe that was the third night. You can see PVC piping to carry the wires from a TV stand up to the TV so they wouldn't show.

I helped mike cut out the dry wall. We were so excited to get it up, that after we drilled it in a few places we realized we left our flash light in there! Oh well we thought, but then saw there were some must needed tools in there too. Nice one hun!

All filled in! Now we had to pay someone to come mud it and texture it. We have a very strange textured wall and didn't feel comfortable doing it ourselves. 

All done and textured! Now to just paint it...

THERE IS THE FINISHED PRODUCT!! We are so stoked about it! It makes the room look so much bigger and more open! I started this huge paint job, not expecting mike to help, but he ended up taking charge and we finished it in 2 days. Poor kids were neglected some and Everett had enough of the exersaucer...but we got it done!!

Just a little side note...I made these "taco cupcakes" the other night by following a recipe HERE

They were SO easy and SO good to eat! Definitely make these more often!