Riding Saddleback - Ellie's First Show

I mine as well start off by letting you all know this will be a week of Ellie posts. Ha. Saturday was her 7th birthday and we celebrated big. We started off the day by Ellie being in her very first horse show! She was so excited and if she was nervous she didn't show it although I am sure she was. She was put into 2 classes. Both were leadline since this was her first time showing and the horses are extra spunky with all the attention. She was sure to have a great big smile on her face for the whole ride. The first time through all the participants got a blue ribbon for being so brave. The second class was an actual competition and she got second!!! Her number was called and my dyslexic self didn't realize it was her till about a minute into it. Once they found her name... Ellie Coldiron... I was cheering my heart out. At the end she was even sweet enough to share a ribbon with brother.

 *Tomorrow I am posting the party. It was an ice cream social and according to Ellie it was the best day ever!!! Hope to see you then.

Birmingham Magazine {we made the cover}

I can't even express how excited I was when I found Birmingham Magazine wanted to so a little feature on me in their May issue. Well, that little feature ended up being a two page spread. What?!?!? The issue is based on parenting and they had a section dedicated to mommy bloggers like me. Working with Jason Wallis and Celine Russell was quite a treat. Both of them were fabulous with Ellie and KJ. KJ was a little worried though when Mr. Jason asked him to shoot his camera with the nerf gun. I assured him that if Mr. Jason said it was okay then he would not be in trouble. Ha. Celine was kind enough to fix Ellie's hair ever so sweetly after doing the most fabulous makeup job on me. Lo and behold while checking my twitter feed on May 1st I was quite surprised to hear that I was on the cover via Magic City Mama another Birmingham blogger. I was able to get a gander of it online, but not until this weekend did I get to see it on news stands. So needless to say we went to ridiculous heights to document the moment and thought you all may get a kick out of our dorkiselves...

You can read the article if you like... here.

Turning Five {a party}

I have never seen one so excited about a birthday party. As he put it "This party will be incredible." Of course, this made my heart swell and all the extra hugs and kisses I got made this a great day for me too. This was by far the smallest party I have thrown for the kiddos. He made the list and it was a mere 20 people. His current fascination with legos made the theme easy to choose. It was all about bright colors and using your imagination. We had a craft table and a lego building area. Although the 60 something balloons was all I really needed to keep all the little ones entertained for hours. The decor was simple, the food was simple, and KJ could not have had any more fun.