Happy 8th Birthday to my SON!♥!

Its hard to believe that 8 years ago today, I was in labor with my first son!
Gavin Connor was born at 4:13 pm, weighing 9 lbs. 0 oz and was 19 3/4 in. long!
I had about a 12 hour labor with him and was almost 2 weeks past due! YIKES!
That lil bun sure loved his momma's oven and did not want to come out!!
The pic above was of Gavin at 1 1/2 months!


This chubby cheeked big eyed baby boy was almost 3 months in this pic below!
It IS SO amazing how much they change!!

Here is my baby boy at almost a year and a half; enjoying some cake maybe?
He was a good boy and wore his bib; unlike his lil brother!! LOL

Here is Mr. Smiles at age 2! This was his signature smile: a big cheese with his front teeth sticking out and his eyed almost squinted closed! He did this smile for another 2 years in photos!

Here is Gavin at Christmas time when he was 2 1/2!
So cute; I just love that giant gingerbread cookie prop!

Gavin is 3 in this pic and is lounging in the hotel waiting area on one of our trips!
This lion, who he calls LION has been his PAL since he was 1 year old!
Gavin still sleeps with it today:)

Here is my Lil' Slugger during his first summer of t-ball at age 4!
He spent more time playing in the dirt than trying to learn the game!!

Here is Gavin at 6 years old with Papa and Gage!
He is such a loving boy (when he wants to be!)

Here is big bro at 6 1/2! He really loved to play with his baby brother!
Now that Gage is bigger, Gavin views him as a nuisance!
Poor Gage! All he wants to do is BE JUST LIKE his big brother!

Here is my handsome boy last summer when he got his 7 year pics taken!
I kept telling him to do his "stud muffin" pose and this is what he did!

I am very proud of this lil guy!
He is so smart and funny!
He gets my dorky jokes now and cracks me up too!
He is a great friend to others and is a kind soul!
I am VERY PROUD to be his momma!

Happy Birthday Son; I LOVE YOU!!!

~Noelle~
a.k.a. MOMMY ♥

READY 2 GO!

Hi girls! What a week it has been!!
Tomorrow we leave for our road trip to Ohio, to meet my blog friend Stacy and her 2 boys!
We are so excited!! Going to the Toledo Zoo tomorrow:)
My BFF is going along with me for moral support, lol!
WE are staying 2 nights and returning home on Saturday!

Sunday is Gavin's Pokemon themed 8th birthday party at our local water park/pool that we love! BUSY!
It will be a lot of fun though- 3 of his friends from school are coming and they are all GIRLS!
We invited 2 other boys and they aren't coming; so does that make my Gavin a ladies man?

UPDATES ON ME...

(1) Since the 4th I feel that I am doing a terrible job on my eating habits!
Sneaking sweets which I am NOT supposed to HAVE, on a daily basis!
I have NOT lost anymore weight because of this! I am so MAD at myself!
I started taking Metformin which is supposed to help control my insulin, and if I eat right while taking it, it will help me to lose more weight too! I DO get a tummy ache from taking it which makes me miserable:(

(2) Guess what? I GOT A JOB! A friend of mine referred me to a gal she knows who has a home
daycare and was looking for some part time help and well, she loved me and hired me!
The gal that is my BOSS now is my age with an almost 2 year old boy; she is SO much like me too so we have totally hit it off! I will work 2, maybe 3 days a week for 3-4 hours a day, and can take the boys with me if I need to.

(3) Remember how I hate Math? Well, this semester didn't start out well! I got an F on the first exam because I was so drained and didn't study well. Wellllll... I got an A on my last quiz, 2 A's on my homework assignments and a B on this weeks exam- yahooooo!
Our final is this coming Wednesday, so please say a little prayer that I DO well!!

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Sign ups for my SWEETS of SUMMER swap are now CLOSED! I only had 3 other gals sign up:( BUT... we will have a great time finding and creating fun/sweet things for one another!

I am almost to my 300th post! You know what that means? GIVE-AWAY time soon!
I am still looking for some "beachy" goodness to give away and have something I want to make for it too; so I probably won't announce the give-away till the week of July 27th!! Stay tuned!

I have set up a Happy 8th Birthday to my SON post for tomorrow!
I won't be back to visit you all till probably Sunday night!
I think I will skip Scrapbook Sunday this week too; but feature some of my tools that I use when I scrap, next Sunday July 26th instead!

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Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week and weekend!!

Hugs,
Noelle ♥

Swap Sign-Ups Still OPEN!!

You can still sign up for my Sweets of Summer Swap! I am taking names till midnight tomorrow! I have just a handful of sweet gals that signed up and we'd sure love a few more to join us! Please?!?!

Details are below:


Hi my SWEETS! Its summer and I LOVE ice cream!
I want to host a quick, mini swap themed: SWEETS OF SUMMER!
Think ice cream cones, popsicles, sundaes... all those FUN SWEET things that we love to enjoy in the summer! BUT... we aren't sending SWEET COLD TREATS cause of course they'd melt!

Your items can be anything decorative that is a sweet treat, something to make sweet treats at home, SWEET treat designed cards or scrapbook items, something handmade, etc. ANYTHING you can find that would pertain to the sweet treats of summer... use your imagination!

I SAY its a "MINI" swap in that: lets find 5 items for your partner, spend $15-$20! GET CREATIVE and stretch those dollars! FIND fun and useful summer sweets for your partner!

Email me your info:

Name:
Address:
Your email:
Your blog link:
FAVE summer sweets:
Fave colors:
Would you like an international partner?

(My email is: way2tiredmom78@hotmail.com)

SNAG MY CUTE BUTTON and share it on your BLOG so we can get more SWEET girls to join in!!

Also, leave me a comment on this post if you'd like to join in, THEN email me with your info. Please put SWEETS of SUMMER SWAP in the subject line!!

I will take sign ups till next Wednesday, July 15th!! Assign partners on the 16th; then you have till July 29th to mail your swap out!!

What we've been up to!

Hi girls! Hope you had an AWESOME weekend! I must say, that this weekend was our BEST one in a long time!! The kids were pretty happy, had fun and SLEPT GOOD! Today's post has lots of pics but I narrowed them WAAAY down! I took the boys to our county fair last week while Brian was working. I know the photo above doesn't depict them having fun but THEY WERE! I really wanted a cute shot of them together standing so you could see how tall Gage is for 2! Speaking of age, my oldest Gavin will be 8 on Thursday! Where has that time gone?
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Now this pic shows Gavin having a BLAST on the motorcycle ride, poor Gage was scared! He kept looking at my each time it went around and was saying, "Mooooom, mommy!"

Gage did love the jeeps though! There were a couple of these kiddie rides that Gavin was too tall for and couldn't ride! That ticked him off and he said, "I HATE being 7!" Yup, thats my son, "Mr. Positive Attitude!" (Have NO idea where he might get that from??!!?? LOL)

Lil' Bub (aka... Gage) loved these swings that went around! I was a nervous wreck that he would try to climb out when it was spinning around but he didn't!! Whew!

Gavin tested his strength and won a cammo hammer! Yay! Just what we needed!

Gage was enjoying some elephant ear! The 3 of us shared one; YES, I did eat 1/3 of it! I am NOT giving up my annual summer elephant ear... by no means!!

He said he wasn't scared on this airplane ride, but I think he was fibbing!
What do you think?

They got a kick out of these old fashioned Ford cars! The CARNIE wasn't watching and another child CRASHED into mine at the end of the ride!! The guy was supposed to pay attention and stop the cars... kinda got on my nerves!

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Oh yeah! Water slide time! Brian bought this monstrosity for us a couple years ago! Its 13 ft. tall and you climb up it to go down the slide! It is FUN!!!

This was Gage's 1st time sliding on it; last year he was still too little!
He loved it ♥

Don't you love his facial expressions?!?

He's so cute! Note: All 3 of my guys were wearing their Hawaiian swim shorts which Brian thinks is SO LAME to match! They didn't match, they coordinated! lol:)

Woo-HOO! FUN!

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Prior to Brian buying the HUGE water slide, he got Gavin this smaller one... which is MUCH easier for me to pull out of the garage, inflate and fill with water! The boys played with this one for 4 hours on Saturday!

This is an AWESOME action shot of Gavin jumping in the air!! Too bad I didn't get all of his head in the shot!!

I love taking pics of them playing in the water!

Gage had so much fun too!
He was shivering come 7:45 but still didn't want to get out of the water; that boy plays hard!!

Check the waves!!! SWEET!

Well, hope you liked a sneek peek into our weekend!
What did you do that was fun?

Noelle ♥

Scrapbook Sunday: Oh, Baby!

Hi! Welcome to Scrapbook Sunday!
I have been going through lil' Gage's baby album this week, in awe of how much he has grown in 2 years and gosh, it makes me so sad how fast time goes!

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This layout is a fave bath time one of mine! He was such a pudgy lil one in that tub!
We would always tell him to make "splishy splash" in the tub, so I used that as my title.
I also used my Bubble Maker (punch) to make the bubble effect on some of the photos!
Bath time is usually at night so I used the moon and stars paper for the background

So CUTE!!! Close up of the bubbles!

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I love his facial expressions in this layout!
I picked up on the colors of his pj's when choosing the color palette for my page. I used my Custom Cutting System to cut the pics into the various shapes: circle, diamond and a heart.
For the border, I cut a wavy strip with my Decorative Trimmer then punches from my Heart Maker and added letter stickers to spell: PRECIOUS!

Thanks for stopping by today:)

I think for next weeks SS post I am going to show off some of the tools I use and the famous shape makers; what do you think?

Noelle ♥

Summer SWEETs- YUMMY!

TGIF girls! My cutie pie Gage and I want to know...
what is your favorite COOL Summer Treat?

In this pic, Gage was enjoying a Bomber last summer! My gosh, how he has changed!

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Do you like traditional ice cream cones, maybe with some sprinkles?

Or Gage's fave... Bomber popsicles?

Do you eat your ice cream plain, but in a super cute bowl like this?

Or are you a hot fudge sundae with whip cream and a cherry on the top type-of-girl?

Or do ice cream sandwiches suit your fancy?

How about some plain vanilla with a couple wafer cookies tucked inside?

Or a fruity popsicle?

These would be perfect for kids... SLOW MELT, LONG LASTING popsicle!!
Where do you find these?
I need them for my kids!!!

Ahhhh, the joys of summer!

If you haven't signed up for my SWEETS OF SUMMER SWAP; just click on the top button on the right column to get entered!! You can find more details there! Sign ups end on next Wed. July 15th; the day before my Gavin turns 8 years old!!!!

Have a great day!
Noelle ♥

Giveaway GOODNESS and more...

Hey girls! I have to share this with you!! Adorable Kristen from Kristen's Palace is having a give-away in honor of her 100th post and guess what it is?? A Vera Bradley Limited Edition handbag!!!!! HOLY-MOLY, I want one of these so bad and they are so hard to find around here!!
Click HERE to visit her blog to enter and tell her I sent ya!!

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Some bad news... my old car the 99 Dodge Neon took its final dump yesterday:( The engine locked up as Brian was getting off of the bypass and he was able to coast to a parking lot. Thank God, it didn't burst into flames or anything!! So NOW we have to get another vehicle in like a WEEK!! Oh, money!! Why don't you hurry up and grow on our tree??

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Have a good night! I'll be back tomorrow to post some pics from our county fair that I took the boys to tonite; they had a blast!! And, I got to eat some of an elephant ear!! YUMMY!!
KYLIE, I thought of you the whole time as I ate it!! LOL

Hugs,
Noelle ♥