Sawyer is ONE!

So my little fella has finally made it to his 1st birthday. I think there have been many days in the past year where I thought none of us would make it! He has definitely kept us on our toes! What a joy he has brought to our family. He has created a whole new dynamic in this house and I wouldn't trade that little guy for nothin! He made our family complete and I thank God for him.
I went in his room first thing in the morning and took his picture right away. You can't tell but all of his lights are out and it's pitch black in this picture. The flash took care of that though.

We hung out together for a little while before Sadie got up. I just wanted to get a few pics of him on his birthday. Of course, he wouldn't let go of "Monkey" long enough for me to get a good shot.


We had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings with my dad, sis, and Emma. Can you get any cuter than this???? I don't think so!!!!!



Afterwards, we came back here and Sawyer opened what few presents we bought for him. Well, Sadie actually opened them, as you can see...





This is a picture of Sawyer pulling on Dennis' leg, wanting him to hurry up and get one of his trucks open!

We tried to do the "cake" thing again, but he still didn't want anything to do with it. Oh well...I tried to get one good picture, but it just didn't happen this year.


I love my little buddy more than life!!!! Happy Birthday Saweeeeeeee!

Last Week of July 2009

Well, this is our last crazy week for a while, I hope! Tuesday started out with my 8 year anniversary!!! It's gone by so fast! I have been happily married to the love of my life for 8 years now and only hope that our next 80 will be just as happy! He is so good to me and I thank God for giving him to me every single day. I am blessed! I took the kids to Toys R Us today to finish up some shopping for Sawyer's birthday. My mom met me there because she had to get a few things as well. Tuesday night, we took the kids to David and Barbara's house and they kept our kids as well as McHaney so that we could go and have dinner with Daren and Rachel to celebrate all of our July birthdays. We went to Bonefish Grill in Cool Springs and it was just as delicious as last time. I crave that Bang Bang Shrimp and Calamari. I think I'm going to dream about it! We had a great time hanging out with them. We never, ever get to do that, because we're always with more family or we always have the kids, so it was so nice to be able to have a couple of hours to just sit, talk, enjoy one another and hang out. We picked the kids up and got home very late. The kids were DONE by the time we got home. Whew! Wednesday, I went to 1st Baptist to take the last of the birthday stuff to the lady that is helping with his party. My mom met me up there because I thought it was going to take a lot longer than it did. I took the kids to the play area for a little while after that and let them play. Sawyer was loving it! I'm so excited to see how he'll be at his party on Friday night!! Thursday, I got to go and get my hair done. Thanks mommy for keeping the kiddos for me!!! It was a nice break. I came home and did some things for Sawyer's party. Thursday night, me and the kids met Dennis at Red Robin for dinner and then went to Walmart to get the drinks and stuff for the party. It never ends!!! Friday was a busy day. We got up and went and bought some cupcakes from Gigi's. Sadie loves doing that. She feels like such a big girl getting to order her own cupcake. I got the princess pink one for her and I got a strawberry shortcake one for my friend Shelly for her birthday. Then, we went to the gym, and then we went and met the sweet girl who did Sawyer's birthday cake. It looked incredible! I was so excited!!! I sent her a picture of his napkin and she matched his cake to that and his little smasher cake is a 3-D haystack, complete with an edible pitchfork coming out of the top. Sooooooooooo precious!!! I was so impressed with her talent!
We've always used Mandy LeMay for all of our cake needs, but Mandy was "off" during July this year, so we had to find someone else to do Sawyer's cake. It's the same girl that did my sister's wedding cake and it was delicious! Friday afternoon was spent getting ready for the party. My dad came over and Dennis came home a little early and we all headed over to 1st Baptist to set everything up and get ready for everyone to arrive. We had so much fun! The party was a success! Sawyer did great for a while, then he got overwhelmed, hot, and tired and was pretty much DONE! It kinda made me sad, but he was a trooper for the most part. Once everyone was gone and he got to just crawl around the halls of the church and play with his new John Deere riding toy, he was in heaven! Most of the pictures have been posted on Facebook, but here are a few of my favorites!





All in all, I thought it was a great 1st birthday party. I know Sawyer won't remember a thing, but he had lots of friends and family there that love him to pieces! We tried to get a group picture of all of the kids at the party, but we are missing a few in the picture. Oh well...
Saturday morning, all of the new toys were out and Sadie thought it was Christmas. It was pretty funny. We hung out all day long. My mom came over to keep Sawyer for the night. For Dennis' birthday this year, I planned a surprise night out for him. It was the first night that we have had to get away overnight together since the kids were born! It was needed...badly! I planned for us to go eat at Stoney River in Cool Springs, stay in the "Embassador Suite" at Embassy Suites, and then have breakfast at the Loveless Cafe. We were soooooooo excited! So, my mom came here to keep Sawyer so that he could be in his own bed, etc. That made me feel so much better because I knew he would sleep good. She said he was perfect. We took Sadie to spend the night at David and Barbara's for the first time. She was so excited and the said she did great as well! Success for all!!! Dennis and I went to the hotel, checked in, and hung out for a bit. We got ready for dinner and took a few pictures. We had dinner at Stoney River and it was delicious. It's one of our favorite places. Here's a cute picture of the birthday boy! Here's a picture of me texting my mom during dinner to see if Sawyer had gone to sleep okay.

Here's a picture of the Village People, I mean a group of guys that sat right next to us. I only wish this picture could've captured what was really going on. Dinner was great and we had the triple layer chocolate ganache cake with shots of milk for dessert. Be still my heart... We rode the shuttle back to the hotel with a large group of soldiers from Fort Campbell who were sent to Franklin for a night out. What a way to be humbled. They were super nice. Dennis thanked them several times for their service. We had to finish off the cake before we went to sleep!! We got up Sunday morning and headed to the Loveless Cafe for breakfast. Dennis was more excited about this than anything I think. We only had to wait about 20 minutes and it was well worth it. Look at the spread of food we had!
The waitress who brought our food out couldn't believe Dennis was going to eat all of that food. She came back by a few times to see if he had eaten it all and was quite impressed! She did not understand where he was going to put it all. It was hilarious. We took our last few minutes alone after breakfast and rode around Brentwood/Franklin and looked at some of the most beautiful houses. It was nice to just be alone in the car, listening to our bluegrass Christian CD, talking, enjoying each other in the peace and quiet. We take it for granted! We went and picked Sadie up and headed home. What a night! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to my mom and to Dennis' dad and Barbara for allowing us to have that night together. I feel very rejuvinated and we made some great memories. Dennis and I needed that time alone more than anything!!!! We had so much fun! God answered our prayers and blessed us with the most perfect night together. Sunday afternoon, we got the kids up after 3 and a half hour naps and we went for a ride on the 4-wheeler. Fun times! Monday was Dennis' birthday!!!! Happy Birthday my love! I hated to send him off to work on his birthday, but that's just life, I guess. We had a great weekend, so I hope it made up for the fact that he had to spend his whole birthday at work. Every Monday, Sadie talks about how much she misses Dennis. She's used to him being here on the weekends, so she always expects him to be here on Monday mornings when she wakes up. So, I was trying to get her to say "Happy Bday" on video today so that I could send it to Dennis at work, but she just kept getting a sad face and saying "I miss daddy". It was breaking my heart, but kind of funny at the same time!

For his birthday dinner, we went to his mom's house. LJ fixed him a TON of crawfish and from what I could tell, it was delicious. I won't touch the stuff. It looks like bugs to me!




One of their donkeys had a baby right after dinner, and I got to watch it on the video monitor. It was pretty cool! I've never seen anything like that before!!!
That about wraps up our month of July. One word? Craziness! But, so much fun! Lots of memories were made as usual.
Sawyer's 1st birthday is Thursday, so I'm sure I'll post something then.
Thanks for hanging with me during this busy month!!