The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

2nd Birthday Party!

We had a big weekend around here and we’ve got a big week coming up!  First, today is Maxwell’s first day of school!  Let’s hope he does great in his new older toddlers room with his new teacher!  Second, Maxwell’s 2nd birthday is on Thursday so lots of fun birthday posts to come this week!  Third, we celebrated Maxwell’s birthday on Sunday with a family party centered around – what else – yellow construction trucks!!

Here’s the invite I emailed to family…

dump truck party invitation

And here’s my sweet birthday boy ready for his party!!  Boo-boos on his chin, knee and shin and all!  My rough and tumble little 2 year old!  🙂

I got his shirt off of Etsy and it came in about two weeks ago and Maxwell has been SO excited to wear it!  Every day he would want to peek into his closet at his truck shirt…but he knew it was off-limits until his party!  He couldn’t wait to put it on that morning!!

Like last year, I had to make things festive and I like a good theme to center the decorations – some yellow construction hats, orange cones and plenty of balloons of course!

dump truck decorations

I even got some special eating utensils for Maxwell…

So cute, right?!  I think he might be eating every meal with those for a while!  I did forget to hang the awesome “Happy Birthday” banner though!  darn!  remind me to hang it next year, ok?

We gave Maxwell this truck that morning and it barely left his hands all day…

and the proof is in plenty of the pictures!

The only thing that took him away from his truck were the balloons of course!

He was a happy little boy!

We loved having most of our family over but definitely missed Mary Beth, Holland, Keath, Jen, Delaney and Nate!

Before lunch, we had one more surprise for Maxwell…

A bounce house!  Those 3 cousins bounced and bounced and bounced in that hot sun…

until they were red-cheeked and ready to eat!

When it came time for lunch, fortunately everyone got into the hat wearing spirit!  What can I say?  I definitely think hats make a party more fun!  🙂

But the Birthday Boy looked cutest of all in his hat, of course!

I think that’s enough for today.  Party coverage continues tomorrow!  Until then, I leave you with this awesome family photo that we captured…

ha!  Hey, it was his party – he could do what he wanted!!  🙂  See you tomorrow!

Birthday celebrations!

This past Saturday we drove down to Montgomery for the day to celebrate both LuLu and Graddad’s birthdays!  I think it was a surprise to LuLu that we all showed up at her house…but luckily we came bearing food so she didn’t have to do anything except play with the grandkids.

We all enjoyed a wonderful lunch…and the kiddos had a ball at the “kid table”.

We then celebrated the birthday boy and girl with a key lime pie…

and then LuLu got to open her gifts…with plenty of helpers!

Granddad had a little help too!  🙂

Maxwell LOVED getting to play with Katie and Anna all afternoon….

and I loved getting to catch up with these lovely ladies!

After pie was eaten and presents were open, the kiddos hit the pool!  Robert was a trooper and volunteered to get in with Maxwell. Of course, considering how HOT and HUMID it was, I don’t think he was sacrificing too much!  Maxwell loved swimming as always and even starting jumping off the side of the pool into Robert’s arms!  exciting!

We also got to see Mary Beth’s dogs, River and Zelda, that she brought over.  If you know me at all, you know I am not a dog person…to put it lightly.  and to be around dogs this big…well…poor MB was having to run interference to keep them away from me all afternoon!  Maxwell wasn’t too keen on getting close to them either.  He just kept saying “no puppies!”.  I can’t blame him though because I think Zelda and River might still be taller than him at this point.  They are super sweet pups though, just too big for me!

By the end of the afternoon, Robert was hot-doggin’ off the diving board.  It was pretty impressive!  wish I had gotten a picture of the flips he was doing…Maxwell had to get his olympic swimming expertise from somewhere, right?

It was a fun day all around!

Happy birthday LuLu and Granddad!  We’re so glad we got to celebrate with you and love you very much!

Family photos

Hi everyone!  Hope you had a good weekend.  Ours was great and involved celebrating family birthdays as well as seeing some old friends.  Pictures to come this week!  Today I have some new family photos to share with you all.  I had Lauren of Piper Photography come out about a month ago to snap some photos for a little project I’m helping a friend with and just had to get her to take some family photos while she was here.  These are my favorites…

Maxwell’s serious face…

and Maxwell’s silly “cheese!” face…

I love this one but want to reach into the picture and pull his shorts down in the middle SO bad!

This is a good one…

and this one was the real winner I thought.  and it’s now on the sidebar of the blog…did you notice that on Friday?!  🙂

We then took lots inside.  These are two of my favorites…

Maxwell makes me laugh in that last one!  She also took a lot of really neat pictures of the inside of the house which I will happily share with you once my friend’s project is up and running!

If you live in Birmingham and want a good photographer, definitely check out Piper Photography!  You can see some of the other photos she’s done for us here, here and here.  I love Lauren!

Happy Monday all!

 

Weekend recap

Hi all!  Hope you had a good weekend.  Our was mostly good…minus a few crying episodes and one big boo-boo!

The weekend started off right on Friday when I had this for lunch…

Yum.  Made with tomatoes and basil from our backyard, it was delicious.  Inspired by this post from a great blog. (one of my faves).

Saturday morning brought bagels…or tiggles as Maxwell kept saying!  Whatever he wanted to call them was fine by me because he was one happy camper!

We actually had Robert’s sister and brother-in-law staying with us for the weekend because they had a wedding to go to in Birmingham.  Robert’s parents were also planning to come over Saturday afternoon before the wedding to see Maxwell for a bit.  We were hoping that Maxwell would get a great nap in and be well rested to see Lou Lou and Granddad.  Yea, he had other plans and decided not to sleep and to throw a fit for about 2 hours instead.  Holland was at the house for all of that and I definitely think we convinced him that he doesn’t need kids anytime soon!  We finally got Maxwell up after a whopping 30 minute nap and hoped for the best!

Luckily he did great all afternoon and got some quality time in with Lou Lou and Granddad.

We were ready to put him to bed early that night and went through the normal nighttime routine which involves Maxwell turning off his lamp.  I have no idea why, but right after he turned it off, his little hand went straight for the lightbulb.  Robert and I pulled it off within half a second but the damage was done.  That bulb was hot and his poor little hand was burned.  We spent the next hour and half getting him calmed down and keeping ice on his hand.  A long afternoon followed by a long night!

When he woke up the next morning, his hand was definitely worse than I thought it was going to be.  Look at these terrible blisters!

He’s been such a trooper about it and hasn’t mentioned his boo-boo too many times.  Hopefully it will heal up fast!  and, yes, I’m getting a new lamp for his room asap.

Sunday Maxwell got to (literally) hang out some more with Mary Beth and Holland…

and play with some Play-doh.

We then even got to see GJ and Daddo as they stopped by for a quick visit on their way to AR!!

We love visitors!!

It was a fun family-filled weekend with just a few rough patches.  Hope you all had a good weekend!

 

 

More vacay

Continuing on with the boring family vacation iphone photos…

Friday morning I went with Robert to play golf.  He played while I mastered my cart driving skills and played Words on my iphone.  I hadn’t planned on going with him so didn’t pack a collared shirt that fit…not that I even have one…so I wore one of Robert’s Lacoste shirts that had ample room for my growing belly.  Oh yea, stylin’…

It was a great morning with enough breeze to not make things miserably hot…at least for the cart driver!  I’m glad Robert got the chance to play!

That afternoon brought another bike ride.  Happiness all around!

The next morning while Robert went to the doc in the box to get some medicine for his sinus infection, my mom and I pulled out this awesome battery powered mini Ferrari that she and my dad bought in the last year.  I wasn’t sure if Maxwell was really big enough to actually drive it but…drive it he did!  He would push his little foot down on that accelerator and GO!  He wasn’t the best steerer and we had to come to his rescue more than a few times but, if we could just keep the wheel turned he would make one giant circle…just like going around a racetrack!

Maxwell Andretti!  with his VERY serious race face on!

Two thumbs up!

We got a big laugh out it all and he thought it was pretty awesome!

Later that morning we set up the bouncy house…inside!  SO much nicer than having to be outside in the heat and humidity!  Maxwell obviously LOVED every second of it and bounced bounced bounced.

Robert and I even got in on a little of the fun!

After nap, it was raining so we went for a little treat.  Maxwell had to taste my mint chocolate chip…

and Robert’s cookie dough…

before ultimately deciding that he did indeed like the cookies and cream I had gotten for him.  Yummy and messy!

Sunday morning brought more swimming, biking and bouncing and by the time we were all packed up and ready to head to the airport, Maxwell looked like this…

He did ok on the flight home.  We’re definitely better morning travelers than afternoon travelers.  Missing that nap is just killer on him.  But, we made it home and were so glad that we got to have SUCH a fun visit with GJ and Daddo!  Wish we could do it every week!!

and just to end on a laugh…here’s one more of us in the awesome hats I mentioned yesterday!  🙂

ha!  See you tomorrow!