May Favorites: Birthdays, Bikes, Elections & a Chipped Tooth

May was a BUSY month for us.

There was so much going on at work for Kevin, at Olive's school, with friends and with everything else.  The month just flew by and we are officially on Summer Break!  Hooray!

But not everything was all sunshine and roses:
1. I chipped my front tooth this week and have an appt to get that fixed.
2. We had to spend a chunk of change to replace all of our gutters (BUT the new ones actually work and look fabulous!!)
3. Fletcher has had a skinned elbow, knees, palms or all of the above for weeks now.  He's just such a wild man that I think we may start putting him in pants to protect his legs or maybe bubble wrap :)

Let's get on to the highlights:

1. We have lived in our city for almost 4 years.  If you've been around here for a while, you know that we have moved a lot over the years and it feels good to be putting down roots in a place.  Well a major bonus of staying put for a while and making friends here is that I just got elected PRESIDENT of my local Mom's group!!!  It really was a HUGE honor to even be considered and so I'm thrilled to have this role for the coming year.  It'll involve planning, coordinating, managing and organizing things for our group.  You know I've got lists upon lists of fun ideas to execute and an amazing board of wonderful women to work with.  It's been a while since I've gotten to have an opportunity like this and I'm SO excited!

2. Memorial Day Weekend
We had a blast visiting family, celebrating Olive and enjoying some time outside for Memorial Day.  We decked out in red, white and blue and had a great weekend.  Summer feels official now and we are so thankful to live in the USA.

3. Backyard Fun.
Fields of violets.

We have this cute cherry tree that the kids have dubbed The Climbing Tree.  They love hanging out in it and I love that they're playing together nicely.

The kids love wearing their helmets.  They call themselves rock climbers and wear them all the time.  Safety first :)

4. Fletcher is a wild man.  He's climbing our built ins, climbing our play set, climbing out of shopping carts, etc.  I can't take my eyes off of him.

5. Bike Rides
We've been going on multiple bike rides a day.  Most have been accident free and fun so I'm calling it a win :)  I'm also debating adding a first aid kit to my bike basket - ha!

6. Olive's actual birthday.
We celebrate early with family and friends.  It was fun to have a calm, quiet day of celebrations with just the four of us at home. We sent in a treat with her to school and she loved having her birthday on a school day.

She requested sugar cookies for her birthday treat.

I packed all of her favorite foods - unicorn noodles and 6 of all her favorite foods for her 6th birthday  and then I wrapped her yumbox in her lunch box.

She opened gifts - some in the morning and some after school.  It was so fun to play with them!  Polly Pockets are the best!

She wished for a real life unicorn again this year :)

7. Flowers!
Our flowers are looking so pretty.  These begonias from Aldi are stunning!!  Our peonies looked amazing this year.  It made me want to plant some darker pink peonies for next yea.r  And I swapped out our regular sheets for these pretty floral sheets :)

8. Perfect T-shirt
The Time and Tru line at Walmart has done it again.  They have the perfect tshirt for $6.24 or less!!  They are the perfect v, have a good sized pocket, come in solids or stripes and are so flattering on.  I might have purchased 8 of them to update my sad t-shirt stash :)  My mom found another version of this shirt without a pocket on sale for $4.44 at her Walmart.

9. Front Door Family
Another bird family has decided that our front door is the perfect place for a nest.  We've really enjoyed watching the bird commotion and are excited to see them hatch.  

10. Last Day of School
Thursday was the last day of school for Olive.  She was sad to be done.  She's loved her teacher, her class and school has been so good for her.  She brought home a Summer Learning Packet and can't wait to get started on it.  We were apprehensive about this big change for Olive of starting full time school, but man, she's done awesome!!  She loved it even more than we could have imagined.  It's been such a blessing to see her grow and cheer her on.  Bring on first grade!

Fletcher and I celebrated the last day of our school year together with Chick-Fil-A Minis.  I was telling him that our days would be changing a bit and Olive would be home with us full time.  His response was HOORAY!!!  It's going to be a really fun summer :)

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!!

It's time to link up with my favorite blogging buddies for High Five for Friday.  Join us with a few different blog posts and be sure to look around to find some new blog friends

Becky @  By BMG Blog
Della @ Della Devoted
Tif @ Bright on a Budget
Whitney P @ Come Home for Comfort

This link party is powered by Link Party Animal

6 Things We Love About Olive

 Olive officially turns 6 today!!!

 Our 6 Favorite Things about OLIVE KATE:

1. She's so curious!  She loves to learn.  She's always thinking and asking questions.  She loves art, creating things and using her imagination. 

2. Olive knows what she wants and what she likes.  Her mind is rarely swayed by others.  She has LOVED kindergarten so much.

3. She always calls me her cutie - Fletcher

4. I love it that she's so brave.  She's always surprising us with her bravery and willingness to try new things like riding the school bus on the first day of school, trying tennis, doing the ropes course, trying new foods, etc. - Kevin

5. She likes to do things independently and is always asking for new responsibilities.

6. Olive is a girlie girl!  She has always loved dresses, jewelry and looks forward to picking out her earrings every day.

6 Year Old Birthday Interview:
1. What are your favorite things to do?
 I love math manipulatives, reading, homework and going to Dairy Queen.

2. Favorite foods?
Olives, peaches, cucumbers, popsicles, ice cream, sugar cookies, icing, bread sticks, lemonade, naked noodles, ketchup and mustard sandwich, goldfish and fun dips.

3. What are you really good at?
I'm really good at writing, art, climbing trees and playing tennis.

4. What's hard for you?
Learning how to write cursive, backwards letters instead of forwards letters and riding my bike without training wheels.

5. Who are your friends?
Wilson, Mattelyn, Mimi, Kendall, Claire, DH, Maddie & Emma.

6. What's something you like to learn how to do now that you're six?
Ride my bike without training wheels.  I also want to learn how to do the back stroke.

7. Favorite books?
Ramona Quimbey, Mercy Watson, Boxcar Children.

8. Favorite places to go on a trip?
 Newburgh, Florida, Chicago and Destin.

9. What are you favorite toys?
 Unicorn toys, Polly Pockets, Big Fingerlings, Hatchimals, Horses and Shopkins.

10. What do you want to be when you grow up?
An artist.  All kinds of art.


A little walk down memory lane...

 Olive: 5

Olive: 4

 Olive: 3

 Olive 2

 Olive: 1

 Newborn Olive:

 It's a JOY to be her parents.

Olive's Garden Party with Family

We had a great time celebrating Olive's birthday with our families.

We are lucky to live just 2 hours north of almost all of our family.  We've lived a lot farther away for a lot of years so we are always thankful we can just hop in the car and see everyone pretty quickly.

We loaded up the van on Friday and headed down to see our families.  We did a party with my family first and then Kevin's family the next night.  It's a lot of work for me to divide everything up, but this way we end up having smaller parties where we get more of a chance to visit with family.  It works and we are the only ones who have to travel.

Flower crowns for everyone!

I texted out invitations again and am snail mailing out thank you notes.  I made the invitations for free on the Canva app.  I texted or facebook messaged them out to everyone and it worked really well.

I picked up lots of the birthday party supplies at Dollar Tree.  They have a ton of garden/flower/butterfly themed items right now.  I love doing wrapping paper table runners.

We did birthday book for everyone to sign.  It's our 6th year doing that and I just love looking back at those hand prints in each book from year to year inside the cover of each book.

I found the cutest Wilton number sprinkles at Meijer.  I made Funfetti and chocolate cupcakes.

My sister surprised Olive with some macarons in party colors!  They were yummy and SO cute!  She's worked hard to learn how to make them.

We did a super simple meal - build your own sandwiches, fruits, veggies, cheese and crackers, and more.  I had an hour to set up the party so a quick meal was necessity.  It was also a necessity for my parents to help!  I always appreciate them hosting for me.

This pasta salad was so yummy!  Check back for the recipe next week.

Hawaiian Rolls and a meat and cheese platter.  These are pricey to buy preassembled so definitely build your own to save money.

We had fun with friends and family :)

Olive sure loves this cute cousin crew :)  They're all getting so big and hopped right in line after Kevin prayed.

They have even decided that a big kid table is a must :)  I don't think we had a single drink spill in here.  They're growing up!!

These are the youngest cousins - Harper and Fletcher.  They could pass for twins even though Harper is a year older than Fletcher.  They were so cute together.

Games:
How many Fruit Loops can you get on a shish kabob stick using only one hand in one minute?  The kids had a great time with this.  The record was 18 :)

We played Hot Potato and the girls made flower crowns. 

Tons of fun!

Uncle Ty & Fletcher.

Polly Pockets got this kind of reaction!!

Shopkins, Beanie Boos, Polly Pockets and swim stuff made Olive one happy girl!

Help blowing out her candle and wishing for a pet unicorn again this year.

I picked peonies from our yard to bring with us.  They smelled amazing!!

The same set up for a birthday party with Kevin's family.  Everyone loved the garden theme.

Two Great Grandpas with Two Great Kids.  They got an introduction into the world of Polly Pockets and Fletcher took their canes for a spin :)

It was a beautiful night to celebrate!!
Another reason why we are always the ones to travel... we want to celebrate with as much family as possible.

We played outside and Olive got to play tennis.  She was thrilled.

We came home and added a couple new things to our fairy garden.

I love planning all the details of birthday parties for my crew!