Bye-bye shag-a-do

My little linebacker has been in dire need of a haircut for sometime now, but

1) we've waited soooo long for him to actually get hair I really didn't want to cut it all off

2) his little curls on the back of his neck are so precious and I know as soon as they're cut they're GONE, and

3) I highly dislike seeing my baby turn into a boy with just one haircut.
ugh.

B and I took Raegen for his first haircut at 10 months. I knew he wouldn't be able to join me this go round so I opted to take Lynden to a fun "children only" hair salon. I needed all the extra help I could get!! He loved playing with the toy train set all by himself...no big brother telling him where to put the trains, etc. haha

Of course that only lasted so long and he wanted to sit in the vintage airplane and "fly".

I was thankful the stylist let him sit there while we waited for our turn. There were only two stylists working and there was a steady stream of customers.

It took all of ten minutes to turn my baby into a big boy...

He is too precious.

Lynden Rucker - 12 months

Lynden Rucker,

you are now TWELVE months old!!

oh. my.

It's soooo hard to believe that just one year ago I was in labor and just moments away from meeting my precious baby boy!

You are such a joy to us and we love your HUGE grin.

You now weigh 24lb 10.2oz...

{you are mostly in 18month clothing}

are 29" long and have a head circumference of 47.75cm.

You took your first step a week ago Sunday in the church nursery {3/6}. Since then you have been standing alone more and more and have taken a couple more steps. I thought you might even be walking by today, but not quite. You will take someone's hand and walk around, but you're not brave enough to venture out on your own. Baby steps. ;)

We took you to MarketPlace tonight for your birthday dinner. You were in awe over the Chocolate Peanut Butter Mess they brought you for dessert...

Thankfully you were willing to share!!!

You are still nursing twice a day, when you wake and before bed. I enjoy that quiet time we have together.

You have a great routine of sleeping 7:30p.m. to 7:30a.m. most nights. It seems your teeth interrupt our slumber about once every seven nights. Most of the time I can easily soothe you back to bed, but sometimes we end up pulling an all-nighter! You take two naps during the day. They are usually 10a.m.-12p.m. and 3p.m.-5p.m. {with Raegen!}.

You will eat mostly anything and everything in sight, but your favorite food is certainly bananas!!

You ADORE your big brother, Raegen, and just light up when he enters the room.

Of course he has the charm to make nearly anyone smile. ;)

I know you will make a wonderful big brother too!!

Happy Birthday my baby boy!!

3-14-10, 11:46p.m.

Raegen Autrey - 4 year check up

Last week Raegen had his four year checkup. He missed a few hours of preschool that morning, but nothing a Sonic strawberry slush couldn't make up for!!

While we waited for his appointment, he and Lynden enjoyed playing with the magnetic table. My OCD self loved it...he got to play with boats and sand and everything was contained under plexiglass!!

When it came time for the important pictures, my camera battery was DEAD!! So I whipped out the ole iPhone...not the best quality, but it's better than nothing.

38lb, 75th percentile

39.2", 25th percentile {WOW!}

BP 88/50

Dr. C checking for birds...

Raegen wasn't due any vaccinations, but he will be attending public school and will need four vax before kindergarten. So I opted for two now and two later. I tried to prepare him for what was to come, but he really had no idea what I was talking about. I think he's always been too young to remember getting vax. He received the Pneumococcal {PCV13} and MMR vax. The poor kid screamed bloody murder. He still had his eyes tightly shut, mouth open, and vocal chords vibrating when the nurse stuck him with the second shot. {which I preferred, why put off the inevitable??}

So, like any good mommy I quickly reminded him of that special treat he was going to get because he was done with his four year checkup. He wanted strawberries {of course he did!}, but finally settled for a Sonic fresh strawberry slush!!

And off to school we went...he ready to tell his war story!!

My little king is FOUR!

My baby boy is FOUR years old! In an attempt {ahem} to keep things simple this year, I opted to

1) have the party at the church

2) steal my SIL's wonderful idea of serving sandwiches!!

The theme was "Toy Story" and I found a lot of great ideas for the party online. There are so many great ideas out there and I'm always amazed at the bloggers that are willing to share their amazing ideas!!

Here are a few:
Beth Kruse Custom Creations

Living Locurto

Crafty Workin Mommy

Oopsey Daisy

I found this invitation on Etsy and thought it was perfect. I ordered it through http://www.myfuninvite.com/

I made a few signs with my handy Cricut, including this one for the door. I used "green army men" attached to string to hold the sign up!

{I also took FULL advantage of all the Toy Story gifts I had bought Raegen and cut out the images from the cardboard box!!}

My "helpers" {my mom and dad!!! What would I do without them?} had some unexpected delays so we weren't able to setup as early as planned. Soooo....we were still getting things together as guests arrived!!

I have so many wonderful friends that jumped in and helped out...I am so blessed. Where I normally would have responded, "No, we're just about finished" I instead said, "Yes, HERE do this!!" hahahaha

And they did!!!

My table decorations were "green army men", Toy Story stickers found at the Dollar Tree, and my leftover cupcake toppers {it was a trial and error project and let's just say I had a lot of "error" that I turned into confetti!!}.

I chose to go with primary colors and made my birthday banner {my first!!! I've always wanted one of these since my friend Melissa made one for her son a few years ago} where I could simply change out the "age". It's really too much work to just throw it away!

I was so proud of my cupcake toppers. I found this tutorial online that got me started in the right direction.

I found my images online and then added my font {from http://www.dafont.com/ AWESOME website!!}. I chose to create my toppers in Picasa. It really doesn't matter if you make them round or leave them square because you will eventually cut them out with a paper punch. Once I created a square image, I then made a collage in Picasa that looked like this

After MANY trips to Hobby Lobby and an online purchase, I decided that I prefer the Fiskars Extra Large Squeeze 2" Scallop Punch {found mine on Ebay for under $10}, layered with the 1.5" lever circle punch. I just used some scrapbook paper I had and to my surprise it was double sided which cut my work in half! I punched all my paper out and then attached my center {picture} to one side. I just used some rubber cement I had on hand, but any adhesive would work. Once that dried, I glued a FLAT craft stick {purchased from Hobby Lobby} onto the backside AND attached my other center {making my cupcake toppers double sided!!}. I chose to use a flat craft stick because although I prefer the look of the white sucker stick, it just doesn't seem practical! ha I thought the flat, thin, craft stick would be easier and it did prove to be quite easy {though because this was my first attempt I have nothing to compare it to!!}. I was very pleased with the final result and the "mistakes" became confetti on the tables!!

I wasn't sure how many people would come, but I definitely wanted to have plenty of food. You can NEVER have too much food. You can have the best party in the world and if you run out of food, that's all anyone will ever remember!!!! hahaha Soooo, to ensure we had plenty of food, I ordered three meat and cheese trays and two condiment trays...and there was PLENTY of food!!

Let's just say we had sandwiches for a full week afterward and still didn't eat all the leftover lunch meat!! haha It was such an easy meal everyone seemed to enjoy it.

This is my brother's little girl, Izzy...if you're wondering what baby girl Stain might look like, here's a good idea!! :)

The week leading up to Raegen's party was VERY busy {OB appt, make new mommy meal, monthly portraits for Lynden, CLOSE on land for house!!, register Raegen for PreK, help out with Sr Saints meal at church, etc} so I chose to NOT make his cake. gasp. Yes, I did feel guilty about it, {and yes, I have had all the cake classes and do not really have an excuse}, but I really just wanted to ENJOY his party and not be completely frazzled and stressed about a cake! So, I had a lovely lady at church make his cake and cupcakes too. It was sooooo nice to not have to bother with it all and she does use her "cake making money" to finance her yearly mission trip to Ecuador, so it's kind of like I was giving to missions. Right? No? Kind of? haha

She did a fantabulous job!!

We used a few of Raegen's toys as decorations...

The kids LOVED the stars on the wires and a few were a bit anxious to get a bite!!! Cousin Ashlyn snuck to the front of the crowd and almost got away with a bite of her own. haha

Raegen was the cutest thing when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him...he sang along!!! It was precious.

I had a few games lined up for the kids, but since we weren't completely set up when everyone arrived, the kids just made up their own games!!

I thought this was too cute! I made a cowboy boot out of a cardboard box from one of Raegen's toys and it became Woody's "There's A Snake In My Boot!" game! Just toss the snake in the boot and you win! People are soooo creative!

Another great idea I stole was "Lasso Bullseye"...simply toss a hula hoop {or holly hoop as Raegen calls them} around the horse!

And a little something for the babies...

a blow up pool full of plastic balls.

{IDIOT me didn't think ahead and realize the bigger kids would use the balls to throw at each other!!! oops. So, I had them gather all the balls and I put them up. And the babies were safe once more!!}

Raegen had two friends from preschool, a couple of cousins, and the rest were all buddies from church {including a few from the church we used to attend}!!! We have such a great group of kids at church and Raegen is so blessed to have them all as friends.

I really should put up some video of him opening his gifts because his commentary was hilarious. He was sooooo excited and had something special to say about each gift.

I was THOROUGHLY impressed with this gift from Hayden's mom...it's a billfold!! She even put a zipper in and filled it with coins, dollar bills, and candy, of course! It has a basketball applique with Raegen's initial on the front.

I worked VERY hard to get his superhero cape finished in time for his party...

and thankfully he was impressed! {I need to get a good pic of him with it on!}

Raegen's birthday fell on a Sunday so I reserved one gift for his very special day...

his new birthday suit!!

I also got him this HUGE, highly embarassing, will come back to haunt him, "It's my birthday" button to wear. Because I'm a good mom like that. ;)

He got a happy birthday phone call on his birthday from Mimi and Grandaddy before we left for church that morning. It put him in the perfect birthday mood.

At church all those that have had a birthday in the past week get to stand up and let everyone sing to them, so that made him feel extra special too. After church we took him to the local play place for lunch and PLAY!!!

Daddy had some fun playing too!


Lynden enjoyed just showing off his crawling skills!

He earned 36 tickets and was able to purchase TWO pixie stix {5pts ea} and a tootsie roll {25pts! hot commodity!!}! ha

And of course to top it off his big buddies came by to wish him a happy FOURTH!!

My boy's birthdays are just THREE short weeks apart, so I'm still up to my neck in party decor trying my very best to get everything ready for Lynden's big ONE year bash!!