Happy 4th Birthday Tanner!!!

Tanner's requests for his birthday were:

• a blue cake with black frosting
• a party with ALL boys (he doesn't have a ton of friends that are boys though, so I finally convinced him to invite his closest friends)
• black everything...his favorite color = )
• french fries and pizza for lunch

So to prevent an "Over the Hill" party theme, I added Spiderman to it. He loved it all. He could barely sleep for the 5 nights preceding his birthday. Each morning he would wake up earlier and earlier (today was 5:15am) and say, "_____ days 'til my birthday". We had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast with chocolate soymilk for breakfast, french fries, pizza and rootbeer for lunch and cake, cake and more cake. Since it was a dairy-free cake and it was his birthday, I let him eat as much as he wanted. Usually at parties he can only have a little bite/piece because he's allergic, so we went all out today since it was his day.

This afternoon, he got $20 in the mail from one of Shad's clients and he had a bunch of money saved from Grandma's, Great-grandmas, etc, from Christmas and his birthday, so we went to Toys 'R Us to spend it. He wanted the $259 Lightening McQueen car that he could drive himself. I explained that he didn't have enough money and that we'd have to call Dad. Shad told him that we'd have to talk about it tonight and make a deal (with jobs/chores) to come up with the other money. So Shad had a great idea to tell him that if he wore underwear for 5 days, then we'd make up the difference and get him the car. He was concerned with this deal...he definitely thought chores were a better idea, but he gave in and wanted to wear underwear within an hour. He didn't have any accidents and went on the potty all by himself already. We'll see.....

I am completely and utterly exhausted. Each year I gain a new appreciation for my own Mother. My Mom would do Christmas for all of us 6 kids and then 2 weeks later, Megan and I would have birthdays within 2 days of each other. Now that my kids have their birthdays 4 days apart just 2 weeks after the holidays, I understand a tiny bit of what that must have been like for my Mom. I love you Mom.

Tanner was really sweet all day long. He must have told me thank-you 10 times. Out of the blue he'd say, "Thanks Mom for doing all of this stuff for my party." He's so sweet.

Thank you to all of my friends who helped at the party....Rachelle for letting us use your bounce house, Lillie for taking the pictures, Shannon for cleaning up everything and Melissa for coming with your nursing baby in-tow. Love you all.























This is for Danielle and Patty. Danielle made me these super-cute matching aprons for Christmas. Didn't she do a great job. We love them...thank you.


This was Shad's gift to me for my birthday that I love. They are the initials of Kate, Tanner and Shad. I absolutely couldn't ask for a better gift. I've worn it everyday since I got it.