Surprise! Happy 60th Grandpa!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Bishop! Who would have ever guessed you're 60?!

Mama Bishop was pretty sneaky when she planned a weekend away with the whole family to surprise Grandpa for his 60th birthday. All of us kids and all of the grand kids were together to help celebrate this milestone. We all met in Iowa City and surprised Grandpa!

First on the agenda was a trip to the Children's Museum in Coralville. The kiddos loved it! Watching all of the cousins play together made my heart happy. They are too stinkin' cute!

After the museum, we headed to our hotel. That was a bit of a disaster area - since they gave one of our rooms away?1 - but we got it all figured out and booked another hotel in about 15 minutes. Smart phones FTW! We checked into our rooms, got together for dinner and a ton of desserts. Food was plenty! The hotel we stayed at had a breakfast room that we were able to use. It was perfect. The kiddos ran around and all of us adults were able to sit and chat. Grandpa opened all of his birthday presents and we enjoyed a night full of laughter, sugar, and family time.

The next morning, everyone was up for breakfast and a few pictures before we said goodbye. Happy Birthday Grandpa! I'm glad we got to spend it with you!

Birthdays

We have two nephews and they couldn't be any cuter. We celebrated both of those nephews birthdays in June and July. I was so happy that we would be able to see our family at least two more times before babe #2 showed up.

On June 26th we celebrated our nephew, Jackson's, 3 1/2 birthday. His birthday is in December, so celebrating his half birthday was a great idea and one we were excited about! Dayton loves to play with Jax, so he was talking about going to his party as soon as we got the invitation. Every time he walked by the invitation on the fridge he would say, "I go Jackson's party and eat cupcake." Too cute. So when the party finally came, he was over the moon excited. I didn't think he would fall asleep in the car on the way there, but thankfully he did.

Jackson had a Paw Patrol party and everything was absolutely adorable! Great job, Karen! Dayton loved spending time with his grandma and grandpa, eating all kinds of goodies (especially the cupcakes), and playing with his cousins. Dayton wanted to hold baby Macy the entire party, so after he had eaten and settled down a bit, we let him. I think it's his favorite thing to do. That and play with his cousins. Adorable!

photo cred: Karen Bishop

And thanks to Karen for sending me this sweet photo of Dayton!

Dayton's 2 Year Photos

Oh my heart. This kiddo. I just can't get enough of his adorable little face.

Photos by: Stricker Photography

Not that you can tell...but Dayton does not love taking pictures. Usually I hear, "No Mama!" followed by him swatting at the camera with a scowl on his face or just plain old running away. It's the phase he's in. Whatever. I didn't want to say anything (and didn't) at daycare, but I was really hoping he would take a good nap so that pictures would go well. He didn't. He slept for 30 minutes. Ugh.

Originally, we had planned with Michelle to take Dayton's 2 year photos outside on a John Deere backhoe. And of course it rained and was cold and gloomy that day. So inside photo shoot it was! Michelle is just amazing, so I wasn't too worried about how the photos would tun out. I made sure I gave Dayton snacks and a full cup of milk to help him (and his tummy) be in a good mood for the photos. This kid gets hangry people. I also made sure Brad was there from the start. He can make Dayton smile better than me apparently (reference to the 1 year photos).

The entire shoot went better than I could have imagined. Dayton was awesome and as you can see, hammed it up in a few photos. He was so funny! He wanted to pick the ladders or chairs that he sat on If he had a chair, he had to have an ottoman or foot stool and it took him a few minutes to set the chair and foot stool up just right. He really is a little OCD like his daddy and me. Oh boy. Michelle thought it was hilarious. At one point he had his chair set up and 2 foot stools lines up, then climbed over and on the footstools to get to the chair. I tell ya.

As you can see, I am more than happy with his photos. Of course, this is always the case when 1) it's your own kiddo and 2) you use Michelle Stricker as your photographer. That woman can't take a bad picture. Can't believe my baby is TWO!

Dayton is TWO!

This weekend we had Dayton's 2nd birthday tractor party! This kiddo loves tractors, so that was an easy pick! Pinterest and Etsy were the best sources for inspiration. I did get Dayton's invitation from Etsy and I had several adorable ideas from Pinterest that I wrote about in this post.

Dayton's party started at 3 pm on Saturday, so it was nice to have all week, Friday night, and most of Saturday to get everything ready. I love the details at parties, so the DIY part of the party planning was right up my ally. Thanks to my Silhouette Cameo, I was able to make some pretty cute stuff! After designing all of the pieces, the banner and the food labels took me about 30 minutes to make.

banner - DIY  |  tractor balloons - Amazon  |  cupcake cake - HyVee  |  tractors - family owned  |  food cards - DIY  |  plates, napkins, and cups - Martin Brothers Supply

The menu included:

-veggie garden: peppers, broccoli, carrots, celery and dip

-fruit stand: starwbeerries, pineapple, grapes, kiwi and dip

-farmer caviar and chips

buffalo chicken dip and chips

-cheese and crackers

-tractor wheels (oreos)

-hay bales (rice krispie treats)

-fuel (lemonade)

Some of our family arrived early, but most guests arrived right around the time the party was supposed to start. We woke Dayton up at 2:30 pm to get him dressed and awake before his guests came. Since Dayton is a little older, I was able to greet all of our family and friends as they came in. Everyone ate the snacks and talked for a while. It was fun to introduce family to friends and friends to friends. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty home sick on Saturday. I missed my family so much and wished more than anything that they could be there to celebrate with us. I'm so thankful for Brad's family and all of our friends though. They are wonderful!

I can't tell you how great it felt to have so many people that love Dayton and us all in one spot. This is why I love party planning. I love having people come together for an event. I love watching people talk and laugh and eat goodies. I love interacting and hosting and making sure that everyone is having a good time. I love all of the smiles, giggles, kiddos running around, and decorations. It just makes my heart happy to see other people happy.

After everyone had eaten and chatted, it was time for presents! Dayton is at such a fun age for presents because he gets it now. He loves opening presents and playing with the new toys and books! When we asked him what he thought he would get for his birthday, he kept telling us "Book!' He was so excited about getting some new books...and he did!

After presents, it was time for some cake! We sang happy birthday and then let Dayton dig in! I decided not to do a candle this year. You know, since he's two and he knows what fire is and he would probably try to touch it. He did love his "tractor cupcake" though! He has to eat the icing first, then he'll eat the cake. Side note - on Sunday when we gave him another cupcake, we gave him a chocolate one. He said, "Happy Birthday Dayton!" and ate every last crumb. I think it's easy to say he liked the chocolate cupcake better! Such a sweetheart!

Thank you so much to everyone who came! We had a great time and I know Dayton had one his best days yet. We have the best family and friends and it made Dayton's day so special to have everyone over. Y'all...my baby is TWO!!