Five on Friday - Becky, 3.0 celebration, Jeep Riding

What a week it has been.  I've actually gotten a lot of blogging in!

Let's start!

ONE:

Ms. Becky is truly amazing and we are SO fortunate to have her.  She takes such good care of Molly Anne.  Last Friday when I went to pick her up, she had gotten her a Minnie Mouse balloon for her birthday weekend.  How thoughtful is that?!

TWO:

On Monday night we met up at True Pizza to celebrate my friend Sarah's third baby girl!  It was wonderful getting together with friends for such an exciting time!

Mom and I had gone shopping that day and I had gotten this top and these jeans.  I'm obsessed with both.  Got the top in two colors (because it's under $30, actually I got it 30% off so for less than $20!) and the jeans are the perfect fit since they're high rise.  Nobody got time for low cut jeans yall!

THREE:
On Tuesday during nap time, Kevin cranked up the jeep and took my Mom out for a spin.  When he came back he asked me to go so I hopped in for a ride around the hood while Mom and Dad stayed with Molly Anne.  We hadn't done that since before she was born so it felt like we were young again ha!  It was fun!

FOUR:
Haircut pictures!  She had it done on Saturday right before her birthday party.  I love the girls at Modern, they couldn't be sweeter with her!  Before...

After....

FIVE:
I blogged a lot of times this week and yesterday I had two posts so here they all are as a recap!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!


Molly Anne's Second Birthday Party

Molly Anne is TWO!

July 4th Celebration

House Update - Fireplaces

Mom and Dad's Visit

Mom and Dad's Visit

It has been quite a busy week and I have no clue how I've squeaked out these blog posts!  Monday night I stayed up late writing Molly Anne's birthday blog post that I was supposed to be working on the last two weeks.  But I literally have just not had a minute to spare.  Anyway, I'm glad to have everything caught up and blogged about.  This post is one of my favorites...I love recapping our weekends.  I realize I put a lot of pointless to you all information in them and they're probably annoying to read but I love going back and reliving our weekends!

ANYWAY.

Here we go.  Last Friday we played out back while we waited for Nannie and Poppa to arrive!  They drove down from Maryland.  Took them almost 10 hours with stops.  They stop for long times because I can make it in 8 hours with a couple quick stops haha!  We were so glad they were here!

Molly Anne just kept screaming NANNIE POPPA NANNIE POPPA!  I love her excitement with them.  And Mills lovessss my parents because they rub his ears which he likes the best!

Dad made her a learning tower and he brought that down with them!  Molly Anne liked it but was a bit hesitant to be in it very long.  I think she'll grow to like it more.  Dad painted it after this picture was taken so now it's white!  My Dad makes her the coolest things - you probably remember the cradle and busy board he made her too.  

Kevin came home from work and we all headed to Inizio Pizza for dinner Friday night.  Our favorite pizza spot!  Molly Anne can down a piece of the pistachio pizza!

We took her home and put her to bed and Kevin stayed with her while I took my parents over to the house!  They loved seeing it and I loved getting to show them everything.  Dad inspected every detail of the wiring, plumbing, hvac etc.!  Mom and I discussed carpet colors!

Saturday morning Molly Anne opened a gift that my neighbor had put on the doorstep for her.  Melissa and Doug mixing set - it is adorable!

Then Mom and I took her to get her hair cut at Modern where I go.  Heather did it for her this time.  You'll see more photos in my post tomorrow!  She was very good having it done though!

Party prep in full force because her big party was that afternoon.  Earlier in the week I made this list because I realized I really wasn't organized.   I instantly felt better after this list was made.  PS - 6 bags of ice were necessary, 3 was not nearly enough!

You can see the post about her party here!

We didn't do much that night.  She opened a few gifts but opened most things on Sunday morning.  She played with her new toys and things that morning.  After nap, we got ready for the 4th of July celebration which I blogged about here.  

Monday morning we headed over to the house to meet the contractor and this baby came and grabbed my leg when there was a loud sound.  Awwww.

After some shopping at the mall, seeing our new office, lunch at Dean and Deluca we came home for a nap and chill time.  Once Kevin came home from work we went to Midwood Smokehouse for a salad and bbq which was a treat.  After bedtime I went to a little celebration for my friend's third baby which I'll blog about tomorrow!  

Tuesday was July 4th and Molly Anne's birthday!  We gave her a gold add a pearl necklace and it's so adorable.  Each year we will give her pearls towards it and eventually she'll have a string of pearls to wear!  This necklace has 3 pearls to start with!  I got it at a local jewelry shop Morrison Smith.  

You can see it on her barely in the below picture!

She got tinker toys and her first bike from my parents.  We also gave her a buddha board which I'm going to put away for a few months.  She'll enjoy it for years to come.  

Yes, the basket on the front is begging for a monogram!  I had gotten her one but it didn't stick to the plastic so I need to figure that out.  

After the bike excitement, we headed to the pool so she could swim, her favorite thing!

She and my Dad watched the bucket fill up and dump water.  According to my engineer father, it dumps every 29 seconds.  

After her nap we got the tinker toys out to play with and she loved that!

Kevin's parents came over and we celebrated some more!  They gave her this cute Minnie Mouse skills board and this caterpillar!  Molly Anne will eventually love this caterpillar but she was a little nervous about it right now!  It will be perfect in a few more months!  

Molly Anne with both sets of her grandparents!  

After grilling out dinner, we played outside with pop its and a couple sparklers!  She loved throwing the pop its on the ground!

Mom had brought her glow sticks and she had fun with those too!

It was a big birthday weekend and the celebrating isn't over yet!  Tomorrow Ms. Becky is having a little party for her there!  I'm getting things together for that tonight!  

My parents left yesterday morning and we were of course sad to see them go.  Dad did a few projects around the house as usual.  Replaced some caulking and painted the learning tower.  They always pitch right in and help us so much without us asking.  Because you know, I don't like asking for help!  We will see them again soon!  Not having a date on the calendar makes it harder for them to go but we'll go up there at some point!

House Update - Fireplaces

Fireplaces!  Well well well.  Evidently fireplaces aren't very cut and dry and there are lots of decisions to be made on them as well.  We have two fireplaces at the house so let's talk about them separately.  

1.  Outdoor fireplace - we had decided to have this one be wood burning and not gas.  We think we will enjoy having a place to smell a real fire!  It will match the brick on our house and actually be very similar to the one in the below picture.  

We had to decide this past weekend where the angle on it goes up in relation to the roof of the covered porch.  We thought it would go on an angle up and the angle would be smooth.  But when we were talking about it with my parents, my Dad suggested it to step up with the bricks offset about 1/2-3/4".  It was funny because he said let me find a picture of what I mean and he pulled up this picture.  Guess what, this was on both Kevin's and my Houzz ideabooks so this was a no brainer.  I think the detail of it stepping up is really pretty.  

We decided to make the hearth 18" up off the finished grade of the porch so it will be a sitting hearth like the one below.  I imagine first day of school pictures here!  The firebox bricks will be in a straight pattern, not herringbone like below.  We are doing herringbone on the inside fireplace.

Here they are on Monday working on it...

Indoor fireplace - 
Well there are several different types of indoor fireplaces.  Direct vent where it vents directly outside via a pipe that runs through to the exterior of the house and the fireplace had a glass front and it pulls fresh air in and vents back out, vent free where it vents back into the space or B-vent where it draws inside air and exhausts out and doesn't have a glass front. 

Ultimately we decided to spend the extra money and do direct vent mainly because we didn't love the idea of a gas fireplace that doesn't have a vent.  I realize we are using gas appliances that emit into the air but we felt better about having the fireplace vent.  Ours will vent directly up and out of the top of our roof.   Our fire place guy told me that Direct Vent is the most popular, followed by B-vent then vent free.  

The inside of the firebox will have a herringbone pattern which will be pretty and this will be a gas fireplace.  So click and we have a fire!  The mantel will sit 5' off the finished floor grade.  And yes, we are putting a TV above the mantel....I know, I know but we have it like that now and it is so practical.  Our bookshelves on either side aren't wide enough for the size TV we need for that room so that's how it's going to be!  

I'll show some updated photos as they work on these!

July 4th on 2nd Celebration

Our favorite day of the year is when we go to our friend's country club with them for their July 4th celebration.  Usually it's on July 3rd but this year it was on Sunday the 2nd!  

Molly Anne ran wild all over and made her way directly over to the bounce house!  She wants to be a big kid so badly! 

I wore this dress!

Our little crew grows more and more each year and we are about to have another little girl join us soon!

This was us last year!  Yes, Molly Anne wore the same 12m dress this year too! 

Molly Anne LOVEDDDD dancing with the DJ and all of the older children.  This picture below where her feet are both off the ground and she is just dancing her heart out....love it!  At one point she was laying on the ground with all of those children starting some dance I hadn't heard of.  #oldschool

My Mother dearest chased her around all over the place!  

She wouldn't get out of the bounce house when their time was up so I bribed her with ice cream and she got right out.  Well there wasn't ice cream but the nice man Jimmie went and got her an ice cream sandwich and she ate every ounce of it!  She was in heaven!

Thankful to have my parents there!

Our Gigi!

And our Mary Scott!

Twins!

Molly Anne sat on Mom's lap the entire fireworks show and kept yelling, "fireworkkkksssss!!!"  She loved them!

Paparazzi!

Thank you to Sarah and Mike for such a fun evening!  We always have the best time!