Gigi's 75 and ready to jive!

Our sweet Gigi aka Granny aka Mom aka Shirley May aka Aunt Shirley...this list goes on, turned 75 this year! We were thrilled to have our family from Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri and Arizona come to Dallas to celebrate with us. It was a party to remember and so much fun. I personally hadn't seen Grannys (I'll refer to her as Granny since that's what I call her) nieces since I was a baby, but it was like I saw them last week. We all just picked up where we left off.
If you haven't met Granny yet, then you're missing out. She is one of the most silly, fun, positive people I know. She is the one who taught me you make each day what it is. That when you wake up you have the choice of how you are going to handle what comes at you that day. She is a strong Christian woman, and LOVES to cook it up in the kitchen. My favorite thing she makes are patty melts...yummo, homemade rolls and brownies. I always gain 5 pounds when we see her because the cooking is so good.
We are so honored to have her in our lives, to keep us on our toes and laughing. She's always got a good one liner tucked away and boy do her great-grandkiddos love her. We're so blessed she's here to love on them they way she did on her kid and grandkids.
We love you grandmother...Happy Birthday!!

The cake was from Market Street and it was wonderful!
Gigi loves flowers, so Luke helped pick this one with the most flowers on it.
Flowers from Granny's nice Tammy in Brownsville, TX.
Silly girls. Don't poke her with that pin! ;)

All the girls (Left to Right): Amanda, Kayleigh, Mimi (Betty), Granny (Shirley), Kim (from MO), Susan (Phoenix), Mom (Michelle) and me.
Some of the boys and my wonderful husband who always goes above and beyond helping his crazy wife and the birthday parties.
Beautiful!
She probably got 75 cards, and I'm not exaggerating! People from all over the place that she's known years still send her birthday cards. It just shows how loved she is!
The Party Planner
Mimi in her favorite color
Luke was so helpful with the presents.

The next day the girls went to Chocolate Angel Tea Room for lunch. It was delicious and a treat for us ladies to have lunch together.

Such a big girl, ordering from the menu.
Too cute!
A great picture of mom and Mimi.
Sweet girls! And don't you love the purple?!
Granny and Susan

18 months!

My sweet boys and cuddle bug!

Little Ross, otherwise knows an Reid hit another big milestone...18months! I know this isn't an official birthday, but it's a big turning point I think.
It feels like we're starting to be able to communicate more clearly. He definitely has has his "all done" (sometimes verbal), "please" "more" and "bye-bye" signs down. Those are the mostly food related words he needs to let me know what he wants. As far as spoken words, we're still working on those. He's great at pointing to what he wants and I need to a do a better job trying to get him to verbalize too.
The one word, the dreaded word, he's latched onto the last two weeks is "NO!". Ahhhh, the dreaded no. I feel like he must have picked it up from friends at church, because we are trying to be diligent about saying "No thank you" and Luke has done really well not shouting that word for awhile. Then again, it could just be inherent. ;)
Speaking of becoming more..."bold", shall we say. Reid's hair is finally coming in and there just happens to be a little red to it. It's really a beautiful color, almost auburn and shimmers in the sun. I would love to have hair his color, but I do think he has a little "red headed streak" in him if you know what I mean. ;) He also got his first haircut at 18 months. I wasn't able to get a picture because I was a little busy trying to console his sad self. Maybe next time we go I can.
Our little man is quite the adventurer and loves playing outside. He's had mouthfuls of mulch a couple of times, and he can play in the sandbox with Luke forever. We're so thankful for the warmer weather and a shaded backyard that allows us lots of outside time.

Of course he loves birthday cake...who doesn't?

In the food department, there haven't been leaps and bounds of improvement, but I'll say a couple of baby steps in the right direction. Foods that are a guarantee are grilled cheese, pizza, pancakes and waffles, fruit, yogurt (and I sneak a little veggie into this treat), cheerios, pretzels, hot dogs and anything sweet (except ice cream...too cold). He loves milk and drinks a ton of it, so our doctor isn't too concerned. He said just keep offering a variety to him. He did move up to 75th percentile on weight, so that's a good sign. I'm pretty sure he's going to be tall and skinny like Luke.
My favorite part of this age is all the snuggles! Reid is such a snuggle bunny and I love it! Luke was never quite the sit still and snuggle kiddo, just the hug and then he's off. But Reid loves to burrow in your arms and just be held on the couch. In fact this is his favorite thing to do as long as there is a movie playing. Oh and how this boy loves movies! We're really had to restrict tv time over here at Casa Moshell because if allowed, this kiddos would watch the tube all.the.time!
Reid's favorite movies are Stuart Little 2 and Letter Factory. He also loves to watch Curious George. One funny observation is his dislike of Elmo. I never thought I would see the day an 18 month old didn't like Elmo, but he is not amused by him. At that is fine by me!
We are just having so much fun with Reid and his sweet sill self. He is such a fun part of our family and I'm honored I get to see him growing and developing everyday!

Sad Reid...hanging onto that paci though. That's going to be a battle in itself that I dread.

Calling all Superheros!

Magnificent Max

Lovely Lucy

Marvelous Mysterious Mia

Lively Luke

Charming Carson
Carefree Caden

SuperTrioFriends!

Remarkable Rachel ...Look out here she's sneaking out of the tunnel!

She's going so fast the winds trying to pull her down!

When I asked Luke what kind of birthday party he wanted this year, his answer was: "Spiderman, Batman and Superman birthday." Well, alrighty then. So superhero birthday party it was. It was the perfect theme for him because he LOVES to play with all his super hero toys and fly through the house with his capes and underwear and nothing else on.
Miss Widmer came through by telling me how you can buy packages on Etsy that encompass your theme and sure enough there were some great superhero packages. All we had to do was print out invitations and decorations and cut them all out. She also shared how great the cupcakes were at Sams and she wasn't lying. These might be my new favorite cupcakes. They are simple, but quite tasty!
Daddy set up the ultimate Superhero obstacle course for all our heros. They did a fantastic job zooming through it!
Luke was so excited about presents...or opening presents with friends around. It doesn't get much better than that. In the past it's mostly been mom opening them and explaining them, but this year the roles were reversed. He was more than happy to open them on his own and tell everyone exactly what he got and how it worked.
What a great day for our sweet 4 year old. I can't even begin to think of a 5 year old party...sniff!

It's a zoo around here!

Please don't frown on me that for my son's 4th birthday we took him to the zoo...for the very first time. It's terrible, I have had many intentions of getting him there sooner, but for various reasons have not. So on his special day, we packed up and headed south to the Dallas zoo. It was a cloudy day, but warm enough weather for short sleeves. We had a great time and will definitely be going back. Beware: There are a lot of pictures ahead!

In the 90's I had flamingo earrings. I may or may not have worn them with my florescent Hypercolor t-shirt.

He hatched 4 years ago.

Reid loved the children's area. He could finally get out of his stroller and PLAY!

Back in the saddle.

Luke was a teensy bit worried he might fall backwards into the water...can you tell?

These were the pictures from the ride on the monorail. It's my way to do the zoo. Just sit and ride and see all the cool animals!

Luke loved this waterfall...until we went under it!

King of the Jungle!

This guy had an itch he couldn't get rid of...hence the fawning over the log.

I love this shot because of the air under his feet. He was having the best time...
and you can really tell!

My favorite animals at the zoo. I love how unique they are!

This is what I wanted to do after the zoo. We were exhausted when it was all said and done. Thankfully both boys crashed in the car on the way home.

"Uh, Papa, did you know there's a gorilla behind us?"

"And a lion?"