The Graham Family Four

Anna turns 3! (Part 2)

And yes...the celebration continued! This weekend, we had the official "party..." a fun candy themed bash held at our home, complete with Doodle the Clown! This was the largest party to date in our new house and it could not have gone any better. Most importantly, Anna had the best time and is still talking about it! That made all the preparations worth every minute.

Our candy themed cake from Creations Bakery. YUM. The top layer was strawberry and bottom was vanilla....SO delicious. I will definitely use them again!

Favor table

Banner and gift area :)

So for our entertainment, we hired Doodle the Clown, a clown that had come and done a magic show at their school. OMG-best money I have ever spent...like probably on anything. She was amazing. SO funny and had the kids and parents entertained the entire time.

Bryston having his face painted. We were so happy that some of Zack's family from South Ga could come!

All the kids petting Gladys the bunny

Balloon art!

Anna, although scared at first, loved Doodle. She continues to ask where she is every single day! Ha!

Cheese!

Blowing out her candles....she loved having happy birthday sung to her...again! :)

Anna, Audrey Claire, and Brylee

Anna and her first boyfriend, Brady :)

Present time!

Her Barbie Pearl Princess costume-LOVED this!!!

Sweet girl and her Grandma.

I am so thankful to have such great families (mine and Zack's!) and friends who came and celebrated this special occasion. We are so blessed to have you all and so blessed to have this sweet girl!

I will be back soon for an "Anna at 3" post to document this age, because I know that each moment is fleeting and the next month will be different from the last. But I want to end this post with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books that I still love to read to both of them...

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."
-Robert Munsch from "Love you Forever"

Anna is 3!! (Part 1)

On July 15, 2014, my baby turned 3! How did this happen?? I really don't know where the past 3 years have gone...but I am going to save the nostalgia for a separate post. (Lucky you)....Anyhow, in true Graham form, we had multiple parties! Anyone who knows us knows that we do it up right for birthdays around here. But, you know, of all the things I question about myself, it's one thing I know I will never regret doing for them. I want them to know every day and every year that passes is a gift and that we are so thankful that God gave them to us!

So...we continued our family tradition and kicked off the birthday festivities with a family party on her actual day. For this day, I let her pick what she wanted for dinner. She chose spaghetti, her favorite! After dinner, we had pink funfetti cake (made by yours truly), and she opened her presents from us and cards that she got in the mail. Her big present from us this year was her big girl room, but we also had a Tangled game and some Ariel bubbles just to make the day special. Dalton gave her a Dorothy from Wizard of Oz doll. She loved it all!!

Priceless!

Love it! She was eating it up!!

Buddy reading her her cards.

Yay!!

Happy birthday little bean!! You are so special to us!!!

Folly Fun

The first week of the, the children and I went to Folly Beach with my family for beach week. Unfortunately, Zack couldn't make it the whole time...we sure missed him, but we also had SO much fun with each other and with Mom, Ed, and Diane. We ate, enjoyed nightly happy hour on the porch, and soaked up the sun on the beach....all. day. every. day! It was literally the PERFECT vacay. We stayed at house this year called "All Decked Out" --appropriate name because there were 2 huge decks and a big screened in porch. We pretty much lived out there...when we weren't on the beach, that is!!

Post-dinner pier walk

Bird chasing. I hope they never outgrow this!

Sweetness.

Not the greatest but wanted to post one of us. Diane was behind the cam!

Love this one!

On our last evening, we decided to relocate happy hour to the beach and let the kids take their kites. A big storm was brewing and the wind seemed perfect for kite flying!

This one got really into it! He would have run on that beach all day with the kite!

Mimi helping little bit.

Daddy did show up eventually...and we were sure happy to see him!!

Thanks Mom for another wonderful beach trip. Can't wait to do it again in 2015!!!!

Happy 4th!!!

So I realize this is a little late...but Happy 4th! Hope you all had a fabulous one...we sure did!! This is turning out to be a CRAZY month for us, likely the busiest the entire year...but we are making the most of it as we go! We kicked off the month with a fun 4th celebration with our friend Brian and Julie and their boys Drew and Brayden. We were packing and leaving for the beach the next morning, so nothing too crazy was in order, just a good old fashioned cookout and some fireworks. We had a blast! I was a little worried that Dalton and Brayden (who know each other the best and played baseball together) would pair off and leave Drew and Anna out-BUT, as it turned out, they all did well together and when they did pair off-it was Anna and Brayden and Dalton and Drew. As Brian pointed out, in a few more years this may be a problem! ;)