Magic Kingdom and USVI - Family Travels 2015

Well, it's been TWO YEARS since my last blog post!  I guess that shows how busy life has gotten.  I had to update my blog information to include FOUR children instead of three.  Since baby #4 was born, life has just flown by!  Our littlest man is now 1...where does the time go?!

Business has been BUSY.  I actually had to shut down since the start of summer because it's impossible for me to get anything done while all the kiddos are home from school every day...ALL day.  AND we have been travelling a lot over the last two months.  We first traveled to Destin, FL for a week for a nice family vacation with my husband's parents and siblings and their families.  Then a couple weeks after that, we were gone for two weeks, travelling to St. Thomas for my brother's wedding.  On the way down, we first flew to Orlando, and went to Magic Kingdom for the day.  It was my first visit to Disney World, and it truly was amazing!  My kids, of course, were sporting their Amylou Baby clothes and received lots of nice compliments on them :)  They turned out great considering I made them the night before we left...after I got the last of my customer orders finished! My husband thought I was crazy, but look how cute they turned out! :)

St. Thomas was beautiful.  Here are all my siblings and me with the beautiful bride...it was crazy windy where we were...although no one else seems to be having trouble with their hair except for me :|

  We spent a lot of time on the water and even had an amazing opportunity to snorkel with sea turtles.  The color of the water was insane.  

And to make life even crazier, we just celebrated two kiddos' birthdays.  My next post will be on the party for my big one year old :)

Baby C's Circus Birthday Bash

I debated over and over again whether or not I should have a birthday bash for my Baby C.  Things are just so BUSY lately with taking care of the 3 kids, (especially with no school in the summer), and work.  The thought of planning a party, and prepping my house, food, etc was a bit overwhelming.  But, what I kept coming back to is that I did it for the other 2, so I have to do one for him too!  And I'm glad I did.  He actually turned one today, but we decided to have the party last weekend.  Everything turned out amazingly cute.  And most importantly, he loved it and all the guests seemed to have a good time!

We did a circus theme.  This is the only picture I got of him in his shirt...he was on the go pretty much the entire party!  Can you tell I'm kind of on a chevron kick lately???

All the desserts, done by my friend Catherine, were amazingly beautiful (and delicious).

Catherine's Cakery

 I ordered these empty peanut bags and popcorn bags from an Etsy shop.  They were a HUGE hit...the kids loved grabbing their own bag and cracking open the peanuts.  This did require lots of peanut shell vacuuming after the party though :)

I also thought it'd be so cute to have little mini cotton candy sticks for the kids.  I found a couple of Etsy shops that sell cotton candy in individual bags, but the prices were astronomical.  Cute idea...but I couldn't justify spending all of that money on them.  So I was going to rule it out, but then I saw these little 1 quart tubs of cotton candy at Walmart for suuuper cheap.  I had some of these paper straws (also from an Etsy shop), and decided to stick a little puff of the cotton candy on top of them.  Aren't they cute?  They were cute while they lasted.  I did them about 2 hours before the party started, and by the time people arrived, they were melted down to almost nothing :(  But at least I have the picture! And less sugar and food dyes for the kids :)

 Animal crackers for a take-home treat:

I found these cute little "no-spill" milk cartons on Etsy too.  This seller was amazing.  She punched holes in the tops of the cartons to fit the straws, and also did these adhesive personalized labels.  She gave me a couple different options for the graphics, and her communication was great.  The product was also great! Here is the link to her shop:
3SweetMemories

 Baby C's picture progression from newborn to 12 months...such a handsome boy!

 The birthday boy, eating a potsticker, and munching on a rib.  This boy will eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING

What I thought was the coolest part of the party is we hired a balloon twister to come entertain for about an hour.  He was INCREDIBLE.  I'm not talking about swords and dog and flower balloons...this guy is a true balloon ARTIST.  He made Spider Man, an octopus, Tinker Bell, Ariel, Sponge Bob, sharks, bicycles, Nemo blowing bubbles, and many more!

 Even the adults were entertained!

 Cake time!

After a fun, entertaining party, the kids all put their jammies on and laid down to watch a movie.  How long do you think these perfect angels all laid here like this?

Rocky Mountain High

My shop was closed last week while I was away in Colorado.  My baby sister graduated from Regis University (which makes me feel super old), so the whole family went out there to celebrate her big accomplishment.  We also took a few days after the graduation to visit the mountains in Estes Park.  I thought I had seen my last snow for a while after it snowed here in Saint Louis a few weeks ago...but I was wrong!  It was COLD and we had sporadic snow showers while we were there.  However, I guess the beauty of the mountains made up for it.  Here are a few pics from the trip.

Me and my beautiful sister

My sister painted all of these paintings on unfinished wood...so beautiful...and so talented!

My parents, my siblings (minus 1 brother), and my husband and kiddos at the graduation

We took a fun and beautiful train ride in a little town called Georgetown.  Big B loved going on a real train (as opposed to the Zoo train).  The view was amazing.  Here's the Georgetown Loop train site: http://georgetownlooprr.com/

Big B checking out the amazing view from our train car

I was so nervous on this bridge!

Little A was not a huge fan of the train.

One of the highlights of our trip...Chai at this coffee shop..Ahh.mazing.
My sister's BF, my mom, aunt, uncles, brother, and me

Me and my Buddy

Chillin in our cabin...Peek-A-Boo, Baby C!

My "big" kids...sitting on top of a petrified tree trunk