Luke {7 months}

Time's flying by... I can't believe Luke is closer to one year than he is to being a newborn!  We're in the middle of moving so this post is going up super late, but here's what Luke was up to last month when he was 7 months old.


First, his hair is totally changing!  The darker, more red color is turning into a more strawberry blonde picture AND it's getting curls... so stinkin' cute!  And those gorgeous blue eyes {from Daddy} are still as blue as ever.

He's sitting up, but only for a nano-second and with help.  He's taking his time being a big boy, and I'm fine with that because we just moved and I didn't have to rush in and baby-proof everything... yet!

And he needs his 2nd haircut already... sooo badly!  This boy has some serious HAIR on his head!

"Hi, my name is Luke.  I sit like a frog... 

a shaggy, adorable red-headed baby frog!"  

He's still an amazing sleeper... wahoo!!  He loves his two naps a day, and sleeps a full 12 hours at night! He wakes up happy and gulps down his whole bottle within a couple of minutes each morning.  


His favorite foods are vegetables, but that's because I haven't given him fruits yet :)  Sweet potatoes {pureed in the food processor} and pumpkin are his favorites.  

We love you Lukey Boo!

A Teacher Gift that's "Berry Sweet!" {tutorial}

9 days left of school here, 

but we just couldn't wait to give these to 

the boys teachers today!

I'm so happy with how they came out!  It's a great {and sometimes rare!} feeling when the idea in my head comes out just as planned... I kept staring at them in the fridge :)

Here's a little tutorial on how to make them.

First gather your supplies...

 Adorable clay flower pots from Michael's 

{on sale for $3.49 each}

 Paper filler {Wal-Mart} and lollipop sticks {Michael's}

 Wilton candy melts {Michael's}

 Rainbow sprinkles {Wal-Mart}

Strawberries, washed and dried {and sorted biggest to smallest, 

because I'm crazy like that!}

Okay... have all your supplies?  You're ready for the fun!

Pierce the strawberries with a lollipop stick... it's too hard to get it exactly through the middle because the stem made the stick bend so I poked mine through as close to the center as I could.   

{After I took this picture, I realized that I should pull off any ugly parts of the little leaves}

Have your melted candy melts ready {I melt in a bowl in the microwave at 15-30 second intervals until melted.... don't heat too long or they burn!}  Dip and twist, then tap the excess chocolate off on the side of the bowl.  Sprinkle on your sprinkles right away before the chocolate starts to dry.  

Then stick the strawberry in a styrofoam block {Michael's} to dry.

Once the strawberries were dry, I transferred them to a parchment lined cookie sheet because I only had one styrofoam block for drying.  

Once the last set was dry, I cut the styrofoam block into 5 equal pieces to put in the flower pots.  Then I covered the styrofoam with the shredded paper and arranged the strawberries in the pots.  

I also added the little tag with my two favorite fonts {Pupcat and Amelie, both free downloads at dafont.com}

And there you have it... a cute, sweet, edible End of the Year Teacher Gift, and an adorable flower pot to use after the sweet treat is gone! 

I'm linking up here!

In the blink of an eye...

"Mom, look at Luke... 

I put Jake's graduation cap on him!"

I had to snap this quick pic 

{on Ben's iphone that I'm borrowing for a day and may or may not be returning to him.}  

I can't decide if I love this picture or not.  

It's for sure just about 

the cutest thing ever, 

but it's also kind of like watching the next 18 years flash by
in the blink of an eye.  

I do know that it makes me want to 
slow down,
listen more,
hug more,
put together the train tracks more,
take the boys on more bike rides,
have extra bread on hand for feeding the ducks,
yell less,
and love more.

This picture is precious to me 
{even though it makes me smile and cry at the same time} 
so I'm linking it to this beautiful blog.

Jake's Preschool Graduation!

We do really have three little boys, 

but lately everything seems to be about Jake, Jake, Jake!

Last night he graduated preschool {although not really because he just turned 4 and has one more year before Kindergarten} but he doesn't care about those details.  

He loved graduation! 

We took some pictures in our front yard before graduation... Daddy missed the little photo shoot of course because he drives a million miles a day right now and had to meet us at the graduation.

This one was taken by Samuel {he declared yesterday that he would like to go by Samuel now instead of Sam... even raised his hand in class and told his teacher that she's going to have to add "u-e-l" to all of his stuff, you know 12 days before school gets out!}

Jake's been practicing his graduation songs for weeks and he was soooo excited for tonight!  This was his 1st big performance of any kind and oh man, was he cute!  He's a whole year younger than most of the kids in his class, but he did so well up there!

Super blurry and heads in the way... oops!  But look at that happy face!!  His graduation cap looks so silly... oh well, this is a trial run for next year when he's really graduating, right? :)  His new school better have a good graduation ceremony like this school because I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Ohhh, how I love that little face!

Yay for the Ocean Room... I LOVE the lei his teachers gave him!

And speaking of teachers, no wonder Jakers loves the Ocean Room so much... look at his pretty teachers!  Congratulations on your {practice for the real thing next year} graduation!  

p.s.  Your momma's going to be tired this morning because she stayed up way too late making these for you and your Ocean Room friends.

{free printable tag from livinglocurto.com}

{graduation pop idea from sevenyearcottage.com}

If I could have a wish...

If I could have a wish tonight...

it would be that Jake will feel better in the morning, because it's been quite a sad day and a half around here!  My heart hurts for families with seriously sick kiddos because after such a short time I already miss this smile soooo much...

And I hope he feels like doing this tomorrow...

And feeding the ducks that hang out on our driveway...

And going to his preschool graduation because those songs he's been practicing are so, so cute!  {And Momma doesn't need to eat 20 of these graduation cap pops I'm making either}.

Oh, and wanna ride your scooter tomorrow too?  

I'm finally working on the thank you cards from Jake's birthday party about a month ago.  Did you miss the pictures?  Nope, they're coming soon... I'm DYING to share them and I can't wait for their special presentation.  Seriously, I'm about to bust at the seams over my excitement about Jake's party pictures... coming soon!  

Sweet dreams Jakers... Momma's goodnight prayer is for you to be back to your cheery, silly, smiley self in the morning.

The House That Built Me...

I've been so busy lately and away from Gallamore West way more than I'd like to be.  I had gotten into such a groove with this blog and had a growing list of things to post on here, but sometimes life gets in the way.  

We're moving and SOON, and I'm spending all my time...

packing boxes, 

driving back and forth 

from the "old" house to the "new" house 

{but that's a pretty confusing way to describe it since the "old" house is new and the "new" house is old} 

dr. appointments for the boys, 

and lots of painting & prepping 

I want to document things as I go, so I'm excited to be starting a new Monday morning series here on Gallamore West,

The House that Built Me

But first, a BIG thank you everyone who voted for Luke in the Dough-a-Deer/Smetona Photo contest... he WON and I'm sooo excited!  My head is spinning with ideas for his 1st Birthday Party in October.  I'm super excited about the theme I've chosen and can't wait to share it all with you {although I'm pretty sure he was born like yesterday, so it makes me a little sad to talk about my baby turning 1 already!}


Second, our new pediatrician in San Diego referred Luke to a Physical Therapist because of a slight flatness on one side of the back of his head.  I was so anxious to go to the appointment this past Friday morning, but it went really well.  The physical therapist was wonderful.   She's a Mom with kids the exact same ages of ours.  She got on the floor to play with Luke, saw how strong and age appropriate his strength/movements are, and gave me some great tips and exercises to do at home with him to stretch his neck muscles which in time will hopefully help improve the shape of his head.  I'll do anything that I need to do for my boys, and I told myself that if he needed helmet therapy I would cry for a day, then get over it and just do it, but after our 1st physical therapy appointment, I feel at ease knowing that our exercises should be sufficient.

Sooo, back to our upcoming move...  

it's a move that is bittersweet 

and oh, soooo sweet all at the same time. 

We're moving away from some of the nicest, most amazing friends I have, but back to where I've always wanted to be= San Diego! 

We are moving here:

That's me when I was sixteen {and oh, how I miss that waist!  And those skinny arms that I thought were SO fat}.  
That's right... we're moving to 

The House That Built Me 

{Miranda Lambert fans?  I loooove that song}

For the past few weeks {kind of months really} I've been packing boxes, making trips to San Diego with the boys, and doing some prep work there.  I cannot WAIT to show you some amazing before & after pictures soon!

Let's just start off with this "before" photo... actually an "in the works" photo.  So bummed I didn't get a before of this beauty... just imagine a BRIGHT ORANGE stripe all around the middle of the room.

or how about this one?  Some of you know how I love a good laundry room/area transformation... I'm SO excited to be working on this!

Ohhhh yeah, this is going to be GOOD!  I can't wait to finish these projects and show you the "after" pictures. Transforming things on a shoestring budget is something I never envisioned I would be doing {I'm a former "brand new house" kind of girl} but it's something that I'm surprisingly excited about and I can't wait to share it all with you!

Life's a Rollercoaster {car}

Dear Super Cool People who sent me this Coaster Car,

Thank you, thank you!!

I love my new "rollercoaster car" soooooo much.  Mommy thinks she has a guess of who sent it, but it came unmarked and no note of who the sender was, so we just aren't sure.  But whoever you are, I love it... and YOU!!!   

Mommy says it goes along perfectly with our roller coaster life these days.  I don't really know what that means, but I'm thinking it has something to do with boxes being piled up to our ears in the hallways and not being able to find our socks and stuff, but I'm not worried about all that.  I'm four years old now and I've got my own roller coaster car, so life is good in my book.

Love,

Jake

"Oh, that's fancy!"

We've discovered a fun, new word around here... 

{fancy}

It seems that everything around here is "fancy" lately {according to the boys}.  Like when I pulled out a bikini the other day from my pre-baby body days and threw it on to hop in the bathtub with Luke, Sam got all excited and said,

 

"Oh Mommy, you look fancy!"  

Believe me, it was anything but fancy so I'll skip posting a picture of THAT :)

And today after a fun morning at the park with friends, we were a hot mess so why not add "sticky" to the scene, right?  Jake opened his cherry Sonic slushie because he drank all the juicy parts so quickly and couldn't get the ice through the straw.  

"Mommy, my hands look sooooo fancy!"

Notice the bare walls in the background?  We're gettin' our MOVE on here, and believe me things are anything but fancy around here :)

Happy Mother's Day... and a little pirate Jake!

Jake is *soooclose* to turning FOUR!

He had a small red scooter party a few weeks back {I'm sooo excited to share the pictures soon!}  When I asked him what kind of cupcakes he wanted to bring to preschool to celebrate his special day he requested

"Jake and the Neverland Pirates!"

I found these free printables on Cottage Industrialist and loved them.  Mine didn't work out quite like they were supposed to because you were supposed to put a toothpick through the top and bottom of the sail to make it "billow", but I just kept tearing the paper when I tried so I just taped them on to a cupcake pick instead.

For the "gold dabloons" I found these cute free printables at bnute.com.  I love using snack bags with toppers whenever I can because they are just as adorable as cellophane bags for a fraction of the price.

When Daddy came home last night, 

Jake told him all about his preschool celebration... 

his "4" shirt he wore 

his share toy {Baby Zebra} 

the pirate ship cupcakes 

the gold dabloons

And here's my favorite part... 

when his Daddy said, "Wow, they did all that for you?!"

Jake said, "No, Mommy did!"

And his cute little voice expressing appreciation 
for the little things I do for him make it all worthwhile  

{even though he did pee in his empty water table in the backyard the day before}

While it is for sure the most challenging job ever, being called "Mommy" by our three little guys will forever be the biggest blessing in my life!


Happy Mother's Day to all you Mommies, 
and someday Mommies!!