Mother's Day Mini Session

Like I mentioned earlier, I splurged this year and signed up for a Mother's Day mini session with Kate Bellflower.  I had never taken pictures with her before, but I have always admired her work.  I feel like I'm never in many pictures so any chance I get of getting in front of the camera instead of behind it is a treat for me!

 

These are some of my most favorite pictures to date.  I already had all the outfits so it was easy to pick out what we would wear. I love the mint green and the backdrop at Miccosukee Greenway was gorgeous.  It's hard to believe but we were only there 15 minutes.

 

In no particular order:

 A favorite of Mason and I:

 A favorite of Kate and I:

I'm in love with them all. 

I can never have enough pictures with my sweet babies!

Mother's Day 2015

Happy Mother's Day! This is going to be a long post but I have a lot to share about Mother's Day this year.  

 

I saw these shirts on Zulily that say, "I love my Gigi" and I knew I had to order them for my mom.  We picked a weekend back in April to take the pictures and thankfully the kids cooperated long enough for me to get a few cute pictures.  Exhausting is an understatement when I think about how hard it was to wrangle all three of these munchkins. Luckily we got a couple cute pictures!

 The frame worthy shot:

 

The Thursday and Friday before Mothers Day, I went to "Mommy and Me Tea" with both Kate and Mason. This was Kate's last year at Good Samaritan (tear).  The kids made adorable gifts and were so excited to show me what they had made.

Thursday was Mason's Mommy and Me Tea: 

 Ready to perform!

 My Mother's Day gifts:

 I love it when they ask the kids questions - so funny to hear their responses.

 One of Aunt Katie and Camden (who were also there):

 On Friday I went back to school for Kate's Mommy and Me Tea:

She was so excited to sing with her class and ran to the front of the group so I would have the best view of her performance.

 My Mother's Day gifts from Kate:

close up:

Kate drew several pictures for me. 

The caption reads "Mommy and I invited our friends to a sleepover"

A coaster - this is at my office. :)

 And an extra special surprise was the bracelet Kate made for me one Wednesday night in bible class.  I love it!  She did such a great job picking out the beads and have enjoyed wearing it.

 

I have to share how great of a job she did decorating the bag my bracelet came wrapped in:

 

The Saturday before Mother's Day was a very busy day.  We ran a couple errands that morning and then went over to Nanny's house to eat lunch and visit.  We really enjoyed spending time with her since we knew we wouldn't see her on Sunday.

Saturday night, we attended Libby's wedding (Aunt Katie's sister) at Honey Lake Plantation.  It was gorgeous!  The kids spent the night at Mimi and Papa's house so Justin and I could enjoy the wedding and not rush home (it was 45 minutes east of Tallahassee).  Dad officiated the ceremony, Mom helped wrangle Camden, and Justin and I enjoyed the festivities. 

 We owe a special thank you to Aunt Katie's cousin Chris for taking these pictures with his awesome camera:

On Mother's Day (Sunday), I enjoyed sleeping in before meeting the kids and Mimi and Papa at Seven Hills.  We had a nice lunch together and even took a couple pictures.  Papa hasn't sent me the picture we took of his camera but I have one from daddy's phone:

Mason was over taking pictures but he still looks cute.

 

After lunch, Mimi pulled out an old poster of daddy from his t-ball days and we compared it to Kate:

They're both a couple cuties.

 

I spoiled myself this year for Mother's Day.  I upgraded my iPhone 4s to the new iPhone 6 (love it!), bought myself a new FSU shirt and arranged to have Mother's Day pictures taken one Sunday afternoon at the Miccosukee Greenway.  We tried a new photographer (Kate Bellflower) since Lexi recently moved away and I am in love with them!  I'll share all those in my next post.

 

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!

Kindergarten Orientaton

Last Friday, I took off for the day to take Kate to Kindergarten Orientation at Roberts.  She was so excited but a little overwhelmed at first.  We met in the cafeteria and as soon as we walked in, there were a couple groups of students getting ready to leave for a field trip in addition to all the Kindergarten parents and students.  Kate immediately asked me in awe, "Do all these kids go to Roberts?" Shortly after we got there, we saw Nolan and Mrs. Amanda - the only other people we knew.  I was surprised I didn't recognize more families but I guess I'll be meeting lots of new parents in the next year.

 

Waiting for Orientation to begin.  We were in the pink fox group. 

Kate and Nolan checking out one of the classrooms.  Kate told me after we walked in the first class, "I think I'm going to like this place".   

Nolan and Kate. :)

After a brief introduction, we took a tour of the school.  We went to all six Kindergarten classes, the Media Center, the Front Office, passed the Art Room and Music Room (but only peaked inside) and then ended the tour on the Kindergarten Playground for cookies and juice.  While we were there, I dropped off Kate's registration packet so we are official!

 

After our busy morning, I took Kate to lunch at Red Elephant, we did some shopping, and then we took a tour of Killearn United Methodist Daycare.  I think Kate will end up going there but we are going to tour one more place before we decide. I'm more confident with my decisions when I have something to compare to. After the tour, I took her for ice cream at Sweet Frog.  I love that it's a Christian company - FROG stands for "Fully Rely on God". Great motto!

 Posing in front of the sign with the white frog...Kate loves to "pet" the frog any time we are there.

Perfect day for ice cream! 

It was a busy day and she was wiped out before we got home.  She's ready for Kindergarten now!