Happy 3rd Birthday, Junie!

HOW!? How in the world is our little girl three years old already. Life's crazy, I'll tell ya what.

I knew June's party would be something simple and small this year, since I'd just had Sunny only 4 weeks prior. Pretty proud of myself for being realistic and not staying up late to make unicorn cupcakes or a giant balloon arch. When my Mom asked what the party theme was, I said "sprinkles, sparkles and whatever else is in my basement." 

And you know what, it was perfect. June loved it. One of her only birthday requests was to eat a pink cake, so I made pink cupcakes with pink icing and she topped them all with sprinkles. So. Many. Sprinkles. They ended up being very crunchy cupcakes -- mmm... crunchcakes. But, boy was she proud of them! You can watch the very short video of her decorating them at the bottom of this post. And make sure you're sound is on, because at the end she thanks us, all on her own, and it's too much for my Mom heart to handle!

P.S. We're currently in the process of growing out her bangs, so don't judge my parenting or hairstyle choices. 

Three of June's little friends came over on a Saturday morning to celebrate her birthday -- Clara, Kendall and Pearl. (Gray was along for the ride too. Poor guy, always surrounded by girls!)

After June had quite the meltdown upon everyone arriving (#sharingishard), she got herself together and the girls enjoyed a little lunch, followed by a song and dance recital on top of the table I hoped they'd eat at, but was instead used as a stage to display their many talents. Us Moms sat down and ate a real lunch! And had adult conversations! With words!

June's friends know her well, because her gifts included a hot pink sparkly dress, two purses, chapstick, a homemade necklace, a bracelet, and a sparkly stuffed unicorn. Sometimes I just laugh out loud at how much June loves such girly, sparkly things. I am so interested to see if Sunny is naturally the same way, or if she's totally different!?!

After June finished opening her gifts, T.J. played the "Ladies & Gentleman Game" with them, which is where they all hide around the corner in the kitchen and then one at a time T.J. announces them into the other room --- "Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls... please welcome... Juuuuuuuuune!" 😂 June loves this game with her whole heart, and clearly was feeling very cool at her party while they played it. Just look at the pose she struck when she was announced, while already wearing her new purse and jewelry, mind you!

After eating cupcakes, playing with the tissue paper from the gifts, and bouncing around all of the balloons, it was time for everyone to go home. It was a very simple little party, but June still talks about it, which is all I could hope for. In fact, the other day while in the bathtub she said "Hey Mom, renember when my friends came to my house? Yeah... that was amazing."

Happy 3rd Birthday June Bug! We love you more than you'll ever know. 

Tiny Town for Pearl's 2nd Birthday!

June and I got to tag along to Tiny Town for my niece Pearl's 2nd Birthday last week, and although I'd seen pictures of Tiny Town online, we'd never been! So, both June and I were excited to go when Aunt KiKi invited us!

As you can tell, it's exactly what it sounds like! A tiny town for kids to play in, with a doctor's office, mechanic's garage, grocery store, diner, hair dressed, library and more! June just kept walking around pointing at things and saying "It's so little!"

Other than both Pearl and June having a few meltdowns due to having to share certain rooms with other kids 😂, it was a super fun time and they both loved it! We will definitely go back again. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Pearl! We love you!

Junie the Unicorn

There's something ironic and hysterical about having to bribe your 2.5 year old with candy to put on her Halloween costume... so she can go out and collect even more candy from strangers. 😂 June dressed up as a Unicorn this year (again, thanks to Target), and we got the entire costume on sans wings with little to no tears. Ha ha ha! We weren't kidding when we said we bought it a month in advance so she could warm up to the idea.

June was equally excited about her $2 pumpkin bucket, which she's still carrying around the house to collect all sorts of trinkets, toys, and candy wrappers.

It was a year ago to the day that I posed about June being a Kangaroo for Halloween 2016. Look how little she is in those photos!!! Both her and Clara, her neighborhood BFF, are so small!

They were so excited to see each other this year it was precious. June kept saying "What you wearing?" And Clara would reply "I Poppy." Over, and over, and over... 

My brother Taylor, and his family, joined us for Trick-or-Treating this year in Manheim, since our street is easy to walk around and everyone participates. Pearl fell asleep in the car on the way to our house and was OUT. Like, they couldn't even get her to stand up she was sleeping so hard. 😂 Eventually she woke up and got the hang of things. 

The kids went to about 10 houses or so, and then we were done. It was getting dark so quickly, and quite cold. But June was pummmped up about her candy and all the other kid's costumes. She's still talking about the "scary ones"... 

As always, we're already looking forward to next year--- especailyl cause we'll have a new little lady to dress up in a costume, too!

Donuts

Clara, June's neighborhood BFF, turned two last month and had the sweetest little 2nd birthday party in a local park. June picked out a dress for Clara at Target as her gift. 😂 And basically sprinted into the party to give it to her.

On a more important note though, have y'all ever had Duck Donuts? Holy cow... there's nothing like it. Funny, the bacon one and oreo ones are my favorites, and somehow those just happened to end up in my photo. #pregnantbrookelikesdonuts

Our friends also announced the gender of their Baby #2 - arriving December/Jan 2017 for them! It's a BOY! So fun. June and Clara are six months apart, but our next two littles will only be like three weeks apart!

The donut pinata was hysterical. As expected, June didn't want to participate, but once the rush of kids for the candy had slowed down, she jumped in with her bag and filled it up. I can't even handle the photo of her below where she's got her hand to her head and looks overwhelmed by the kids. HAHAHAHAHAH! Junie, this is how I feel at every networking event ever, as an adult.

I mean seriously, look at her. 

It's parties like this one that make me wish my kid(s) had summer birthdays! Someday I'll have to have a 1/2 Birthday Party for June at the end of the summer.

Saranoni Blanket Giveaway!

I normally shy away from giveaway posts, but when I got a message from Saranoni about doing one with them, I literally couldn't email them back fast enough to say "Yes! Count me in!" Two years ago, Saranoni kindly sent us a blanket for June not long after she was born. I had never heard of Saranoni at the time, but happily said yes and thought "luxury blanket? Sure!" Little did I know June would declare that blanket as her blankie - the one we take everrrrrywhere!

I did not know that luxury blankets were even a thing, but holy cow -- they are. We now have four of them in four different sizes (XL, Teen, Receiving + Mini), and June insists we lay all of them down on the floor whenever she plays with her toys. Sometimes she'll just swirl around on them and go "oooooo" for like 10 minutes... and I don't blame her. I wanna do the same thing!  😂

I'm giving away a $75 gift card to their shop on my Instagram -- @brookecourtney. Head over there to enter the giveaway!

Last week June realized that her kitty cat piano has a microphone that actually works. Which has lead to lots of singing realllllly hard and loud into the mic - yelling the names of everyone she knows, much like a hardcore singer. "Miiii-miiiiii. Clarrrrrrr-ahhhhhh.... Moummmmm-mmmmmmaaaaa."

The Eggplant Lush/Charcoal Lush XL is what's featured below!

June has slept with her little tan blanket since the day she received it, and now has a little "mini" version for her Baby. Every night when we tuck June into bed we have the routine of "June gets a blankie. Baby gets a blankie. June gets a lovey. Baby gets a lovey." It's the sweetest thing! She gets all excited and wiggley every time we pull blankie out of a bag, or hand it to her when she's sleepy.

We use our larger blankets every single day -- usually for story time. 💕 Also, how many of you feel like all you do is read Dragons Love Tacos? T.J. usually starts to read it the second or third time through in a different voice, just to switch things up, and June is never pleased. She whips around and says "No Dada! No!" (Note: the second image below, where she's giving T.J. the death stare because of his silly reading. 😂)

And with blankets as cozy as these, story time almost always turns into games of peek-a-boo. Which turns into dancing and being silly. When June is silly and declares "I'm funny"... it's just the best -- makes my mom heart soar.

You can enter the giveaway to win a $75 gift card to Saranoni on my Instagram. Have fun and good luck! ✨

ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE!

Thanks for entering!

Junie the Kangaroo

Target does it again. This kangaroo costume is so incredibly cute. And though it took some serious convincing, coupled with a LOT of clapping and praise to get June into it - it was worth it! 😍 T.J. and I helped June get dressed about 30 minutes before the neighborhood trick-or-treating began, and our wonderful neighbors brought out their baskets of candy for June to snack from. Last year, June was only 7 months old at Halloween, so we put her in a cute "Bootiful" onesie, but that was the extent of it. This year though! We were ready! However, in typical fashion, June wasn't sure about it at first..... 😂

It took her a good three minutes to actually shuffle her way over, about four feet in distance, to their candy. And once she finally picked out a piece, THIS was her face. "Don't watch me, OKAY?!"

Oh my word, we were DYING. 😂 Bless her. But, once she realized what was inside the chocolate wrappers, she warmed up quite quickly.

With half a Twix in her system, she was feeling GOOOOOD, and starting sprinting down the sidewalk, kissing her baby-roo on top of the head, and jumping up and down at our request.

Then we crosssed the street to see June's BFF, Clara, who was dressed as a cupcake. The two girls sat on the steps and tugged on one another's costumes, while us adults shoveled pizza into our faces that was just delivered, nice and hot, to the door! #pennstreethalloweentraditions

At one point June popped up from the steps, as if she'd suddenly remembered her costume had a pouch with candy in it. She was so excited she started kissing baby-roo on the head again. 😂

We get a lot of trick-or-treaters on our block (like hundreds), so Junie spent the rest of the night sitting on T.J.'s lap, helping to hand out the candy from our house. She loved seeing everyone's colorful costumes and meeting the little kids. It was such a fun night that we're already looking forward to next year. 😊

A Sink Full of Veggies

With August well underway, our garden is in full swing producing beautiful dahlias and zinnias, plus delicious cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, jalapeños, peppers, onions, potatoes! June loves when I wash off the days fresh veggies in the sink and was begging to stand at the sink and see them when she woke up from her nap the other day.

June quickly learned that those potatoes turn into delicious rosemary fries and holds out the potatoes and goes "friiieshhhh!" She also gathers up the potatoes and sits on the couch with them.. just holding them in her lap. We call them her "couch potatoes." 😂 She also eats the cherry tomatoes right off the vine like little grapes and squints her eyes with delight when the tomato pops in her mouth!

Side note, have you ever planted potatoes before? This was my first year and I loved it! I wish I had done like 5x the amount! They're so good and easy to take care of. Next year I'm definitely going to plant more.

Cat Scratches & Cake Pops

Sweet little June had a rough start to her day. 😂 Not only did she shut her own head in the bathroom door, minutes later one one of our cats scratched her pretty good! Needless to say she was feeling all the feels. I had a long list of things to get at Target and took her with me, where she rode around and pointed to every single "kitttttyy" and "puupppp-pup" on the pet food bags and smacked her lips 400 times while rolling down the cracker and cookie aisle. 😂 After we went through checkout, I got myself a coffee at the Starbucks and purchased her a cake pop to try, hoping it would make her day a little better. And boy did it work! She was pumped up. It was so precious how excited she was about it.

Isn't she so stinking cute! After a few minutes of enjoying her cake pop, she crawled all the way underneath the benches outside of Target, dragging her cake pop along the cement as she went. She was really proud of herself for figuring out she could go underneath the bench.

Headband: Love, Amalie Maren | Ice Cream Cone Tee: Little Babe Designs | Skirt & Shoes: Baby Gap

Rattan Children's Chair for June!

You better believe I just about leapt over all the things in my way when I spotted this amazing children's sized rattan chair in the back corner of a thrift store a few weeks ago. I hadn't been having much luck all day and then bam!, there it was in all it's glory. And only $15 for that matter! I'm certain I would have paid twice as much, but obviously am thrilled that I didn't have to.

I love to thrift all sorts of things, but what I would call "secondary" furniture is always some of my favorite find! Things like end tables, chairs, shelves, plant stands, etc. (That's not to say that you can't thrift something like your couch or bed, but I simply haven't found those worth purchasing.)

I also love that thrifting items allows me to try out new styles and decades for our home. More than once I have thrifted an item that I wasn't totally sure about, ended up loving it, and then we upgraded to something very similar from a newer store - like Ikea, or West Elm or something!

Our front porch is pretty empty right now, minus the house plants I have moved outdoors for the summer, and June's new little chair. Furniture for the entire front porch is currently on my "things to thrift list" and the hunt is going well! Just need to find a few more items and then I'll be able to call it done! (At least for this season.😉 )

Chair - Vintage / June's Headband - Iris & Lark / Plant Stands - Vintage / Garden Boots - Target / Pacifier Clip - Ryan & Rose