Happy First Birthday, Tucker!

One year ago, today, we welcomed Mr. Tucker Williams Spear into this world!  We had a home birth, which was an absolutely amazing experience.  I won't go back over that, because I already blogged about it here.  But I did make a slideshow with pictures from the birth.  Check it out, if you're interested!


Tucker's Home Birth - One Year Ago from Kelly Spear on Vimeo.

We had his party on Saturday with just family.  It was yet another pizza party, but this time it was slightly different.  I'm doing a Paleo challenge with my CrossFit Box (not sure what Paleo is?  Read up!)  The best way to sum up Paleo - eat as many meats and veggies as you want.  Fruit, nuts, and seeds in moderation.  Everything else is a big NO!  That means NO dairy, NO sugar, NO grains, NO beans, NO legumes!  Pizza and cake?  Definitely out!  So, while everyone said this was the best pizza we ever made, and we get better at making pizza every time (one of these days I'll do a blog post about how I do my pizzas - maybe after I'm done with this Challenge), and the cake was so delicious, yadda, yadda, yadda, I was not enjoying any of it.  It actually kind of sucked!  I may have been a little grumpy at the party.  Just a little.  I really, really love pizza, and I really, really love cake.  It was crazy hard for me to not just give in and eat some!

However, it was a great party!  We just absolutely love being able to have family over and enjoy each other's company.  Here's some pictures...

Tucker loved his presents, and his cake (I made the A-Number-1 Banana Cake that I made for Kendall's 2nd birthday, substituting chocolate chips for the walnuts), and he had pizza for the first time!  Not just the crust, but the whole thing!  We've been so blessed to have Tucker in our lives.  Literally almost every day, the girls tell me how much they love having a little brother - usually they say "silly little brother."  And I'm sure if he could talk, he would say how much he loves having two silly big sisters.  He's walking, but still prefers to crawl.  Usually, he'll walk a few steps, then give up and speed crawl to wherever he's trying to go.  I'm calling it early that he'll have some sort of musical abilities as he gets older - he loves to dance, sing, and drum!  He's a funny, sweet little boy, and we all enjoy him so much!

Cami Turns 3!

Back in October, we celebrated Cami's 3rd Birthday!  She requested a My Little Pony theme, with a chocolate cake, so that's what she got!  As usual, we had the family over (my parents, Grant's parents, and my brother and his wife - Tony and Meredeth) for pizza in our brick oven.  It's always a good time!

We missed the rest of our families that are out of town, but we did Skype with John and Sarah, and they told us their big news, which is that they're expecting their first child!  We were all pretty excited to find out.

And just because Tucker wasn't really in any of those pictures, here's a cute one that was taken of him earlier that day.

I would say that Cami really enjoyed her little party!

In her three short years on this earth, she has brought us countless hours of entertainment and laughs.  She's really a joy to be around, and her imagination is off the charts!  She can play "make believe" anywhere, anytime, with anything.  One of her favorite things to do is to make finger people.  She just imagines her fingers are people, and she takes those people on adventures throughout the universe.  Usually, if she sees that we're watching or listening, she'll get embarrassed and stop, so I try to be covert in my eaves-dropping.  Really, I'm just amazed by it all, because I never had an imagination quite like that, so it intrigues me.  The word I always use to describe her is precious.  Because that's just what she is!

Cami has followed her big sister's footsteps this year and has been taking dance (tap and ballet), which really suits her.  She's naturally very graceful and coordinated, so she's loved being a student at "Miss Katherine's."  Having both the girls in a dance recital in June is sure to be cuteness overload!

Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday!

Wow - what a whirlwind this past week has been!  First, my sister and her family came in from Charleston.  They stayed with us Wednesday night before heading over to my mom's house on Thursday.  On Friday, we drove over to Pensacola to hang out with family, and attend the annual "The Night Before The Night Before" Christmas party, hosted by someone from the church Grant grew up in.  Saturday, we did Christmas with my side of the family, before coming back to our house the night of Christmas Eve.

That night, I wrapped presents, filled the stockings, and Grant put together bikes for the girls.  I'm not gonna lie, I was so wiped out that I would wrap a few presents then try to take little cat naps.  Grant ended up wrapping the last few presents after assembling the bikes.

Sunday morning, we couldn't wait to hear the girls reactions when they got up and saw all the presents and the stockings.  They did not disappoint!  They were so excited, but since Christmas fell on Sunday this year, we decided to just have them open their stockings first, and then we'd get ready for church.  And yes, I am that mom that puts new toothbrushes in stockings.  At their age, they get excited about anything!

Oh, we did let them open their birthday gifts from Uncle John and Aunt Sarah. 

Surprisingly, they handled not opening the rest of their presents really well.  They played with their new easel, which was already set up and not wrapped, and the swings that Grant had just put up, and they were perfectly content.

We eventually got ready for church.  Aren't they pretty?

When we got back from church, we still weren't going to open presents, because Grant's parents were coming over later.  So I got some lunch ready and Grant was eager to get the girls on their new bikes.  This picture was taken moments before Cami fell.  Don't worry, her face broke her fall, as you'll see in later pictures.

We ate, they took naps, Grant's parents came over, so it was finally time to open all those presents! 

The day after Christmas was Kendall's party day.  She had been a little confused about when exactly she turned 4.  Periodically on Christmas Day we'd mention it, and she'd say, "I'm not 4, I'm still 3!"  So we explained that her birthday was on Christmas, but her party was the day after.  She still struggled a bit with that concept.  Regardless, when she got up on Monday, she knew she was 4.  She was pretty eager to help me with her cake, so she did.  And like all good helpers, she got the reward of licking the spoon!

It was finally time for the party.  It was pretty similar to Cami's - just family, plus one other family, who have been friends of the Spear's for years.  Grant's been working on a tree house in the backyard for a while, and while it's still not totally finished, he got it to the point that the kids could play in it.  That was definitely a highlight for the kids, I'd say...

This time, my mom helped me with the pizzas.  She was in charge of the dough, and I did the toppings.  As you can see, she was feeling her inner pizza-maker.  And she also had a little help from Cami.

Once everyone had their fill of pizza, it was time to open presents (third day in a row of presents - Oy!)...

Then it was time for that cake Kendall helped me make earlier that day!  Kendall had asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles, so that's what she got.  I used this recipe, by the way, and it was pretty amazing. 

Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, she had a Hello Kitty themed party.  We forgot to get a picture of the decorations, so we got one after the party, when she was wearing her beloved Hello Kitty nightgown (thanks, Michelle!). 

We've had a great last few days, but I'm kinda glad it's all over - I'm pretty worn out!  Now I should be able to focus on getting everything ready for the baby.