Gray & Jak: I'm not really a planner.

My dear family, we are not planners. It just isn't one of our strong suits. For the most part it worked for my parents. Big things like vacations were usually put on the calendar (or not), but all the details waited until the last minute. Stress and arguing would ensue, but for the most part we were flexible and what happened happened.

(FaceTiming Poppa.)

(Patiently waiting on his birthday cake.)

Well, I grew up and moved out. I got married and started my family only to realize that that characteristic seems to have followed me. I think more than that I've realized just what goes into planning a big event or vacation. It's not easy. My mom only did "big" birthdays when we turned 5, 13, and 16 and I can see why. It's a lot of work and truly quite time consuming.

Unfortunately for me, I love parties. More so I just love celebrating people and having an excuse to get together. I also love the creativeness involved. I enjoy making everything look cute and put together. Giving a concept life really makes my heart sing.

(He blew it out on the first try a big difference from last year, ha!)

(The candle was his favorite part, he spend 10 min trying to make it stand in his little piece of cake.)

It becomes complicated because I still waffle between planner extraordinaire and planner terrible (read that word in Spanish, it flows better)/awful procrastinator. I am definitely more so that latter than the former. When it gets down to the wire the struggle is real folks and so I'm trying to get better at having my stuff to together. I've come to understand it's going to take time. I'm learning you can't overcome lifelong habits all at once.

(I loved the way his cake turned out, pretty simple and super tasty!)

It all started two weeks before Tobias turned two. I finally decide to throw a party! But of course, the day before his birthday I think "we must celebrate on his actual day too!" I was a mess trying to get things together last minute. Multiple trips to the store, an extremely late night, you name it. It was all unnecessary and I totally did it to myself. Auntie Cesca was able to enjoy this celebration with us and it truly was the cutest thing to watch him blow out his candle and revel in all the attention.

(Books and CD's and other fun things from Nanny.)

(His first lego set, an airplane.)

(We FaceTimed Nanny so she could watch him open her gift!)

(My parents bought him a CD player to go along with what Nanny got him,

he loves it, especially the volume button ... my little rock star.)

(Gray and I got him a play do set, a huge hit.)

(A few pictures of the cute chunker just because.)

So again, the crazy started two weeks before his birthday when I finally decided to throw a party. At that point I was kicking myself for not planning something sooner. I find that once something makes it on the calendar all of a sudden every day leading up to it becomes filled with other random important activities! Does this happen to anyone else?

(I did the same cake for his party just added a splash!)

In the end I kept it small and low key. I invited my two closest friends and their kiddos. The theme was a Splashin' Birthday Bash. We had fried chicken and biscuits, mac n' cheese, baked beans and green beans. It was very yummy. I opted for cake pops instead of cutting the cake and they were a huge hit. The kids ran between the sprinkler and the kitty pool. They squirted water guns and then broke all the water balloons in two seconds flat. Tobias had so much fun. It was a win and I'm glad I did it.

(All of his closest friends; it will be fun to see if anything will change and if they grow up together.)

(Lauren and I had a pretty good game of water balloon toss going

before we got upstaged by Gray and John.)

All that to say, I may not have come from a family of planners and most days it shows. I am determined to get better. I don't have to follow in their footsteps, I can be on top of things ... maybe (ha). We should probably wait to see how next year goes.