Tea Time with Gracie Girl

It is with many pink and sparkly smiley faces that I have the pleasure of announcing that our Gracie girl is now 4 years of age! Our lil' chatter box has been talking about her birthday for the past 365 days, give or take a few, so we were all more than ready to celebrate when the day came. 

Da Gracie girl woke up to a decorated breakfast nook, then breakfast of her choice- Matt's famous egg n' a holes, affirmations from all of us, and a treasure hunt of gifts to find and open. 

*Sigh* The sleepy eyed look gets me every time. 

After her morning bliss it was on to her Princess Tea Party that I have been thinking about doing since ~oh I dunno know~ she was practically born! Four of her lil' friends and their moms joined us for this special tea party, in which I happily googled, planned, and shopped for weeks in order to create a most perfectly pink and girly atmosphere. When Grace walked in the doors to her party she was left speechless (*ahem* an extremely rare occasion) and just walked around looking and gawking at everything. In that moment the short 4 hours of sleep that I got the night before made it all worth it. 

A huge thanks to my mom who hosted the party at her beautiful home, cooked and decorated with me until 1 am and then was up and at em' an hour and half before all the girls and moms got there. Thanks mom!

Now onto an overload of photos, because I don't want to forget anything and because I have no sense of restraint when it comes to posting pics. 

Some Grammy love. 

Besties.

Cooking decorating. 

Necklace Making.

Tea Cup Painting. 

Cousin Mia. 

Dress Up Relay. 

Happy birthday, sweet Grace. 

Our family would not be the same without you. Your laughter, never ending talking, and dancing brighten all of our lives every single day!

In the Still of the Night

Most mornings when the clock screams 7am and the boys are bouncing by my bedside ready to go for the day, I groan to myself saying: Why, oh why, do I stay up so late? But... then the day goes by, tickety toc, and night comes back around and once again I am up til 2am.  I like to blame my unbreakable cycle on Hopie girl, because hey I wake her up to do her last feeding between 12 and 1am, so really I just can't go to bed before 2, right? 

The culprit of my late nights. 

Actually, it is probably this little 3 year old chica who is to blame for my need to chilllllll into the wee hours of the night, so that I can gear up for the next day of her constant at-ti-tude. 

When I am pregnant (which seriously seems like the last 20 years of my life) I go to bed at 7:27pm every.single.night for nine months straight. Yea, I am just heaps of fun for my dear husband! So, when I am not pregnant, thus not sick and tired ALL of the time, I love the mere fact that I can stay up if I want to. I also love the fact that I can just get some plain ol' sh*t done. (Sorry for the random cursing. It just feels damn good to put it out there. I still love Jesus. Promise.)  If you were a fly on my wall from the hours of 10pm to 1:30am, what would ya see me doing? Actually, a better question might be what would you not see me doing? I clean up the home front (which takes a solid hour and a half on a good night), scrub the floors, paint my stubs/nails, make dents in the laundry pile, pound away on this here computer, organize the pantry, workout to a dvd, watch movies with Matt, watch whatever show I am addicted to at the given moment, eat me some popcorn, munch on handfuls of semi sweet chocolate chips, and of course nurse da Hopie girl, which is why I am up anyways (haha!). I have been trying to go bed earlier, (my fingers crossed just a little bit), but it is just so dang hard. I love the quiet, hangin with my love or chilling by myself. No one wakes up and more importantly no one is asking me for an-y-thing.  So really, what can I say except that it is just so plain nice to stay up late. But, holy momma can I pay for it some mornings... But, in the still of the night (like right this second) it's all worth it. 

7 Quick Takes

Joining Jen@ Conversion Diaries and the whole gang for a round of 7 Quick Takes!

1. I just found a 3 week old draft of 7 quick takes in my archive of posts. I thought that I had published this bad boy, but somehow forgot. This "thinking I have done something but not actually doing it" happens to me ALL of dee time. Like take for instance texting. I always think I have texted someone back, because in my head I do and I say things so perfectly there (in mi head). But in reality nothing ever hits my phone in the form of a text. Same goes for emails and calling people back. Literally, I have conversations with people in my head and think that they actually happened. So with that being said, I am doing a group apology right now to all of you who are the victims of my careless and blondish ways. I am sorry and I love you.

Back to quick takes. So, I will be including old and new takes, because I could never let precious pics and captions go to waste.

HereWeGo...

2. We are so blessed here at Team Boda for all of the holy people that we know and who brave a visit with us! Father Isaac, Matt's bestest friend, came to visit us, which is one of our kids (and Matt and I) fav visitors! Father Isaac is a CFR Friar and he is nothing but inspiring with the way in which he lives for God, serves the poor, and is just so "real" while being so holy. Father Isaac writes for the CFR Blog too, so CHECK IT OUT.

I couldn't get Grace to stop sticking her tongue out. 

3. I took these 8 months pics of Hope late and once again I am late with the 9month pics. I am just a little slow with the sticker picture thingy. Better slow than whatever.

She really is the sweetest babe ever. 

4. My mom helped me pack up the rest of our Sailfish home, so I made her be in the shoot too.

I hope that I inherit my mom's "young genes". 

5. I had the best photo idea this morning and stewed on it for over an hour trying to figure out the best moment to present it to the kids. My idea: I wanted to snap a pic of all the kids holding signs telling their age. Fabulous, oh-so original idea, right?! Great in my head, but to get all 4 kids to cooperate-- not so good. To say the least, it was a quantum fail.

Even my dear instagram could not help me out. 

I did manage to snap a cute one of Hopie girl though. And as usual she has been the best behaved all day.

I got this one too. 

6. So, like a month ago our car stalled in the middle of the road (aka: we ran out of gas like a mile from our house). How do you run out of gas this day in age when there is a gas station on each and every corner, I do not know, but embarrassingly enough we did. The only non logical explanation I have for this very stupid stupid mishap is that my name is Kristin Loboda and the 3 bigger kids were with my parents while Matt and I were taking breakfast date/break from packing the house with Hopie girl and we must have been so googly eyed at each other with no whiny kid distractions that we just didn't notice the neon yellow light screaming NO GAS.

I shall continue... so our car stalls and we put our flashers on and cross the street. We begin flagging people as they drive by, so that they know to slow down and go around our car. Like so in the picture below.

Well, one guy was texting and never even saw us on the side of the road or our van stopped dead on the road.

And *Boom* *Crash*

The first word out of my mouth was a looooudd curse word of the worst kind, scandalizing the ears of our innocent lil babe and shocking my dear husband. And thus showing even demonstrating more my desperate need for prayers from friends and strangers alike.

The texting guy was fine, just looking for his phone when he got out of his truck, but our car was totaled.

So, the moral of this story is DO NOT text and drive. EVER. And do not run out of gas in the middle of the road.

7. Jen put a challenge out there to blog every day for the next week and funny enough Matt has been challenging me to do a 30 day in a row blogging run. Would anyone actually want to read everyday for 30 days. Probably not, but I think (still just a think) I am going to try it. Don't worry I will let you know via FB and I will completely understand if you de-friend me during my 30 day blogging fest.

7.5. Does anyone else have a child who insists on looking like Rambo everysingleday??

7 Quick Takers

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary and all the other 7 quick takers again!

~1~ 

CrossFit day 3 done. 

I'm still walking, a good sign. 

This mamma is happily sore and now knows what a burpee is, which should be renamed as the move that will kill you (literally) if you do 30 in a row.

~2~

Like usual, my husband has been amazing this week. He watched the kids 3 mornings in a row while I was sweating away at the gym. Thank you my dear Matthew for being committed to getting my abs back. They (my abs) will never forget your kindness as they are being tortured to and fro.

~3~

It's our nephew Ziggy's 5th birthday weekend. Check out this cutie patootie. Nate and Katrin generously watched our 3 biggers last night so that they were able to celebrate today at his party. This meant that Matt I were home alone with just baby Hope and oh the fun we had! 

But I do have to say that it is nice to have all 4 home and snug in their beds tonight.

Ziggy and Isaac are 2 peas in a pod. 

~4~

We celebrated Gracie girl's birthday this past weekend, so of course a photo shoot was due for our little diva. Here's to hoping that by her 4th birthday she will be fully potty trained.

~5~

Hopie girl is 7 months old. She is almost into a full blown crawl, but still trying to master her sitting up skills. We just can't get enough of this little girly. I am sure you can see why! 

~6~

I am slowly unfolding the Instagram App. I started a profile under Teamboda. Let me know if you think I should start posting to it. It looks like a lot of fun, but a teeny bit addicting.

~7~

I am bound and determined to learn how to french braid my girls hair. This was my first attempt on the Gracie girl. I need a LOT of practice, but she thought it was "cute Momma".

Love and prayers to you all!!

Happy Birthday, Gracie Girl

Our Gracie Ann is 3 today. Hip hip horray!

We celebrated yesterday with lots of princesses, makeup, dress up and dolls - all per Gracie girl's request.

Before I tell you all how much we love and adore our Grace, I must make a slight interlude.

It is a simple fact that Matt and I love throwing parties. For us there is nothing better than having friends and family over with good food, good booze, and good company. But most times when we are cleaning, cooking, and trying to corral our 4 kiddos in the hours pre-party, we feel like we have gone and shot ourselves in the foot (literally, we are both in pain) for planning such a big shindig and if we were mic'd you would most likely hear many a unpleasant words under our breath. This angst always goes away as soon as our guests arrive, which then we experience true party bliss, lasting until everyone goes home and we throw the kids in bed. Even our 2 hour clean up seems to be done happily (tiredly, but happy none the less). So what I am trying to say is that our party bliss/high covers a multiple of sins from our pre-game, which seems to make it all worth it, hence how we continue to throw the big digs over and over again. (And for some reason my typing fingers just had to let you into this interlude of thought.)

But this time for Grace's party we kept it to family. And let me tell you it was the same type of bliss without the pre-game pain! We had so much fun just chillin' with our family and were SO blessed that they made the trip down.

We started the morning off with Grace in her bday crown while having a tea party and pancakes.

Later in the day my family made the 2 1/2 hour trip for the parTAY. Grace was tickled pink to have Mia, Ziggy, Aunt Mag, Grammy, Jaja, Emily and Uncle Michael here.

My dad playing football with all the kids! 

It is a crazy thing to see your kids get bigger. I can't tell you how many times a month I hear from every stranger and friend alike: "This time with your little ones will go by quickly, so make sure you enjoy them while they are young." And yes, I totally get what they are saying, because it seems like just yesterday I had Grace right next to me in the co-sleeper nursing all night long, but in the same breath it really does feel like 3 years have gone by. And I am so glad that I have experienced the beautiful gift of HER everyday.

Grace is our little girl who is so full of life that she shines. She keeps us laughing and dancing day and night and she loves her brothers and sister to the ends of the earth. God has blessed us with the gift of her life and we are so thankful to call her our daughter.

Gracie girl, we pray that you always stay close to Jesus and Mother Mary and that your life continues to bring joy to all who are around you.  We love you baby girl.

Do you think they look alike?