The McMahon Family

I slipped away for the weekend to go to the mom’s conference Hearts at Home.  I was sooo ready to not only spend time with the besties, but also meet Michelle Duggar!  I’m a huge fan and really appreciate and respect the stance their family has taken for God.  They make no apologies for living the way they feel led to live, whether the rest of us agree or not.  So anyway, without debating or even agreeing with everything they choose, I support them and wanted to meet them!  Shannon sent me off with permission to get the book and instructions to get an autograph and picture with Michelle.   I was happy to oblige!

To my great surprise, Jim Bob was there, too!

Friday night, I went to the Duggars’ table and saw that Jim Bob was there alone signing autographs and only three people in line!  I hurried over and immediately he looked at us and said, “I’m so sorry, I have to go.  I need to go meet my wife.  I’ll be back tomorrow!”  So we walked away.  But I talked to Jim Bob! 🙂  And he’s not as tall as I thought.  Michelle must be really short!

There was a bit of a line to meet her.

Rachel practicing using my camera

I have the best friends ever.  Rachel and Kristen both waited the two hours in line with me.  Neither had any desire to meet the Duggars, but understood my desire. 🙂  Thanks, girls!  While waiting in line we heard that JoyAnna and Jim Bob were there.  Then after a couple hours, we heard they left.  No wonder!  It was taking forever.  But finally…

She was sitting the whole time, so I couldn’t see how short she is.  But even sitting, she seems quite short!

Patrick is four! Nicki said to me, isn’t it weird we’ll never do another four year old party?  It is! It’s so strange that our babies are growing up and soon no more little kid things.  It’s great on one hand, but I can see the ‘weirdness’ of it.  Of time going way faster than I thought it could……Okay, enough of that! Snap out of it!  On to the fun of the party and celebrating my baby.

I'm especially proud of my hand made tags!

His DS

Lots of fun Lego sets

And my baby is four...wow.

I love birthday themes.  They show what my kids are into at that point in time and it’s fun to look back and see what they liked (when they’re older, not like next year 🙂 ).  With Patrick being only three, he didn’t really know how to choose.  He would always just tell me that he wanted the same party as his brother.  So I thought about it and he loves technology.  A lot.  He loves the DS, iPhones, iPad…I mean really loves them; but he also loves the Lego people.  He will collect them all from the Lego bin, play with them, look at them in the Lego book he got for Christmas…Both seemed fun!  So it came down to the cake.  Which would be easier to make order…Lego or iPad. I can’t stand the P word buzzing around online, but I heard there were tons of great ideas for Lego parties and cakes on Pinterest, so I checked it out.  I still don’t have an account, (trying to boycott that as long as possible…I mean I just don’t see the point of ‘pinning’ ideas virtually.  Isn’t that the same as bookmarking sites? Whatever)  Anyway, back to my point.  I don’t have an account, but I did search and found some great ideas.  There were a ton of great Lego cakes out there.  Emily did a fabulous job! (Insert commercial:  If you are like me and need someone to do all your baking, she’s your woman! sweetcakesandbakes.blogspot.com) I also found the adorable party favor bags.  I filled them with color sheets from Lego’s site, Lego man stickers and Lego man crayons I found online.  The tags were a little time consuming, but sooo fun that I had to do them.  So those were a few of my great theme ideas.

The crayons

When Mac turned four, I taped him opening his present from us.  It’s one of my favorite videos to watch. So I made it a point to tape Patrick opening his present at four also, just to see the differences/similarities in them at that age.  I have to say that Mac still seemed like the ‘older soul’ of the two.  Just for fun, I put them together in a video.  First up is Mac.  Notice how he takes his time opening it.  Then he looks at it and discusses it.  Then Patrick’s turn.  He tears open and rushes to get it opened right away.  So showing of their personalities! 🙂

[qt:/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Presents.mov 480 272]

You can see all the fun in the birthday photo album.

Tucked in Mac’s backpack today was this note.

🙂

Helping Grandpa around the yard.

And then playing a little.

And then Patrick and Mac ruined my  favorite beautiful tree stump by picking the bark off.

With so much excitement I could hardly take it, I grabbed my Cubs bear and headed to my picnic with Mac.  When we arrived each student was sharing their bear with the class and explaining why it was special.  Mac chose the bear Daddy bought him for Valentine’s day this year.  Once they were done, we found each other and Mac was to show me each station with our bears.  The teacher asked if we could take a little boy with us whose mother couldn’t make it.  I thought, what a great idea and was pleased to say yes.  My enthusiasm for that one dipped a little when the little boy we were paired with was constantly in my face or poking me on the shoulder saying, “Look at mine! Look at mine!”  I tried to be gracious and remind myself that he was with us because his mom had to work.  Be kind. It isn’t his fault.  But man, that was hard! All I wanted to do was snuggle close to Mac and talk about each station as all the other moms were doing with their little ones.  But we made it.  And we had a blast.  Here is a visual walk through of our hour there.

First up, read a book to your bear.

Write a story about you and your bear.

Then we enjoyed a beary good cupcake.

After our snack, we were off to become bears by making bear ears.

Can't really see the ears, but who cares with a boy like that wearing them. 🙂 Adorable.

We drew bears following the directions and colored them in.

And we snuck in a pic of just us!

We think our bears had a great time.

It was so great to see Mac in his classroom and interacting with the other students.  Of course, he’s been moved to a table of all girls so that his attention can be directed more to school work only and not socializing with the boys…but you know him, ever the optimist.  He’s enjoying sitting with girls, ’cause they’re my friends, too’.  🙂