Tater Had a Birthday

About a million years ago, right before Christmas, my little guy turned one and we threw him a birthday party. Since we are a home of many, many holiday birthdays, I was told to make it as special and birthday-ish as possible. So we covered the Christmas tree in blue balloons, decorated the entire place with aqua paper lanterns and ate lots and lots of cupcakes. While Tate was particularly impressed with the lit paper lanterns, I sort of think he was more interested in the cake.

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That boy ate so much cake, I thought he was going to vomit all over his presents. The boy can hold some cake though, and all we had to deal with was a blow out diaper the next morning. Well, Trent had to deal with it, I was at work. (Ha.)

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The party was quite well attended by our friends and family, and a full kitchen of people sang to Mr. Tate and watched him open his gifts. He was as spoiled as ever. We even set up a livestream so our many family members and friends throughout the world could watch the party from their homes. Or my sister’s kids could watch the party (which was going on upstairs in person) from my computer. Nerds.

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All in all, it was a good day. I think what I’m learning as I progress as a parent is everything doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be special. Lucy’s first birthday was beautiful, but it was stressful and taxing and I ended up drunk for most of it since I didn’t have time to eat! This time around I really took the time to enjoy Tate and our families that joined us to celebrate our little dude. And let’s face it, I still got a little tipsy. Moms rule.

Merry Everything!

Merry everything, from all of us over at Crazybananas! We hope your holiday is filled with fun and happiness and s’mores, like ours will surely be.

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Xmas Card Back

{The Crazybananas Christmas Card, 2011}

Eye Candy

A while back I posted some photos from our family shoot with Nicole Coleman, but I held back a bunch, since I knew I was going to be using a few for a holiday card and I didn’t want to spoil it! But now the decision has been made, the cards have been printed, and about half have been addressed (my poor, cramped hand), so I figure it’s time to share more of the fun!

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The story behind the shoot is I really wanted to do something fun, easy, and un-posed, since that’s when I feel like my family is at it’s best. We are not supermodels, and with a (then) 10 month old in tow, I knew we’d never get a perfect shot. This summer I had the idea to do something at a county fair, but when the day of the shoot came, it was (not joking) 111 degrees. So, yeah. That was cancelled.

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At the time, we decided the best course of action was to wait until the weather got a bit cooler and reschedule the shoot. Then we both promptly forgot about it, due to our girls starting kindergarten, our lives going bananas, et cetera. We finally put a date on the calendar for October, and I told Nicole I’d find a fun place to do it.

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I have no idea why I thought of Worlds of Fun. Those of you not from Kansas City have no idea what you are missing. Worlds of Fun is sort of like Six Flags, but smaller and dirtier. And smellier. But it’s a place I adored as a kid, I begged my parents to spend every birthday there, so I thought it might work.

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[Ed. Note: To fully understand the grossness of Worlds of Fun, you’d have to see an after photo of my shoes at the end of the day. They went from yellow to black.]

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I did not, however, account for the fact that come October, Worlds of Fun is basically the Kansas City headquarters for Halloween, complete with some of the scariest haunted houses in town. The entire park was filled with skeletons hanging from trees, scary music blaring through the speakers, and there was more than one coffin in attendance.

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Mom, is that a ghost?

It is a testament to Nicole’s skill that you can’t tell any of this was going on in the photos. She captured exactly what I wanted. My family, being their awesome selves. I look at these pictures and I see the story of us.

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And of course, Nicole was kind enough to attempt a posed photo as well. She is awesome.

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P.S. Our Christmas card photo isn’t posted here, but it was also sort of posed and is awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Awesome. And once I get those suckers in the mail, I’ll post it here. Pinky swear.

Pin That

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Are you on Pinterest? I know, just we we all need, right? ANOTHER social network. But my bud Mikayla insisted I should try it before I knock it, and as always, she was right. I don’t have enough time to use it the way I want, and believe me it is a major time suck, but I’ve found it to be awesome for remembering where I find outstanding ideas on the web. You can follow me on Pinterest here, and you totally should.

P.S. Anyone on Instagram? I’m not using it too much, since I’m iPhone-less (sidenote: waahhhhh!), but if you want to follow me over there, my handle is crazy_bananas. Do it.

Family Photos – A Sneak Peek

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A few weeks back my lovely friend Nicole took some photos of our little family at a local amusement park. Nicole is in the midst of a major brand relaunch and we were lucky enough to serve as “test subjects” for her. The entire shoot was done solely on film instead of digital, and I think the look is just gorgeous.

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Part of the idea behind the new brand is that Nicole will be capturing images from the real lives of families. Of course we took a few posed shots, but for the most part, Nicole just hung out with us, her trusty camera capturing exactly who we are as a family. I couldn’t be happier with the result and I can’t wait to show more!

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If you are looking for an incredible experience and want to capture more than just your average family photos, I highly recommend Nicole. You’d better believe when the new brand goes live, I’m going to be all over it!

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