Love Month

This weekend we had beautiful weather and while Jack was washing the car and Elliot playing in the garage, I decided to clean out some of the remaining boxes from our move, three years ago. Better late than never right?

I was going through this one box where I had things that were from when I lived at home with my parents and found so many memories. I have kept every single card, note and letter that Jack has ever given me in the almost nine years we have been together which is a lot of stuff, and it brought back so many amazing memories. The first Valentine's card, first birthday card, love letters where he expressed his feelings in ways that made my heart skip a beat. He wrote "I can't wait to marry you!" a lot and "I love you more than I can say!" I've always loved his handwriting too!





We used to write love letters to each other back then saying how much we loved each other, before we got married and how we couldn't wait to be married and start that part of our lives. We also had the letters that mentioned we had had a fight, but how that didn't make him feel any different about us. I felt all of the feelings when reading them and I saved some so that Jack and I could open them together again and read what he wrote years ago. We laughed about what he wrote with a knot in our throats remembering those times saying "remember this? I remember that time!"

Going through that box was a great reminder that now all those years later, we still feel the same if not more in love with each other as we have gone through marriage, parenthood, the stresses of life, of owning a house, having bills to pay, and car payments, and the many things that make marriage so hard and so wonderful at the same time. Sometimes we are going through the days on what seems like fast forward x8 and that is okay because it is part of life, but reading the letters and cards also made me realize that we need to slow down.

They reminded us that no matter what, we have each other's backs just like we did when we met and fell in love. We may not write each other those long love letters as we used to, but we talk to each other and tell each other how we feel. While it's certainly not butterflies and rainbows all of the time, at the end of the day we feel how we felt in those love letters and notes and cards. We are happy and we are pushing through life together, plus there are still love notes that we leave each other in our lunch bags or around the house and those make our marriage and life a lot sweeter.

Enjoy your loved ones everyday, tell them and show them how much you love them this month and everyday! ;)

New Year, New Blog Name

This is my new blog name! It is what my name means and I am so excited to head in a direction towards content related more to what I like and enjoy doing. You'll still read about Elliot and life happenings and all of our crazy adventures since that's how this little place started but now that I want to add different things, I felt that Baby Button Brown didn't fit the content, or the other way around. Stick around for new and good things! :)

Thank you all for your support! :)

Elliot is THREE!

Hello, it's me, I was wondering if after all these months you'd like to read.

Gosh how long has it been?! It feels like ages, but I know it's only been a few months. I guess I lost my mojo, but I am back! I wanted to wait till I got enough content and topics to keep me going for a while so here I am!

Elliot turned three on January twentieth and now that he is a little older and understands (somewhat) the concept of a party, we decided that it was time to throw him a real one. For his first and second birthdays, it was family only and a couple of friends. His third included most of his little friends along with my college and high school friends' kids. It feels so weird to write that last part! Grownup life.

On the actual day, we celebrated with a slice of cake and a number FOUR candle. I'm not sure what was in my head that day that made me buy that instead of a three so we scratched the number candle and went with three small ones. #mamabrain (is that a thing?).

Anyway, I wanted to make this post about what I did to make sure this was a good, fun but simple enough party where I didn't have to be running around. Do you think or believe that actually happened? Somewhat, but I was actually impressed with myself because I actually did buy all of the decorations ahead of time and that helped a bunch.

The first thing I did (many months ago) was to create a board in, you guessed it, Pinterest, to start pinning ideas, colors and a theme. I wanted to be fully prepared for it with a theme and colors. I asked Elliot if he wanted Minions or superheroes and I don't think he hesitated to say he wanted superheroes. I was kind of excited about it because to be honest, I love Despicable Me, but the colors of the minions? Not so much.

I decided that in order to not buy the entire Party City or Amazon on superhero stuff, I would narrow it down to three to four colors. I picked green, yellow, blue and red.

The second thing I did was order invitations about a month in advance (then sent them out about a week and a half before the party, the irony!) from Tiny Prints because they never disappoint with quality and the cutest designs! Then I started buying the decorations slowly.



I also ordered Elliot a personal cake that I could decorate for him. I bought the bunting at Target and printed out the little signs at work (black and white only boo!) then glued them on thicker paper and cut them. Am I the only one so behind on the technology that doesn't own a printer?



My sweetest friend Chanel made these little props for Elliot's picture wall and I was blown away. She said she would do whatever she could to help me and she did! She's the sweetest! One of the things I love about Instagram and blogging is getting to know women like her! Thank you Chanel!!

We taped this table cover/backdrop to the window in our backyard to take pictures using the props.

This man is the sweetest. He's our neighbor, and we consider all of his family our family! If you follow me on Instagram (@shadiabrown) you saw my post about how he dressed up and surprised Elliot! He was over the moon. This was the cherry on top for the party! Completely unexpected and awesome.

The party favors were super simple. I put play doh, bubbles, superhero tattoos, and lollipops in a little brown bag and stickers that I ordered with the invitations and of course this is the only picture I took.

Some of the kids were missing because yeah, you know how it goes when you try to take a picture of all of them at the same time and all of them looking at the camera. Plus the sugar didn't help! Here's one where these four guys and girls stayed still enough for five whole seconds eating cupcakes.

As usual, I was too busy running around before and in the middle of the party to take pictures of all of the setup, but we had a children's table where they decorated their capes and masks. I made the capes out of fabric and spent a few nights cutting them and gluing a yellow circle on the back for their initial then had washable markers and stickers to personalize them and little masks that I
got at Target.

Also, you can't see it but I made Elliot a superhero shirt using iron on fabric that I got at Hobby Lobby.

All I wanted was for Elliot to be happy and all of the kids (and adults) had so much fun! Planning a party is freaking hard and a bit stressful but it is all absolutely worth it in the end. We also had the perfect weather and didn't have to move inside the house! Success! :)