In lieu of throwback Thursday, I thought I'd talk about our fireplace, built by my amazing, "handy-man" of a fiance and may I add, a total hunk. He started building this huge piece in the beginning of May. He worked on it almost every weekend, . A lot of early mornings and late nights, hot and sunny days leading to sunburns, working in the rain, muddy boots and Mike being shirtless - I, for one, did not mind this at all.


 Here are a few pictures, from beginning to end, that I took over the past couple of months.

 

 Our yard in early May. So bare and a lot of dry dirt. Our yard now is the total opposite from this. The trees have sprouted leaves and we have a forest of weeds. The weeds are never ending!

 

 There was a point where he was darker than me... or more red. I'll let you decide.

 I'm the luckiest girl. He really does try his hardest to give me everything I ask for. When we talked about what we wanted to do with the backyard, he was dead set on building a fireplace. I then brought up the idea of building a pizza oven with the fireplace. I asked, and he said he would try. He was a bit discouraged because he had never built a pizza oven before, let alone on top of a fireplace, but, like always, he found a way and built one.

 Once all the blocks were laid, we thought that the hard part was done. We were definitely wrong about that. Those stone caps were SO heavy, even cutting them into somewhat smaller pieces for him to work with, they still weighed more than 200 lbs. He really is my Superman. I watched him, try to figure out how he was going to carry these heavy stone caps up to the top and then actually doing it. It definitely gave me a mini heart attack, worrying he'd fall. I don't know how, but he managed to lay all the caps and not breaking anything. Cheers to that!

Last but not least, the stone work. This is the same stone that covers the front of our house. Mike picked the stone and I'm so happy he did. There is a crew of guys that subcontracts for Mike, ITS Masonry. They are awesome. He had them do the stonework on the fireplace and it turned out amazing. 

 And now that the fireplace is all done, that's one thing out of our long list of "to-do's" for the backyard, that we can check off the list. And something Mike can most definitely be proud of.

Donahue Kids Fashion Show 2015 - Summer Fairy Edition.

The kids put on a little fashion show for Mike and I. The videos speak for themselves. Enjoy! haha

First Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating Party

Every other year, around Christmas time, the kids and I host a little cookie decorating party. It's always been a small thing - Sadie would invite a couple of her friends over and the mama's and I would hang out and help the kids decorate their cookies.

This year, Mike and I talked and thought that we should make this cookie decorating party an annual thing. And so, it was official, our first annual Christmas cookie decorating party. We invited kids from Sadie's class, our neighbors and family friends. The kids had a blast and I'm so happy with how everything turned out.

Our invitation.

The spread.

Hot Chocolate Bar - I made hot chocolate in the crock pot and laid out cookies, candy canes, marshmallows, chocolate chips, sprinkles and you can't forget - after eights. And of course, with hot chocolate, you have to have whipped cream.

With brunch came a Mimosa bar. You should have seen me standing in the liquor store walking around texting on my phone, with no clue of what champagne to buy.  Thank you bestie for helping me out haha.

The cookies. 

And the kids decorating. I figured I'd separate the older kids from the younger ones. Although, still goofy as the young ones, they definitely had their cookie decorating game faces on.

The youngin's at their table.

My little man. He wasn't really interested in decorating and was more interested in the sprinkles. Yes, he ate all that and loved every second of it.

My girlfriend jenny and her little babe. Thanks for your help during this party, mama! xo

A great turn out and more memories made. And lastly, we also encouraged those who were coming to bring a non-perishable food donation for our local food bank. The kids were able to put together five full bags of non-perishables and I couldn't be more proud and happy of the outcome. It isn't too late, don't forget to donate food, unwrapped toys or cash to food banks and toy drives in your community. Let's help make the holidays memorable to not only our friends and family but to those in need as well.

a Frozen birthday party

This past weekend, we had our oldest baby girl turn six! That's right, S I X! And even though she has grown so much, she is still the same - always happy, has so much imagination, such a little performer whether it be dancing, singing or acting, always a princess, and still jumping off anything and everything!

With this fun loving new six year-old, came a party. A Frozen party to be exact. She had asked for a Frozen birthday party since the movie came out. She literally reminded me every month after the movie came out, that she was to have a Frozen birthday party and I wasn't supposed to forget - It was hard not to.

So after months and months and months of her patiently waiting for her birthday to come and having that constant reminder of what kind of party she was going to have, the day finally came! She was so excited when November came. She would ask what games we were going to play, what we were going to eat, who she was going to invite. She was definitely mommy's little helper.

So here it is, a Frozen birthday party for Queen Sadie...

 We made hot chocolate packages for the girls once the party was done. They absolutely loved it - I mean, who doesn't love hot chocolate with tons of marshmallows ;)

 Pin the nose on Olaf. One of the games for the girls to play. I am the worst at drawing and it took me a half hour to draw this out. The girls knew who he was and that's all that mattered to me haha

If you know me, I'm a huge procrastinator - so bad! I left Sadie's cake last minute and didn't do any of the baking until 3 hours before the party. I'm grateful and so happy that everything turned out. Sadie loved her cake and couldn't stop laughing at the fact that a toy Elsa was on the cake! She thought it was the funniest thing she's ever seen! lol

mini cupcakes and fruit cups

The girls each had their own crown and skirt to dress up in. 

The birthday girl with her bff, Saige. 

 Playin "pin the nose on Olaf". The girls had so much fun with this game.

 Later, they played "do you want to build a snowman?". They ended up looking like mummies but a carrot nose and buttons helped make them look more like snowmen haha

 This was the game that they kept playing and playing. It was so nice to see all the girls taking turns and helping each other out.

 And once everyone was done "building" snowmen, they ripped all the toilet paper apart and had a toilet paper fight. It was everywhere! We later played a game of "who can put the most toilet paper in the recycling box". They had tons of fun playing this game, too. haha!

 We then played "stomp the snowball". I tied a ribbon that was attached to a white balloon to their ankles and had the girls try to stomp each others "snowballs" while protecting theirs.

 After games, the girls took a little kinder break. They ate and opened their kinder surprise eggs and played with their fairies that came with the egg.

We then sang, "happy birthday" to the birthday girl, had some cake, opened presents and watched Frozen.

Sadie loved everything about the party and couldn't stop thanking me for throwing her the best birthday party she's ever had! It put the biggest smile on my face seeing her have so much fun with her friends and seeing her so happy after the fact. An exhausting weekend but all worth it in the end.