Ever since Tess was born I feel the need to make Zach’s birthdays BIGGER. Her birthday is exactly a week before his and I never, ever want him to feel overshadowed by hers. It’s kinda ridiculous the pressure I put on myself about it (b/c, dude, he legit does not care!) and I tried to calm DOWN this year. With the home study, Tess’s big party, and just kinda a lot of random craziness in our lives I didn’t need to stress myself out over his birthday, right? Right. He’s 32. Its not like it’s his 30th (which omg was I wife of the year or whhhhhhat?!?!).
Every year we go golfing as a family for Father’s Day. It’s tradition and you guys know I’m hardcore about my traditions! Zach has had all kinds of back stuff going on..which resulted in back surgery in early May. He’s still in recovery mode. I’m proud of him for taking it so super seriously because it’s not easy for someone who lives such an active lifestyle! No golf has been ROUGH. It meant we couldn’t do our annual family golf outing for Father’s Day and instead moved it to his birthday. Even though he’s still not 100% (not gonna lie…it’s been nice not having to pay for that membership at the golf club haha) he was able to make those memories with the kids and that’s what matters most!
Since one of my gifts to Zach was a new golf bag I thought it’d be funny to surprise him with it first thing in the morning the day we went golfing (which was a day prior to his birthday). It was also KID SALE DAY and we had a ton of stuff to drop off so I had him go upstairs to get it all and had the golf bag set up right by it 🙂
He was surprised!
Since we don’t have our membership at Kinderlou active right now due to Zach’s back we went to another local golf course, Stone Creek. Zach took Kye early to let Kye warm up then we met them there once the girls ate breakfast. It was surprisingly not too hot at all! I guess an 8:00 tee time helped 😉
Britt showed a good bit of interest this year!
As did Tess 🙂
I stuck to picture taking and golf cart chilling 😉
Kye is thinking “what is she doing?!?”
Pop tarts for the win!
This year was probably my least favorite. I am like the LEAST pressure parent on the PLANET. Y’all know I don’t care about sports. I’m not competitive. Heck I don’t know what a “good golf shot” looks like. I’m there to be an encourager and take pics and keep the girls from being too loud. But for some reason Kye did NOT do well with me there. I don’t know if he just felt uncomfortable having all the extra people around? Or if he felt some sort of unspoken pressure from my presence? Or if he felt rushed? Or whhhhhat but whatever the reason he was just not in the zone. He was not happy. He had some weird tick he kept doing when he went to hit the ball. He got flustered and frustrated. Zach got flustered and frustrated. And I just wanted to leave. Kye and I had some alone time and I tried to see if I could make it all better in some way but it was just not a good situation. I hate that he looks so miserable in their yearly pic together because Zach always puts one in a frame each year in his office!
We decided to go ahead and go. The girls and I went to pick up Zach’s birthday cake. Zach and Kye stayed a little longer and then took my kids sale stuff 🙂 Zach said as soon as we were gone Kye instantly switched and was totally normal. No more tick in his swing, no more frustration. They had fun and he played well!!! I HATE feeling like I cause any sort of issue. FUN is a big priority for me and the last thing I want to do is to cause my kids NOT to have fun! Or Zach either! Especially on his birthday when he RARELY gets to golf at all anymore. I’m hoping it was a one time thing and that next year goes better 🙂
Dude date for lunch!
The girls were upset to leave but sharing a special treat cookie saved the day 🙂
It was tricky to manage two kids, a stroller, and a huge cookie cake! Britt had to push the stroller for me!
That night I had the kids sale presale and we didn’t want to celebrate Zach’s birthday not on his actual birthday anyway so he planned to hang with the kids while I was shopping! It was SO funny how things worked out. I had bought the golf bags AGES ago and we just so happened to end up golfing on his bday weekend. I had also bought a pizza stone for him to use on the grill as one of his gifts and he just so happened to mention making homemade pizza that night with the kids! SO he HAD to open one more early gift 🙂
Kids Sale Timmmmme!
This was the day I updated my Instagram and discovered the new stories feature. I never got into SnapChat but I heard the stories thing will kill Snap Chat anyways. So I decided to be a person who makes stories. I love the concept! I know I personally try not to overly post on social media (if anyone wants to see my whole life story they can see the blog haha) so stories are a super fun way to post often without worrying about over-posting. People don’t have to watch them and they can click through them quickly if they do decide to! I’m obsessed! If you aren’t already following me on IG you’re missing out (haha)
Anyways I was WITH Casey when I made the decision to be a “story girl” so of course this only made the whole concept more awesome 😉 We should totes have our own You Tube Channel (or at least just Casey should, right Kori?!?!). It really did add a lot of fun to the already always fun night of shopping the kids sale pre-sale. And bc I’m a memory hoarder who just can’t delete things…I put my stories on youtube:
We really love the kids sale, obviously 😉 Legit though they are awesome! We all are sellers in the sales. We enter our items and make money but also are allowed to shop the sales before non-sellers get to. We all always go together and stand in line but then split up once it starts. My method (b/c 3 kids.) is to go to boy shoes, girl shoes, boy clothes, britt clothes, then Tess clothes last. After the clothes I then go to books and toys. Boy stuff is the toughest to find. Not only is it more worn but for some reason I guess people just buy their boys less?!?! It’s kinda ridiculous the small amount of boy stuff. I’m done in like 3 minutes. BUT when I find stuff it’s super exciting 😉
Once we are all finished (what I should say is once I’m finished b/c I’m always last) we all sit around in a circle and go through our items. We share each thing with the group and tell them the price and they help decide if it’s worth keeping or not. We get pretttttty brutally honest about it all. It’s my favorite part 🙂 I have NO CLUE when, how, or why we started doing it this way but it’s TRADITION. And we know traditions CAN NEVER DIE 😉
This year I was genius and shopped the juniors section FOR MYSELF. Boutique style tops and dresses for under $5. Yes please!
Kids sale PRO right here!
(Yes, it’s a laundry basket with a leash. I get a BILLION comments about it every time I’m at a sale b/c it’s so genius. But I make sure to always point out I got the idea from another pro at my first sale haha. Dragging the leash is WAY easier than carrying around the basket! And it’s also crucial to wear a cross body for kids sale nights because you don’t need to be messing with a purse! You’re. Welcome.)
I got all sappy when I saw this and was super tempted to buy it even though my girls don’t play with the Calico Critters. I LOVED them when I was growing up (I feel like they were called Mapleton or Mapletown or something back then?) and had THIS EXACT HOUSE. I remember the day my dad told me he donated it and I was crushed. IF I still had the house then my kids would be into those things haha I should thank Dad b/c omg they are SO EXPENSIVE!
I had some super awesome finds! My favorite thing was a Roxy Snowsuit (totally practical in South Georgia) in a size 3T for $3. I know it sounds like I wasted $3 but we’re hoping to maybe take the kids skiing again next year which will be the perfect size for Tess!!!
I also got these Jordans for Kye and was pretty pumped 🙂
Our tradition (yes, we have a tradition on top of a tradition) is to eat Steak and Shake after our deals. Steak and Shake is great because it’s open 24 hours and you don’t have to rush and they pretty much leave you alone. It’s real chill. And usually has a low health code rating but whatevs. Cheese fries are WORTH IT.
More insta stories post – kids sale:
Sunday was Zach’s actual birthday and we decided to do a post-church lunch to celebrate! Growing up Zach’s family ate out a lot on Sundays (and eventually transitioned to big meals Mrs Charlotte cooked) and Zach wanted to do that for his birthday. I loved it! Right now in our phase of life we eat eggs for lunch on Sundays haha. I’m not kidding. Maybe we should start the eating out thing too. If they have kids eat free deals? 😉
Anyways for his special day he chose to eat at Five Guys. He ate their last year too but hasn’t been back so it was our 2nd time going. I’m thankful someone took this family pic for us!
We did some stories there too: Zach being daring with his burger and suit, Kye eating fries and Britt eating fries.
We sang and gave Daddy his cake but waited until after dinner to eat any of it (so Zach and I could eat it during naps hahahah Evil Parents). Here’s a video of us singing. Kye took it since I had to carry the cake 🙂
During naps Zach and I watched The Lobster. He had seen previews for it a LONG time ago and told me it’d be “my kind of movie.” Of course our town never had it here so we were eager to see it on Red Box. And it didn’t disappoint. Very odd and awesome 😉
After naps we opened gifts! The kids each made Daddy a card and Kye was SO PUMPED for his and kept talking about how HILARIOUS it was. I took a video. Bless him and his random humor haha. He’s too much of a thinker to be funny…he’ll learn one day as I had to 😉
Now that Zach and I decided to go outlet shopping every year for Christmas our birthdays have kinda become the new Christmas. Same budget, but now I try to get him everything I’d want to buy him for Christmas haha. I got the golf bag, the pizza stone, and basically bought every dress shirt that was on sale from Express. It was time for an update in Zach’s work shirt wardrobe so I hooked him up 🙂 I also got a charcoal accessory thing for the grill too. So a mix of fun and practical stuff 😉 I thought I had a pic of it but the kids also picked out presents for him. Britt really wanted to get him a plain gray t-shirt so we compromised and said Tess got him a bathing suit that matched. Kye wanted to get him a dvd so I got American Sniper for him to give to Zach 😉
I wanted to cook for him and he asked specifically for my buffalo chicken dip. RANDOM. But I have been making it in the crock pot lately and he said he missed my original recipe. So you know I made sure it was LEGIT. I shredded that chicken by hand and everything for my man 🙂 We waited till the kids were in bed and ate and watched shows together. Zach loves eating in front of the tv so it was a great way to celebrate his day (he’s a simple man to please huh?)
We did a combo party for Zach and Jordan one afternoon with Zach’s family. Kye was SUPER sweet and wanted to make an appetizer for everyone. He was such a great host and did chocolate covered pretzels 🙂
Someone was so funny with the cake 😉
We also had another night where Katie came over to celebrate! We did dinner and she brought a cake and we watched Bachelor in Paradise together. It’s a fun together show to watch b/c it’s so easy to make fun of it haha. I feel like when it’s just the three of us that people probably think that’s kinda weird but our friendship with Katie spans over a decade. Zach and Katie met in college through mutual friends and I met Zach and joined that group of friends. Slowly friends started splitting off and eventually the larger group became just a group of four. Zach, Ryan (Zach’s cousin), Katie and I. Katie was a bridesmaid in our wedding (Ryan was best man) and she and I formed our friendship outside from the group really when I asked her to be in my wedding. TONS of friends have come and gone in our lives but our core three is still going strong!!! Our kids call her Aunt Katie and I LOVE that because she truly is family for us!!! So it may seem kinda weird from an outside perspective maybe but for us it’s just normal (sister wives? haha). I think Zach and I do well with non-couples b/c we aren’t super coupley acting. We’re not into PDA or baby talk or something like that. In a group setting we probably seem more like friends than spouses so I think that makes others feel more comfortable (although the occasional argument is super awkward!).
I think Zach had a pretty fabulous birthday! I hope he felt special and loved because it is both!!! And I hope this post inspires him for my birthday in a month hahaha!
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