Happy 5th Birthday Caleb!!!

This past Saturday our (oldest) nephew was turning 5!!!  I feel like we skipped a year with him!  I remember before I was pregnant with Makenzie every time we would come over he'd walk right up to me to be picked up. I LOVED that.  Then I got pregnant and he grew up and would look my way, give a quick smile, and go back to doing whatever he was doing.  No more cuddles :-(   His Mama get's cuddles tho!  And that's the most important person to get them. 

Out of all the cousins that Makenzie has Caleb is just the sweetest most gentle one she's got.  He is SOOOO good with her it is so sweet.  He's just got such a sweet personality and loves showing Makenzie how to do things and is so patient teaching her!!! 

Playing with the new "chainsaw" from Grandma & Grandpa!

He may be sweet... but he is ALL boy!! 

I was in a toss up all week as to what to do... his party was at 1 and Makenzie was going down for a nap at 1:30.  Matt had to work Saturday, so he was out altogether.  Well Friday Miss Makenzie didn't take a nap and by 9:30 Saturday morning she was throwing a monster temper tantrum.  Which wonderfully lasted until just before 11.  At that point I quickly put a 5 day menu together, shopping list (this normally takes me hours to do... not sure how I got it done so quickly!!), and we left to do some shopping.  Which ALWAYS cheers her up or keeps her entertained. 

Thankfully it did, because after having a few of those last week and Matt working my patience was wearing thin.  We came home did a quick lunch and she was fast asleep by one!  So no "Happy" party for us :-(  But I figured I'd make the best of it.  We have a pretty big closet at our garage entry way and we've talked about turning it into a mud room.  Nothing huge, but it's better than nothing.

This was one of those projects that made a giant mess.  And in order to clean this closet that was PACKED I had to find a new home for everything.  Which meant that I had to reorganize other areas to get one cleared out. 

This picture was when I was almost done!  I should have taken a before and after... well we don't really have an after yet!  

Coats covered the wall on the right and all my canning jars covered the shelves on the left.  All of this is gone!!  Yippee!

Eventually we got the room cleared out, Matt got everything off the walls.  And for NOW it works.  It is in some desperate need of fresh paint and a new light fixture.  We have coat hooks hung up against the far wall and on one of the side walls we have our boots lined up and a card table chair to sit on.  (Fancy huh!?!?  We will have a bench there with cubbies on one side to put gloves, mittens, hats, etc. in!)  It's a little hillbilly right now but I am loving it.  It's so nice having Makenzie up off the ground while I'm getting her ready to go outside and to have all of our boots OUT of the hallway!