Saturday, October 6, 2012

Musician's Corner

A few weeks ago our band, The Carmonas had the privilege of playing for a great audience in Nashville's Centennial Park for Musician's Corner. Also on the bill that day were The Blind Boys of Alabama, Jeremy Lister and Karen Elson. Needless to say, we felt pretty honored to be in the company of such great musicians.

Last week, Nate was out of town for a bachelor party, so Maddux and I decided to head down to the park to listen to some music.

I have never seen a kid react to music the way that Maddux does. He literally jumps with joy! As a musician, it seriously makes my heart leap.

We put on his little ear protectors and he was ready to rock! Nate found this picture that awesome photographer Jon Karr snapped. Cute!


I also love this one from our show!


You can see more pictures and get more information about upcoming shows at the Musician's Corner Facebook page.


Friday, October 5, 2012

Maddux's 2nd Birthday

This whole "time flies" thing is becoming more and more evident as the days go by. I still think of Maddux as a baby, but if his growing vocabulary and big boy mannerisms are any indication, he is definitely not one anymore!

To help reinforce this fact, we decided to throw him a "real" birthday party this year, as opposed to last year's celebration. He is obsessed with trains, or "choo choo's" so we really had no choice in the matter.

We had the party at a local park (with a real train!). Since it was Labor Day weekend, we got there fairly early to ensure a picnic shelter, strung up balloons and got everything set up. For food, we brought in an old-fashioned hot dog cart (like this one) and let everyone help themselves.  

We kept it a family party, so it was his Nashville cousins, some aunts and uncles and my mom. It was so sweet watching how excited he was, running around with his cousins, popping balloons and spreading icing all over himself (and anyone within his reach)!






1. Cupcake toppers I designed on my computer then printed and cut out. 2. Paper popcorn holders from Michael's. I couldn't find them on their website, but here are some similar ones. 3. I found this cute train conductor hat at the thrift store, but I found these with a little web search. His shirt is from Etsy. 4. I found this life-sized Thomas the Train on Craigslist. You can also buy it new here. Needless to say, it was pretty much the hit of the party. 5. We did a "help yourself" gift bag of Skittles, Fruit snacks and wooden train whistles, bought on Ebay.