Croix's 2nd Birthday

On Saturday we celebrated Croix' 2nd birthday with a Croix Town Party!!

Croix is obsessed with all things car and truck. Specifically red cars and red trucks. So much so in fact, I actually wrote him a song last year. Wanna hear it?

*Set to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star*

Red car, red car where are you?

We've been looking all through town. 

Up, up, up the road we go.

Down, down, down but no one knows. 

Red Car, red car where are you?

Red car, red car, We love you. 

It was an instant hit :) 

As we started thinking about what to do for his birthday, one thing was for sure...He was getting a red car!  And what does any car need? A town to ride around in of course! So, Brent and I went to work and built him a town full of places he frequents often.  Places like......

Target:

Complete with popcorn and apples - his favorite items to purchase !

And Home Depot:

He got this little workbench and tools for Christmas and he has been obsessed! Now he can officially pitch in on all of our projects around the house.

And lastly, there was a Starbucks, a bad habit he picked up from his Mom. 

One of the cool things about this car is it can be operated with a remote control. So, everyone took turns maneuvering Croix + friends (Hi Aria!) around the town. 

Even his cousin Gates enjoyed some time on the road with a red car of his own!

The town turned out to be our last DIY of 2017 and was relatively easy to put together. Weeks ago we made a run to Michaels and picked up wooden letters to spell out our 3 stops (Target, Home Depot & Starbucks). We also picked up some foam pieces to form the Target symbol + the red balls that sit outside of Target.

A few days before the party we started getting everything painted.

For the roads we cut out strips of brown paper and painted them black. Once dry, we used white spray paint to make the lines. The day of the party we cleared everything out of the garage and put the town together. It was relatively simple and super cute and most importantly Croix was all about it, especially THE CAR. When we brought the car down he said"wow!" Genuine excitement, it was so cute!

It's hard to believe how much he's grown in a year. The night of his first birthday he was able to stand by himself for the first time and now only 1 year later he can say whole sentences and run, skip and dance anywhere and everywhere. He's growing up and it's equal parts thrilling and heartbreaking to watch. But from what I hear that's what this whole parenting thing is all about. Happy Birthday Croix or as he says it "HAPPY DOO-DAY!!"

All photos are my own. 

730 Days and 94 posts later.....

.....and The Cow Spot Blog is 2 years old!

 Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy 2nd Birthday to The Cow Spot, Happy Birthday to you!

Photo from google. 

It's hard to believe two years ago today I hit publish on my very first blog post. Never did I imagine it would become such a favorite past time of mine. But I guess that's life right? You never know what big thing is right around the corner, destined to be in your life for the long haul.

A lot has happened in the last year and The Cow Spot has been there every step of the way. From buying a house, to getting married, to countless projects centered around the new house and elsewhere, to being selected as one of the NKBA's first ever 30 Under 30 and being a part of the Luxury Living Show, this has been a busy/awesome/great year!  And of course we can't forget the fabulous makeover the Cow Spot recently received! So, to celebrate the ol' Cow's big day I thought it would be fun to do a little recap like we did last year to learn a little more about you, the readers. Who are you? What are you favorite posts? Where are you from?

Let's dig in:

As I mentioned there have been 94 posts on The Cow Spot (excluding today's post) and of those 94 posts these are the top 5 most popular:

1. Three Shades of White

     2. Mirror Mirror on the Wall

     3. Hardware - Cabinet Jewelry

     4. Outdoor Kitchen Finale

     5. Outdoor Kitchen Part 2

Mirror Mirror on the Wall and Hardware - Cabinet jewelry are reigning top 5 popular posts as they were on the list last year as well. But  #4 and #5 - Outdoor Kitchen Finale and Outdoor Kitchen Part 2 are the post's that are most exciting as, they are from August of this year, just two months ago. Meaning in just two months these two posts have received enough views to catapult them to the top #5 list. Outdoor Kitchen = rock star status!

Who are you, my favorite readers?

The Cow Spot is read on the regular all over the world! From right here in the USA all the way to China.

 Below are the top 5 countries tuning into the blog weekly: 

1. United States

2. Canada

3. United Kingdom

4. Russia

5. Germany

I'm always working on blog posts, either literally on the computer or figuratively in my mind as I run, drive, shower and eat. I've even been known to work on posts on my phone on car trips. I'm a multi-tasking machine, always thinking, plotting and planning. Interestingly you too are great multi-taskers as many of you utilize your phones and iPad's to read weekly posts. The number one most used operating system is of course, Windows but iPad is second, followed by Mac and iPhone.

There's no doubt about it,  year 2 has been full of some big life moments and fun projects, but one thing has remained exactly the same - YOU, the readers, are the spot to my Cow and I'm so glad you have  been along for the ride. Thanks for joining me each week, The Cow Spot wouldn't be the same without you! 

Here's to year 3! Cheers!

All charts via Blogger.