Four years ago today, Puxatony Phil saw his shadow.

Want to know how I remember that? It’s because it’s the same day that my own little Groundhog didn’t see his own.

My sweet baby big boy turns four today. I can’t believe how quickly these past four years have just flown by. It still seems like yesterday that I was in a panic, because I was actually responsible for taking care of another human being.

Today is much different though. I still panic more than I probably should, but being the mother to a little boy is so much fun – a complete joy. I couldn’t ask for more.

In order to celebrate his big day, we hosted a Hot Wheels-themed birthday party in Zack’s honor this weekend. And like the DIY Dorks that we are, we decided that it would be fun to build a huge ramp for the kids to race their Hot Wheels. I give my husband full credit for his masterpiece (he created this from white molding of some sort from Home Depot):

As you can imagine, the kids thought it was just the coolest thing ever. Tom helped them set their cars up for the big race, and they all cheered as their cars zoomed to the finished line.

However, the boys soon decided it would be more fun to be a “tunnel” than to be the one racing cars.

It wasn’t long until everyone was a tunnel and no one wanted to be a racer…so we turned to cake.

There also may or may not have been a pinata that wouldn’t break until Tom took a crow bar to it. I kid you not. It was solid cardboard. Note to self: do not buy pinata’s at Target.

Even with the pinata incident (which was actually quite hilarious to the adults), a great time was had by all. Happy 4th Birthday, My Little Groundhog!

Notice something different?

Yep, those annoying Google ads that were up there are now gone.

I know I said I’d give it a few weeks. I decided 4 or 5 days was enough. I just couldn’t do it. I’ll be honest – I cringed every time I looked at my blog. I know you did, too. When I started losing sleep over it, I knew that I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

I got a ton of feedback about the ads and most if it (to my surprise) was very positive. I don’t think that I would have lost readers over it, but I didn’t want you to get an icky vibe from my fun little blog. At the end of the day, I just needed to take a step back, breathe, and remember that my blog is growing by leaps and bounds because my projects are fun and my content is good. Well, it’s either that or you like to laugh at me when I burn my fingers with the glue gun.

Truth be told (for those of you who are interested), I actually made about 10 times more revenue with the Google ads for the days they were at the top of my content than I do when they are just in the sidebar or wherever. My experiment was definitely successful monetarily, but it’s wasn’t emotionally. My emotions win every time.

You guys are the best, and I really do appreciate all of the advice and feedback. Thank you for hanging in there with me. Now, who wants to come over and help me build the arbor in my backyard I was hoping I could pay some dudes to build? Any takers? 😀