Laura's 'ni hao, kai-lan' party

Here are a few shots from her special birthday party. It was lots and lots of fun to plan with Auntie Joni. It was fun to plan all the chinese food and games and little goodies that went along with the cute characters. It was so loving of Dusti to take pictures. I wouldn't have been able to capture much if it were up to me and she always takes the greatest pictures, so I am one lucky mommy to have her for a friend. It was a fun party and I am still thanking my lucky stars I got her off the 'Chicken Little' theme - Kai-lan was much more fun!

Happy Birthday (little) Laura!

My little baby girl is now four years old. She had a great 'ni hao, kai-lan' birthday party on Saturday and there are some wonderfully beautiful pictures courtesy of Dusti, which I will post soon. This close up shot is from Chris, the expression on her face just tweeks my heart.

She just keeps asking me today, 'Am I really four now, mama?", 'Am I bigger now, mama?", "I'm not three anymore?" It is like she just can't believe it. I can't believe it either. I asked her if she could stop growing now and she said "No, I have to get bigger silly!" I know she does but I just wish I could hold onto this version a lot longer.

Noah's First Birthday!

We had a very small birthday celebration for Noah's first birthday. The Dobies and my parents came over for lunch, Nathan's soccer game and then we had dinner. Lunch consisted of Noah's bagel pizza's in honor of the birthday boy's namesake food item (we seemed to have named our children after food products: Nathan's hot dogs, Laura's Scudder's potato chips and Noah's bagels).

We went with the Noah's arc theme because the kids thought it would be cool because it matched his name and I went with it because I thought the babyish theme would only really be appropriate for the first birthday, maybe even the second since it is two by two (my mind is already going for next year). The Dobies actually got him his very own "arc" (well it is a Wonder Pets boat but for our purposes it is now an arc). Auntie Joni did some research and found this lovely little gem but found the reviews said there weren't enough balls (25 came with the boat), so she bought extra. 250 extra balls. I will say the reviews were right on, the 25 wouldn't have even covered the bottom of the boat. Noah LOVES, LOVES, LOVES his special toy. And yes, there are balls EVERYWHERE. I find them all over the house in very conspicuous places. The washing machine, the hampers, the shoes in my closet, of course under the couches and beds, the pantry, basically there are balls everywhere Noah follows me around to. I honestly don't mind. He loves it so much and has so much fun with it the joy far out weighs balls all over the house. I really think Chris and Joni were worried I would be counting all 275 balls, but no I have not found myself counting to make sure I have them all. His favorite thing seems to be to either sit in or lay in the boat and throw all the balls out of it. Thankfully he finds picking them up and throwing them back in as much fun because then I might be in trouble.

Nathan's 6th Birthday!

So here are some birthday pictures (finally). Obviously, the Star Wars theme was in full effect. I made lightsabers for the kids as party props and favors. They were a huge hit. Each kid picked their lightsaber upon arrival to be used in the Jedi Obstacle course training.


The birthday boy with his lightsaber.



The menu...and yes I do know I need help. Have I mentioned the home for the craftily insane, I will be there someday I am sure.

The cupcakes were a sad affair. Although my uber friend Dusti helped me with the fondant I really let her down with this one. I was supposed to make the lightsabers a week in advance so they could dry and stiffen and I just didn't get around to completing them on time so the night before I finished and this is not enough time for fondant to dry out and thus I have bendy lightsabers, but the kids didn't mind. I feel so bad I let her down, she is truly awesome and I was so grateful for her help. I still liked them even though they weren't perfect.

Each child got a certificate to take home.

This was the 'save the earth' meteor shower game where they had to destroy the meteors with their lightsabers. Thank you Lisa and Madison for picking up all the broken balloon pieces - I have the best friends.

Here is one of the straight lightsabers.

No birthday party of ours would be complete without a 'pin-the-tail-on-something'. Unlike last year's night before slam to come up with something I knew better and came up with 'The search for R2-D2'. I was surprised that all the kids wanted to take their R2-D2 pictures home with them.

My sweet, sweet little boy. We have a saying now, he's not A baby but he's MY baby. My wonderful friends Annie and Shelley took pictures during the whole party and I am so thankful I have such loving, thoughtful friends. I am truly blessed to have them and be a mommy to three special kids.

The party after the party yielded a special brother/sister moment!

Not the ugliest cupcakes you have ever seen

So an update on the ugliest cupcakes you have ever seen. Once I got some seriously needed pointers from my wonderfully talented friend Dusti they didn't turn out half bad. I found I can actually make boxed cupcakes that turn out as long as I don't follow the box directions! Her pictures of the cupcakes make them look even better. She was so wonderful to take pictures at Laura's party. One of my favorite pictures from the day is Chase holding her Princess Aurora cupcake dressed as Princess Aurora - so cute! So, not only did they not look half bad they were pretty tasty too - but really - real buttercream frosting on cardboard would taste good!

A week in review

It started last Sunday with a wonderful birthday breakfast with friends. Jodi, Heather and I all have November birthdays so a group of six friends shared a very yummy breakfast. I received green tangerines gift cards that I promptly took advantage of to get a ribbon holder I have been wanted for a long time. Shelley and the kids arrived late Saturday night for a visit and she watched the kids while I was at my birthday breakfast. We went to the Galleria to meet up with her brother from Marysville and let me just say that the mall on a weekend day is not a good idea. While I worked on the gift for Nathan's coach, Laura sat and kept me company and she asked to play with the eyelets and I am convinced there is some hard wiring thing that makes certain people match things by color. I just had to take a picture of what she did with her drawing and putting the colored eyelets just so on the matching colored parts of her drawing. I am amazed by this kind of stuff because it is what I have done my whole life! So anyway, I did finish Nathan's coach gift for his end of the season soccer party. It was so fun to see the kids one last time all together. They really had fun playing soccer. The funniest thing about the bobble head trophies is that the kids actually thought they were like models of themselves - saying 'look at his hair it looks just like me and look at me smiling'. Just too cute!

Monday was fairly low key, just some running around and school for Nathan. I took a sewing class in the evening to help me with my pajama Christmas gifts. It was fun to get out and sew again.

Tuesday was Nathan's first parent teacher conference. I wasn't surprised by anything she said he needs work on - the most notable is that he does not consistently exert his best effort - no kidding! He is doing well and she enjoys having him in class so that was nice to hear. She did comment that she doesn't quite have him figured out yet and she is not always sure when he is joking but lets a smile crack every now and then and we talked about how Nathan gets his sarcastic humor from his daddy! Uncle Ken stopped by to visit dad while he was doing our yard work and it was good to see him. I just had to share the picture of Laura sweeping in her little Nemo shirt. I then got to go out for another birthday meal with friends. This time we went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. The food was amazing. I had not been in a few years and I don't remember the food being that wonderful. I had the nicest night out I have had in a long while. The friends were good, the food was good and the dessert was really good. Dusti made me her famous (okay maybe only to me, Annie and Laura) pumpkin cupcakes. OMG - I am telling you I could eat dangerous amounts of them at one time. They were soooo good! I am one lucky girl to have such good friends!

Wednesday was just a busy house day. I snapped the cute little moment of Nathan 'reading' to Laura and Noah.

Thursday is Nathan's sharing day at school and every week he seems to want to bring some new lego creation. He got these really cool sets for his birthday that are three in one things where you can make three different things and we are going through them one by one. We are known in his class as the lego king and lego queen. It sure does take me back to my childhood where I would have to put together my brother Joey's lego sets.

Friday was a really busy day. Nathan had to be at school at 8:30 as opposed to 12 noon for the fall feast for his kindergarten class and my mom was sweet enough to come over and stay with Laura and Noah so I could help. Nathan had recently asked the teacher if his mom was ever going to come to his class so this was just in time. It was something he has been talking about for weeks. The morning class were the pilgrims and the afternoon class the indians. Nathan's indian name was 'Lightning War'. The kids were so darn cute dressed up in their pilgrim and Indian costumes. They had prepared food earlier in the week. They were told they didn't have to eat everything but had to at least try it all. They had mini corn muffins, beef jerky, chicken stew, pumpkin pie and apple juice. Nathan had a classmate birthday party in the evening so it was a late night. Once I figure out how to get the photos out of my phone I will post pics of his costume.

It was a full week and this weekend will be laundry, laundry and more laundry with some house cleaning and Thanksgiving prep thrown in. If I am brave enough maybe a trip to see the new Disney movie Bolt.

Happy Birthday Bup!

This was the night we celebrated my mom's birthday. The kids had movie night and I got some shots of Noah in the cutest hat I have ever seen. My mom and dad's neighbor made this for a baby shower gift and I just think it is the cutest!

Nathan's 5th Birthday

I am finally getting some pictures up from the birthday party. It was a great day. I thought it was too hot but in reality I thinked we lucked out because it could have been even hotter. All the kids (and parents) have such red sweaty faces though! I would not even have any pictures if it weren't for my wonderful friend Dusti. She is so wonderful and the cake and cupcakes she did are so awesome people are still talking about them. She is such a gift in my life and I will say it again that I am blessed to have her as a friend.

The game is a pretty funny little side note to the party. Nathan woke up on Friday morning asking if it was his birthday party day and I said "No honey, but it is tomorrow". He then says "You know what my favorite part about birthday parties is Mom?". I say "No" thinking he is going to say presents or cupcakes or something like that. He then says "Games!" Now I think I am going to pass out or something because I was trying really hard (yes, I know it may be hard for some of you to believe that I didn't go all out) to keep it low key and just have lunch and let the kids play at the park. So I then gulp and put on as calm a face as I can and say "Honey, we aren't going to have games at your party this year, everyone is just going to play at the park and we will have water balloons". He then bows his head, sticks out the bottom lip and says "Oh". Okay, I mean really does this kid know how to work me or what - how can I refuse! So I then ask "If you did have games, what kind of game would you want?" He then says "Like pin the tail on the donkey" - now I will add another note that every party we go to has a totally cute pin the tail on the donkey themed game (Donna's "X" marks the spot treasure map and so on). So I start jamming all the synapses in my brain trying to think of something and I think okay I will just make a lego 5 just like the invite and have a missing piece for the kids to 'pin'. So Friday afternoon I am out at Michael's getting all the supplies stayed up until 1am trying to figure out how to do it and went to bed without it done thinking 'get a grip he will survive if he doesn't have a game' only to stay awake all night thinking I can put something together I DID buy all the stuff right? So up at 6am I was punching circles and trying to figure out measurements for this garsh darn thing and no I couldn't be happy just sticking circles on there I had to use pop up dots for dimension (I know I need help, the straight jacket is on order!)

So to make a really long story short, we had a game at Nathan's party. He stood smiling so proud the whole time and said he wanted to watch all his friends do it and then he would have a turn. When we got home I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and he smiled with 5 year old joy and said "The GAMES and the CUPCAKES!" So, yes it was worth it and I know I need professional help but hey, you only get a birthday once a year so I am happy (until the next one)!

The PlasmaCar!

Thank you Aunt Pam for the neat gift. Aunt Pam was not able to make Nathan's birthday party because she was under the weather and the following weekend we missed Jackson's birthday party because Laura was under the weather so we received Nathan's awesome birthday gift today. THE PLASMA CAR (notice it is yellow, so it will also go with everything Nathan has - or so he says)! What a neat and generous gift. He had a blast today playing with it and even gave Laura a ride on the back. This thing is cool how it goes with no pedals. Thanks again for such a cool gift!

Happy 5th Birthday Nathan!

I can't believe my baby is FIVE years old! He just seems so big now. I pulled a picture from a few days old and one from today and honestly I was surprised at all the similarities. I have been really reeling about him being five lately and starting kindergarten in a month but this picture just makes me feel like my baby isn't really all that long gone. I love how his little smirk and double chin and yellow outfit are all still there (more on that later). He is a sweet boy and I love his little spirit. He had a wonderful birthday party on Saturday and we were surrounded by loved ones. I don't think Nathan stopped smiling all day. He loved all of his legos and was really proud of the YELLOW house he and his daddy put together yesterday. He actually asked me to take a picture of it. Happy Birthday little man, Mommy loves you very much!

The Birthday Invite!

Well, I finally got Nathan's 5th birthday invitation done (with only three weeks until his birthday party, I was getting really stressed). It didn't come out the way I had envisioned it in my head but he really likes it and had a lot of fun putting them together. It was even his idea to have 'celebrate' on the front. I found myself rushing to the post office on Thursday 10 minutes to 5pm trying to get them in the mail, only to remember on my way there that the post office would be closed on Friday and Saturday for the fourth of July holiday - oh well at least they are on the way and out of the house. I think 99% of the invitees know about the party and were just waiting on my crazy invites to come in the mail with the exact details. He is really looking forward to having a LEGO pary and mommy is just thankful for a break from the CARS movie theme!

Happy Birthday Dustin!

Happy 'blank' Birthday to my wonderful and crafty friend Dustin (aka Dusti)! This picture is from my birthday back in November but I wanted to celebrate with a picture of us together. Maybe when we celebrate her birthday with friends tomorrow we can get an updated picture? Dusti is such a wonderful and honest true friend. She has been through a lot these past 3 years but the future looks bright and cheery! She is a constant reminder to not take things for granted and live and do in the now and don't sweat the small stuff and be true to yourself and your family and your friends. We have talked a lot about organizing and prioritizing our lives with things and people that are most important and I love her spirit and the kind of mom she is to her two wonderful little girls. She is a great wife, mother and friend and deserves a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!