Isn’t this the sweetest birthday card? Lex brought it home from school the other day. One of his friends made it for Eve. He was going to draw all of the boys listed, but he ran out of time. She is so loved.
One more birthday card…
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New Roller Skates
The kids LOVE their new roller skates! We went out the other day and it took half an hour to make it down the road, around the cul-de-sac, and back to our house. Reminded me of the early days, walking to “visit the fire hydrant” when they were just toddlers.
They got tired of waiting on me to tie their new skates, so they got the "How to tie your shoes" book and gave it a shot themselves. That's how eager they were to get skating!
Sibling love <3
All smiles!
I'm delighted when they both smile for the camera, even if they do have pretty goofy smiles these days. :)
Easter 2012
This is your lucky day! Eve insisted on another audio book so I gave in and went upstairs to start one for her. Along the way I turned on the TV computer. Now I’ll try to get a blog post in before my laptop battery dies. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then clearly you haven’t read my tired post.
(Side note: I just found tree bark in my slipper. How does that happen?!)
We had a really nice Easter this year. The kids are so funny about Easter. They don’t quite understand the religious aspect of it (hmm.. I wonder whose fault that is!) and the bunny side of the story is cute, but doesn’t make a lot of sense either. I think they enjoy the holiday but almost in a “humoring mom” sort of way.
When they woke up in the morning they both walked right past this
The bunny leaves treats at the table in our house.
and into the bathroom for our normal routine of clothes and teeth brushing. I said Happy Easter to each of them several times, they returned the phrase but had no expectations. Then they went into the living room to play. I had to draw their attention to the table before they noticed the baskets. I could have totally forgotten (and I almost did!) and they wouldn’t have even noticed.
The day before we had colored Easter eggs with some weird glitter dye set I bought on sale last year. We ended up with pastel shades of blue, pink, and green.
Easter morning they unpacked their baskets and dug into the candy. The Easter bunny doesn’t leave too much chocolate in this house, mostly because I would eat it all! Instead they got jump ropes, gardening gloves, and suncatcher projects. And some candy too, of course.
Then we began one of many Easter egg hunts. Each hunt results in at least one cracked egg. Lex gave us some excitement when he hid the eggs so well we couldn’t find them all. He is a master egg hider! Fortunately he eventually remembered where they all were so our house doesn’t stink like four day old rotten eggs!
Ok, now my laptop battery is about to die and both kids are at my elbow. I’ll have to leave you hanging here, but don’t worry, I’ll be back soon for part two of our exciting Easter day! If you just can’t stand the wait, check out the fancy photos on Rosy’s blog. That should tide you over.
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After a sufficient amount of time was spent hunting for pastel Easter eggs, we all got dressed and packed up a picnic lunch of tofu salad, pb&j, baby carrots, and angel food cake with chocolate frosting, strawberries and not one, but TWO, flavors of ice cream! Then we headed down to the rehab facility for an Easter/birthday celebration. We met Grandma there (obviously!) and Grandpa and Katie. We had lunch in the cafeteria and I’m pretty sure no two people ate the same thing. Then we moved to a beautiful sun-room where we set up presents and cake and made ourselves at home. The sun was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds and the day was lovely. We had Easter presents, birthday presents for Dad, and birthday presents for Eve. Plus a brother present for Lex. :)
Eve pretending to tend to the fake flowers, with her new gardening gloves.
Lex brought along his Mindstorm Lego ball sorter to play with. More to come on this cool toy in another post. It has currently taken the form of a walking, snapping alligator in my kitchen!
Easter love. (bunny ears compliments of Alan)
We found a fake birds nest in the fake tree, so we gave it a fake egg.
Time for presents!
Happy Birthday Dad!
Lex got bored of watching other people open presents so he decided to practice his jump roping for awhile.
What's in the box? Roller skates!
Skates for Lex too!
Lex put them on immediately and hit the road!
Eve took hers for a spin as well.
Eve and Popcube. I wish I had a better angle on this shot. It was a beautiful hug.
He is a quick study these days! Good balance and eager to learn.
Cake time. Eve shared hers with her new horse and Barbie.
Time for another egg hunt. I'm sure we amused all of the residents with windows overlooking the courtyard.
She gets very excited when she finds the eggs.
Then the kids took a turn hiding the eggs. Grandpa Tom overruled all of my good parental advice so we made him stay outside and supervise the hiding process. Good thing too because there were several we were unable to find and he had to come to the rescue! These kids are excellent egg hiders!
I never put that much effort into hiding an egg!
After that we (mainly ME!) were tired and ready to hit the road. It took a few trips but I get everything loaded into the car and we headed home. The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur. I’m sure we ate some dinner, and the kids found their way to bed eventually. Surprisingly they even woke up and went to school without much fuss the next day. Thankfully!
This post has taken me three days to write, but I made it to the end. The “add a picture” process is time consuming, so when I add many pictures it takes awhile. Enjoy! Happy Easter! :)
Tired
I am so tired. Unbelievably tired. I had trouble keeping my eyes open on the drive home from school. I think we all are. Eve had a meltdown (sadly that’s not unusual for her) and Lex said he felt ill. When we got home I instituted an emergency quiet time for everyone. Eve is in her room with an audio book, Lex is in the office with his Legos, and I’m at the table with my laptop, tea, and burgundy chunks. Oops, I wasn’t going to mention those. I have hundreds of pictures to post and Easter update and all that jazz… but I’m too tired to go turn on the tv computer (which houses the photos) and I’m even more too tired to write coherent posts about all the pictures. So you get this instead. Just stopping by to say hi. I have a super busy week this week (when does it end?!) and then the kids have vacation next week (with an overnight trip to Boston in the works!) and then, maybe then, we’ll settle back into a routine and I won’t be quite so tired… maybe.
Pop!
Note to self: don’t get distracted when the popcorn popper is running!
Blub, blub, blub…
This is actually from last month. I realize you have waited five days for an update then I show up with a photo from last month… but, well, things are busy around here! I just downloaded 114 photos from my camera! Just from the past few days! Geesh. I have to go pick up the kids from school now, but I’ll be back again soon. I promise! :)
Five year checkup!
We went to the doctor for Eve’s 5yr checkup yesterday. She’s come a long way from this (her one year checkup)…
She is happy and healthy and strong, of course. She did everything the doctor asked her to (and then some!) and got a clean bill of health. She weighed in at 45lbs (80%) and was 45.5″ tall (94%). The doctor said that was a big jump in percentile from last year. I measured her on the wall at 44.25″ so I’m wondering if perhaps they weren’t real accurate at the office today. My measurement would have had her on her same growth curve, without the big jump. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She’s healthy and tall. If you’re paying close attention you’ll notice she is roughly the same height that Lex was at his 6yr checkup! :)
Big five year old!
She no longer even fits in the wooden car they love to play in at the doctor's waiting room.
Pet Show Party
To celebrate Eve’s birthday this year we threw a pet show party. We invited her entire class, plus a few other friends, and hoped for sunny weather. The kids all came, but the weather did not. Nonetheless we had a great time!
To start the theme Eve and I made “Eve’s 5th Birthday Party Pet Show” invitations. We got all fancy with the crayons and copy paper. Nothing but the best in this house. I can’t seem to find a picture (or the original!) so you’ll just have to trust me that they were top-notch!
As the party drew near we prepared by making a bunch of blue ribbon awards and games for the pet show.
Felt, paper, and hot glue... blue ribbons!
Eve didn't have patience for the hot glue gun and decided to make her own ribbon with scotch tape. This one is for the "Softest Pet"
We have an early winner! Cotton Candy won the "Softest Pet" award about a week before the pet show! :)
Eve loves her pony. Thanks Aunt Katie!
In an effort to find a game that would work both indoors and out (darn unpredictable weather!) we settled on "Pin the tail on the unicorn." Eve drew the unicorn and the tails.
The day before the party we baked and decorated the cake (double layer dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting) and added some black fondant “dogs” and “dog bone” decorations. Fondant is not very tasty and quite messy to work with. It was fun for this cake, but probably not something I’m going to do again.
Fondant is kind of like Play-Doh, only made of sugar. The taste is only marginally better, especially when it's black! On the plate in the background you can see the dogs we made. Mine is towards the front, Eve's is towards the back. I think her's looks more like a mouse on a barrel, but she insisted it's as a dog. Actually she insisted it was Bone and Karma on her cake. :)
My cake designs always come out better in my head than they do in real life. It tasted good at least!
Then the big day arrived! Normally we do afternoon parties and use the morning to get things done, but this party was at 10am so we were scrambling! Lex was SUPER helpful in cleaning and decorating with me. He and Eve made some party signage, he hung up streamers, decorated the door, and cleaned the mudroom! I think the best party decorations are the ones the kids make!
I like to leave a little something for the birthday girl to find on the table in the morning.
She was surprised and excited to find presents from us! :) She thought she had to wait until her party for presents. I got her a dress and the new Muppet movie.
He refused to get dressed, but he did a great job decorating the house!
No free play at this party! When guests arrived they got a bag and were put to work! :)
A "Pet Grooming and Vet" sign, made by Lex, hung above the office door.
The final stop for the pets was the judging station (ie, the hearth), sign by Eve.
Then the crowds arrived. We had 17 kids, plus most of their parents. The house was tight but everyone tells me they had a great time. There were no tears and no fights (that I saw or heard!) so I’m going to call it a success!
The first task was to make a collar for your pet. Turns out most kids don't have names for their stuffed animals so we got some creative collars. Some made up a name real quick, others put their own names or random letters. It was fun.
Next step was grooming (brushes, bows, etc.) and then a photo with Eve. Alan used my phone and we printed a picture for each kid to take home. Some kids were excited, others refused. Here are Lex and Eve doing a practice run.
Last stop, the judging station. Once each pet had a collar, a grooming session, and a photo with Eve, they were placed at the judging station.
Only then were the kids allowed to play! :)
Baby Kate was taking notes for her upcoming birthday! :)
Time for cake!
Lots of eager children filled the kitchen.
Make a wish!
This is the only photo I took of the judging process. I wasn't quite sure how this part of the party would go. It ended up being a throng of children crowding around me while I read the awards. They eagerly clambered for each one. I handed them out and made sure each pet got one, but I'm not sure how appropriate they all were. Everyone had fun though!
Lex didn't think any of the awards were right for his pet, so he took one of my blank ones (I made a few blanks, just in case!) and made his own award. Most Loved Pet.
Time for presents!
Many of her friends drew her lovely pictures to accompany their gifts.
After presents Eve went around and thanked and hugged each of her friends.
After presents we headed outside. The day was overcast and chilly, but everyone was full of cake and ready to play! The most popular gift was the stomp rocket. The kids (mostly the boys!) were lining up for their turn!
The party officially ended at noon but it was almost one before her classmates all left. Jim and Julie stuck around for awhile longer with their sweet girls. When they left we all crashed. I bought Eve the new Muppet movie thinking she might like that for quiet time, but instead she wanted her usual quiet time (an audio book in her room) while Alan and Lex crashed on the couch to watch the Muppets. I cleared the counters a bit and then got lost in my computer. A few hours later Amanda and Rachel came to visit.
Paint marker bowling
Eve got a 3D Tinkerbell puzzle that was quite challenging!
We had pizza for dinner and Eve added a few burgundy chocolate chunks to her piece. An interesting way to wash down a sugar filled day!
Happy 5th Birthday to Eve!! I think everyone had a fun-filled day.
Cookies
I know you are all anxiously awaiting the Wild Cookie Extravaganza update! It was a lot of fun. I came in a very close third (and I think I could have been first or second if they had handled the end of voting process a little smoother). The crowd was much bigger than anyone anticipated and it had a really fun atmosphere.
I will post more details later, with photos of course, but right now I am exhausted and tomorrow begins another week! Ciao for now.
Happy 5th Birthday Eve!!!
The day is not over yet, but here are a few pictures of our morning “Pet Show” birthday party. We had a blast!
More to come… later.