Four Years

Today my spunky spitfire turns FOUR!  So hard to believe, yet it some ways, it seems like she's been four for awhile now.  Things Ian did while he was four she's be doing for awhile now, thanks to keeping up with him.  She brings us smiles and laughs daily, as well frustration.  She is headstrong and lets her desires be known, but she's also very affectionate.  As I was walking out of day care yesterday after dropping her off, she ran back out the door to yell for me and flash me the "I Love You" sign language sign.  Love this girl!

Disney's FROZEN Birthday Party

Two weeks ago was Ian's TMNT party with friends. This past weekend was Annaliese's Frozen party. Our families came to celebrate, and while the party was Annaliese's chosen theme, it was as much for Ian, too, since the family didn't get to celebrate with him at his party. 

The kids were running around and having a great time, but I tried to have some Frozen activities planned.  Though it doesn't look like it, there was more than one little kid painting.  They're painting with equal parts epsom salt and hot water.  When it dries, it looks like ice crystals on the paper. 

There was some "Pin the Nose on Olaf" action.  Darrin drew Olaf for us.  Annaliese was first to go and missed it by a bit...

Though she did better than Ian, who ended up walking around the entire kitchen before he found Olaf (he used his hand to feel for the paper, and when he couldn't find it, would try to figure out where he was in the kitchen and where he needed to go.)

Ian was excited about his two chapter books, but Annaliese was SUPER excited about her Frozen Golden Book. 

But then her expression got even better when she opened her Else costume, which she immediately had to wear.

This is about as much expression as Ian gave, even though he was totally stoked by most of his presents. He made off like a bandit when it came to TMNT toys. He added Spliter, the sub, a book, and another Lego set to his collection.

Great Billie is known for giving the kids lots of clothes, which makes me very happy.  This picture shows clearly how the kids feel about the clothes, too; Annaliese was in love and Ian opened it just to toss it aside. 

The kids had lots of fun with their homemade blue playdoh, which they got to take home. I had some glitter in it as well. 

Playing with her new InnoTab game decked out in her Elsa costume and new headband.

Testing out his spy gear. 

Cousin (yes, Walter, we consider you one, too) fun on the bed.

The theme for food was white and blue. We had fresh fruit with "Snow Dip" (cream cheese dip). 

Deconstructed Olaf. Rolls for his body, carrots for his nose, pretzels for his arms, and chocolate covered raisins for his buttons. 

Melted snow and blue punch to drink. We also had chili and wild rice soup to eat.

Singing Happy Birthday.  Ian was smiling silly, so we were telling him not to smile in the hopes of getting an authentic smile. Instead, we got this. 

Blowing out four candles takes a much bigger breath than one candle.

A TMNT Birthday

This Saturday, we get a chance to breathe.  The past two Saturdays have been filled with birthday festivities.  Two weeks ago Ian celebrated his 7th birthday with three of his friends. It's the first time we've had a birthday party with friends, and we didn't want to go crazy and invite everyone, so he invited five friends, and three were able to come. 

Gift bags for the boys filled with a TMNT puzzle, play pack, and the cup they used for lunch.

The nun-chuck training hallway.

I made three of these green paper lantern turtles.  I put one in Ian's room, which he was super stoked about.

The turtles love pizza, and I made use of the felt one from the kids' play kitchen.  Ian made the sign for it the day we wrote out the invitations. He was so excited for friends to come over.

Waiting for people to arrive.

The menu was easy since the turtles love pizza. We had a fruit salad the color of the turtles, too (red-strawberries, blue-blueberries, purple-grapes, orange-clementines). One of Ian's friends is the son of a co-worker, and his sister came along to hang out with Annaliese. 

It snowed on Wednesday of that week, the one time we've had snow stay on the ground more than one day and everyone went sledding in the backyard. I'm so mad that I forgot to check the camera settings. All the photos are really washed out, so black and white is as good as I could get.  It was the first time one of the boys had ever been sledding, so I was really glad they were able to go. 

After present opening, they headed up to Ian's room to put together the Lego kit he got and play with the other Legos he has.

Nun-chuck battle.

One of the boys had to leave for a basketball game.  Those that stayed decorated their own throwing stars. I didn't get a great picture of the pot they threw it into, but you can catch a glimpse of Shredder's face on the pot.   

Ready. Aim. Fire!

After that, we did a quick science experiment to make our own mutagen. 

Doing some nun-chuck training in the hall. 

In the end, I think fun was had by all.  It wasn't without ups and downs...  At one point, Ian accidentally got pushed into the railing on the stairs and he responded with some tears. He calmed down in his room (after I had to send him there to do so).  Darrin and I also learned we need to invite friends over more often, as he was a bit bossy with them and his toys- he's not used to having to share them with anyone with Annaliese, so he's got some learning to do about how to treat and defer to friends when they visit. 

There were moments when they got along beautifully, though, and at some points during the party, they just wanted to play in Ian's room and Darrin and I were able to sit and watch the Olympics.  When I asked him what he thought, he said it was AWESOME birthday. Couldn't ask for anything better than that!

Inspiration
Decorations and mutagen
nun-chucks
shredder throwing star

Layout | Toy Story Birthday

The new challenge up at Child's Play Challenges uses a slinky for inspiration.  I never had one as a kid, at least that I remember, and my kids have a cheap, plastic one that doesn't work very well. The one slinky I can recall, though, is the slinky-dog in the movie Toy Story.  And I just so happen to have pictures from a Toy Story birthday party a few years ago that I hadn't scrapped yet.

I had a lot of pictures I wanted to include on this layout, and Scrapbook Generation came to my rescue. I love their sketches, and this one was inspired by one in their Sketch Magic book.  This has to be the easiest layout to assemble I've ever done.  The layout is a combination of of photos and Simple Stories 4x6 and 6x12 cards.  After they were all down on the paper, it was just a bit of embellishing and some journaling, and it was all done.


Supplies:
Sketch: Scrapbook Generation
Paper, letter stickers, : Simple Stories
Washi: Queen & Co.
Brads: Paper Studio
Wood Veneer:  Basic Grey (quote bracket), Studio Calico (sunburst, 4)
Banner: American Crafts

Seven Years Ago...

Can it really be that many?  I can't wrap my head around that.  He is one amazing kid, though, and I couldn't be more proud of him or more blessed that I get to be his mom.  Here's a look at every year on his birthday. 

2014 Week Six | February 3-9

SNOW DAY! Yep, that much gave us a snow day on Wednesday. Our first snow of more than 1.5 inches this year. I think we got out of school more because of the wind that was howling all night long, blowing the snow around. 

Ian has been opting not to read with us at night, but instead read some of Darrin's old comic books. And in the morning before school. And whatever chance he's had. He's gone through all of them in one week.

Annaliese has started "reading" the books back to us after we read them to her. Sometimes it closely follows the story. Other time, she just makes it up. If we're lucky, she'll sing it. (There on the floor because she had an accident the night before. We keep the mattress from the crib under her bed and pull it out for her to sleep on when needed).

Getting ready in the morning, I walked out of the bathroom to find them putting Legos together in Annaliese's room.  Love when they play together, especially when she gets to decide the activity (bossy first born often makes the decisions...).

Ian's practice at decorating his TMNT cupcake. I figured if he could do it, his friends could  do it for his party.

Ian's 7th Birthday Party was Saturday (post to come later).  It was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed, so of course we had to have pizza.

And that night we went out for dinner at Red Robin, where they sang Ian Happy Birthday and he got the biggest ice cream sundae I'd ever seen.

Don't we all wear our high heels, dress, superhero cape, and bling glasses when we go shopping.

Our Sunday night dinner (minus baked beans for me).  The bacon wrapped steak was on sale at Target, so my plan for dinner tonight was thrown out the window in favor of that and honey lime garlic shrimp. It was quite the meal, and soooo easy to do! A bit of summer, all done in our kitchen on a below-freezing night.