Lovey is 5 today!

I can't believe Lovey turns 5 today. We were looking through the photo albums of baby pictures for a project and loving his cute chubby cheeks. I love the little weather page stealing, dinosaur crazy, independent boy he is now too. I just can't believe it has been 5 years since we were scheduled to be induced 10 days after his due date and he decided he would arrive before being evicted from his nice little home. We knew even during pregnancy that he was stubborn and has a mind of his own and he proves that to us every day. Happy Birthday Lovey, I love you!

Birthday Weekend

Even though Lovey's birthday is not until Tuesday, we spent all weekend celebrating.

Saturday we had a soccer game. Very funny and cute seeing four and five year olds running after the soccer ball. Lovey spent the whole time smiling at us as he was playing.

Then it was time for his dinosaur party with his friends. He was so excited he could barely contain himself. Everyone had fun and I had lots of activities planned. Then family friends stayed for an unhealthy, but yummy dinner of nachos, little smokies in crescent rolls, and a green salad.

On Sunday Nana, Scott, Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa came for lunch. We had grilled lemon garlic chicken and a couscous salad. Nana sent Lovey on a scavenger hunt for dinosaur eggs and then he had to dig in his sandbox for his presents. He loved it and Littlebit enjoyed collecting the eggs after he found them. Great-Grandpa eve played the Wii with Lovey and he thought that was very cool. Sadly they had to drive back home and we spent the rest of the evening playing in the backyard.

What a great weekend, but now everyone is very tired!

Dinosaur Birthday Party

Lovey and I had a lot of fun creating plans for his dinosaur birthday party. We also had a great time at the birthday party. He was excited about inviting some preschool friends.

Here's what I did for the party.

The invitations: Two papers cut in an egg shape and attached with a brad. I used brads that had letters on them and put the first initial of that child on the invitation. The top egg was cut in two with a zig-zag line to look like a cracked egg and then the top part opened to reveal the party information. The front of the card said, "Breaking News" and the inside said, "Dinosaurs discovered at Lovey's house."

The decorations: I drew a palm tree and some plants and put them on the wall next to a triceratops I drew for a game. We also had green and yellow balloons.


The cake: Lovey wanted a dinosaur cake with a volcano. Originally I was going to do a 3-D dinosaur, but after seeing pictures he said he wanted a volcano too. I used two 13x9 cakes stacked on top of each other. When the cakes came out of the oven, I put a clean towel over them and pressed them down. This made them denser and easier to decorate and I didn't have to cut the top to make it even. I made the shooting lava with corn syrup, sugar, water, and red food coloring. (It was difficult to get out of my pan though.) The volcano is two cupcakes with the tops cut off. It was a little more cylindrical than I wanted, but it works. I used decorating glitter for on the river to give it the sparkle of water and I wrote his name on the side which the picture doesn't show.

The activities: As the kids arrived we made apotosaurus hats. I made bands out of paper to go around their head and then they attached heads with long necks, tails, legs, and googly eyes. They also colored them and put stickers on them.
Then we played Brontosaurus, Brontosaurus, T-Rex and pin the horn on the triceratops with the triceratops I drew for the decoration.
I made a volcano out of modeling clay around a plastic bottle. I made the grass and river out of playdoh. We made the volcano erupt with baking soda and vinegar dyed red with food coloring. The kids loved it. Thankfully I put enough baking soda in so we could do it three or four times. They liked when it washed out the dinosaurs I had put in the scene.

I told the kids that a paleontologist had told me there were dinosaurs in the sand box. Each kids got a spoon and went to the backyard to dig for dinosaurs. The day before I had marked a grid in the sand so each child would get a square and I buried a small toy dinosaur in the square.
We had a pinata too and thankfully the rain held off long enough for us to put it outside.
Then we went inside to play Hot Dinosaur Egg and read the books, "The Day Dinosaurs Came with Everything" and "Dinosaurumpus" and we had our own dinosaurumpus.

Treat Bags: The treat bags contained dinosaur stickers, a crayon roll, and a dinosaur notebook so the paleontologists could make notes about their discoveries.

It was a lot of fun and Lovey had a great time.

Baskin Robbins 31 cent scoop night

Yummy! Baskin Robbins is having their 31 cent for a small scoop night on Wednesday, April 29th from 5-10 to honor firefighters. At some locations, you can make a donation to the firefighters.

It's here!

Our bedroom set arrived yesterday. I'm so excited that they could deliver it so quickly. It was a quick weekend of driving around to look at furniture, but this one just said, "Take me home!" We were actually going to go with a more formal sleigh bed from the same company, but realized the dresser drawers were very shallow and we weren't sure about fitting all of our clothes in it. The salesman then took us to look at this one and after a weekend of visiting other stores, we finally decided to buy from a local store and go with this set.

Ignore the nightstand on the side. It is temporary and I couldn't find the fabric I have to go with it, although the fabric is rose colored and not really my style anymore.

I am thrilled with the purchase. I find myself going into my room just to look at it. Now all we need are nightstands, but at $700 each, I had to pass on the ones that went with the set - no matter how cool they were. (All of the cords for lights, alarm clock, phone plug in inside the back of the nightstand, so no messy cords anywhere.)
I love this detail on the headboard and the foot board. I just love the beading.

Talk like a bird

While eating dinner outside Littlebit spotted a bird in a tree. She was very excited about it and kept yelling at the bird to rest. The following conversation then occurred.

Lovey: Nana says that we have to talk in bird language so they will understand us.

Lovey: Tweet, tweet. Tweet, tweet.

Littlebit: Tweet, tweet.

Lovey: Tweet, tweet, tweet.

Lovey (quite grumpy now): I'm talking to the bird, but he is not answering me. TWEET, TWEET.

Me: Hmm, I know how you feel.

Working in the garden

Yesterday we worked outside in the garden. (Okay, so I stayed inside and worked on birthday party things.) Littlebit and Lovey helped Daddy (or Big Daddy as I will call him from now on, since that is his Wii name and I think it is hilarious because he is only half an inch taller than me). They took a planter that we received from my in-laws and cut it down to make two smaller planters. This still did not hold all of the strawberries, so we (Big Daddy) moved the rest to a big cauldron that used to hold raspberries. We got rid of the raspberries because unfortunately they didn't produce much. Maybe they didn't like the cauldron.

Before...

After...

Dresses, soccer, and birthday preparation

After seeing a tutorial for a cute dress on made, I knew I had to make one for Littlebit. It won't fit her very long, but I have two other shirts to work with. It is hard to see the buttons going down the front and the shirt had darts that I ended up using in the dress. It was a little difficult because I was guessing at the sizing and had to draw my own pattern. The shirt used to be mine, but it is so much cuter as a dress for Littlebit.

Wednesday was Lovey's first day of soccer. He had a great time and can't wait to go to practice today.

Yesterday was Lovey's special day at school. The whole family went. We brought chocolate chip pancakes, apples, and hot chocolate for snack. Lovey brought in the book Pirates Don't Change Diapers and I read it to the class. We also took a walking field trip to the elementary school to see the salmon they hatched. The rain held off until we were home!

We also sold our beautiful bedroom set yesterday. It was way to much furniture for our bedroom, so now I get to find new furniture. Hopefully I find a set soon. Our mattress is on the floor and our close are in the laundry baskets and dirty clothes are thrown on the floor of the closet. Yikes!

Lovey also sent out his birthday invitations this week. He is so excited for his dinosaur party. Here is what the outside of his invites look like.

Busy Easter weekend.

Our Easter was a mix of crazy as usual.

We dyed eggs on Saturday afternoon and luckily we all wore our aprons because Lovey knocked over the container of orange. There was orange dye all over me, the counter, floor, and it splashed onto the walls. My apron was the only thing that did not survive unharmed.

We also went to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday. There was a lot of interesting people there. I'm not sure why I subject my kids to this except that Lovey really likes to go. He had found a basketful of candy. Littlebit found 20 cents and an empty egg. Parents in the 2-3 year old group, where I was, were pulling their kids through and telling them to ignore the candy and go for the money and eggs with the prizes. Hmmm... Is this for you or the kids? I walked with Littlebit so she didn't get knocked down or stepped on.

We woke up early so the kids could find their Easter baskets. Littlebit didn't want to find hers, but she hasn't been feeling well. Lovey searched all over for his and was so excited to find it. (He asked me to hide it so he could find it again.) Lovey and I went to church, but we had to sit in the parish hall and watch Mass on a video screen because it was so crowded. Lovey was able to sit in front of the screen and that kept him focused. We came home and made dinner because Nana was coming. We had ham, carrots, potatoes, heavenly salad, and cheesecake with a raspberry sauce for dinner. Yum! Littlebit didn't eat because she has had a fever for the past three days. All she wanted was the chocolate. Definitely my child!

Brrr

Spring, how could you be so cruel. You tease us with warm 70 degree days and then quickly turn to 50s and rain in the forecast. The 50 degree days would feel warm next to last week's day of snow and rain, but when you throw in the two sunny 70 degree days, 50 feels down right cold.

Random things I saw on my way home from work

Three teenagers standing on an island in the middle of the road each with a sign.
1. Honk if you like my hat.
2. I'm with stupid.
3. Will stop singing for food.

A guy walking down the street who I thought was a girl because his tiny messenger bag looked like a purse. He had a sweatshirt on that had a tree on the back with roots and leaves. At first glance I thought it was a skeleton on his sweatshirt.

Wrinkled up noses of the drivers in the other cars as we drove past the mushroom farm. It smelled bad last night. I wrinkled my nose too.

A girl with blue hair crossing the street and a bicyclist behind her with shoes the same shade as her hair.

Beautiful weather for family fun

Why is it when you have a fabulous day together as a family and you plan fun things for the kids to do, it falls apart into yelling and time outs by evening? Is it the break in routine? Or is everyone so tired from the excitement?

We enjoyed the first day of spring break at the Seattle Center yesterday. The weather was beautiful and despite fighting over the LeapPad in the car, the drive to Seattle Center was nice. We went to the Science Center first. The kids were scared of everything that moved or made noise. The robot that played tic tac toe with you started out as fun, but then it made a noise and sent both of them into hysterics. The preschool planetarium show made them nervous. We had to hold their hands through the dinosaur exhibit (which was the whole reason Lovey wanted to go) and we barely got their picture by the dinosaurs. Lovey was expecting a dinosaur dig and skeletons of the dinosaurs. I think I need to find a natural history museum to accommodate him. After the dinosaurs, they started to warm up. We went into the butterfly house, and then played in the tot area which they loved, except when the car they were sitting in revved its engine. They jumped out, ran away, and wouldn't go near it again.

The weather was beautiful. We ate lunch outside and then walked around. Aidan liked how big the Space Needle was and says he wants to go in the elevator. We rode the monorail to Westlake and walked around and then rode the monorail back. The kids loved the monorail because both love trains and it was close enough to a train for them. When we got back to Seattle Center, we rode the carousel and then went back to the Science Center. We played in the outdoor water area and then made one more quick trip through the exhibits. On the way home we stopped for Starbucks and brought home cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.

The temperature was in the 70s when we came home, so the kids played outside while I made chicken salad sandwiches for dinner and we ate outside on a blanket. Then we went for a bike ride. Before we even got to go for the bike ride, both kids were in time out. The nice day together was falling apart. At bed time Littlebit was so tired, she was crying and Lovey was refusing to stay in his room and wouldn't go to sleep.

Despite all of that I will choose to remember the fun we had during the day, not the chaos that ensued in the evening.

Ahhh... Sunshine, let spring begin

We only had one kid for the weekend. Lovey went to stay the weekend with Nana. He was so excited. He has been waiting for this and called her a couple of weeks ago to ask when he could go to her house. I love that he likes to go and stay with his grandparents. We took him up after school on Friday and he couldn't wait for us to leave him when we got there. He went hiking in the rain forest, saw elk, and collected rocks at the beach. When he got home today he was so excited about the time he spent with Nana.

Littlebit was a sad that she did not get to stay. She also missed her brother and kept asking for Lovey. We tried to make the weekend fun for her. She got chocolate milk on the way home from Nana's and we bought apple juice and she watched the last half of a movie. Grandpa also came by on Sunday and she was in heaven to have a grandparent all to herself. Grandpa pushed her on the swing and put up new toys on the playhouse. She also chased Ella, his dog, around the yard too.

We had a lengthy to-do list for the weekend and we accomplished most of it. We went to the nursery, planted a tree that my in-laws brought us last weekend, expanded the planting bed, went to Costco, pressure washed the back patio, finished Lovey's height chart, planted some seeds to start indoors, finished a skirt and jacket for Littlebit, cut the wood to frame our mirror, cleaned the high chair and posted it on craigslist, bought a grow light for our seeds, and enjoyed the sunshine.

We had grilled steak and red potatoes for dinner Saturday night and Lemon, Chicken, and Leek Pot Pie and grilled oysters tonight. The pot pie was very yummy, but would be much better on a cold day in January, not a nice warm day like today. (When I planned my menu it was snowing out.) The husband doesn't care for pot pie, but he liked this one and I know because he had seconds. We had never had oysters before, so my dad left us with some to try. I was indifferent about the oysters. They aren't a must have like shrimp and crab, but I didn't hate them. Lovey said he liked them, but I think they received a thumbs down from the rest of the family.

Spring break starts tomorrow. Hopefully this weather will stay around longer.

Crayola giveaway at Blissful Kids

I love Crayola products. The crayons color better and the markers last longer than many of the brands I have tried. I am so excited that Blissful Kids is having a Crayola giveaway. You have until April 8th to enter.