Gettin' Behind Again

So here's a catchup post, full of random, unrelated things.

A while ago we had an open house at the school for both the big kids.  It was fun-cute to see them in that environment, and they're all proud, showing us around.  We also got to bring home some things they'd made.

First we had to try and guess which one of these owls our child had made, using the clues they wrote on it.  I was pretty proud of myself because I picked Paige's out on my first try, just by how she'd decorated her owl, the colors she chose and the bow and eyelashes.  As soon as I read the clues I knew it was her. 

I loved this one about her pet-In the drawing Gia is standing up to steal food from the table.  Ha!

Cason and I had a robot building date several weeks ago.  I've mostly given up on food related dates with him, because when he's eating, I may as well not even be there.  :)  Anyway, the robot building was a lot of fun.  He made two-the ones on the outsides in this pic, with NO help from me at all, other than baking them when he finished.

Neely has been very into drawing lately, and even wrote her first story-which I'll post about soon.  

Reed is his usual sweet self-showing his wonderful personality to other people outside of his immediate family more lately. 

He is so playful and fun, and affectionate.  This particular day he was nursing, and took a break to blow me a kiss.  Oh maaaan....

He also made his first friend, at the park one day.  :)

He's a handsome little man.

He actually takes fairly regular naps in his crib, which makes him the first of our children to do so.

He still gets so excited to greet the big kids at the bus stop each day, blowing them kisses from about 100 yards away as he spots them getting off the bus.  :)  He's a lover.

8th and 4th Birthday Party for the Girls

The girls' shared birthday party was this last Sunday.  After quite a bit of back and forth, they(mostly Paige, since Neely didn't seem too concerned about the theme) settled on a space party.  

As usual I had tons of plans, and only got to about half of it.  It ended up being more of a moon and stars party, as we never got to the planets at all.  Fine with me, and apparently them.  It was kind of between lunch and dinner, so we just had snacks and of course dessert. 

I barely even finished the dessert I did do, and there were more I wanted to have and never got to.  :(  The cupcakes we did have were supposed to be frosted with the moon phases, but I was running out of time, and got my mom and Cassie to do crescent moons for me while I finished up getting other stuff ready.

 I stayed up really late the night before, trying to finish the moon pinata, and painting some moon shirts for the kids to wear.

  Late that night before, I finally finished the pinata, and went to lift it and the rope immediately tore right out of it.  I had made Cason's Toothless pinata way too hard to break, so I mostly made this one out of posterboard, in an attempt to make it a little easier for the kids.  Apparently it wasn't strong enough to hang.  Ha!  So until it was time for the kids to break it, it just sat on the table as a decoration.

Half of our family woke up with stuffy noses, and my throat was a little sore too.  I immediately texted people, especially the ones with kids, to let them know that we were still going to have the party since we felt okay, but we would understand if they didn't want to join in.  Apparently people have figured me out, and realize our kids are not, in fact, sickly children, because most of them braved our germs and came anyway.  Haha!  I just warn people at the slightest sign of the sniffles, because I do not want to get people sick and have to feel guilty later, so I'm always playing it safe.  WAY safe.  Ha!

Half the party was in the living room watching How to Train Your Dragon 2.  Ha!  Cason played a part in getting that going, I'm sure.

 It was a pretty low-key party this time.  The girls each get to have a separate sleepover in addition to the party, with their closest friends, so we got away with not doing a bounce house or anything like that.  It was simple but fun.  I threw together some little constellation favors, and the kids seemed to enjoy the pinata, which Jess did manage to make a sort of harness for, so it could still hang.  Even though it tore so easily when I lifted it, the kids STILL each got a couple turns to hit it before it broke.  I may never master pinata building.

 Paige and Neely were showered with gifts from their loved ones, lucky girls.

They both loved everything they got, but Neely was especially fun to watch.  She was more expressive this year, as she opened them.

Then we sang and had cake and ice cream, and on to the pinata.

The girls loved their party and having their family here to celebrate with them.

Paige's 8th Birthday

Paige turned 8 last Thursday.  That is crazy to me.  I have so many vivid memories from her birth, and our stay in the hospital, that it could have been a few months ago.   I can remember lying in the hospital bed, watching Jess in his pink recliner/bed recording this video of a sleepy newborn Paige in his lap.

She challenges us for sure, she is strong willed and so smart.  She could be an attorney one day.  Ha.  But she says she is set on astronomy or marine biology.  If you ask, marine biology is always included, but she seems to be more interested in astronomy by far.  She's always reading about it and checking out library books on space.  

She and Cason were saving up for this moonscope we saw on amazon, that was made for children.  Cason would have liked it I'm sure, but I think he was mostly contributing because he's a sweet boy and knew it would make Paige happy.  They hadn't managed to get it yet as Paige's birthday approached, so we got her a telescope for her birthday.  We decided to buy her a better one, though it's still for beginners and children.  

We gave it to her during her birthday breakfast, before school.  She was really happy to get it, and the moon map it came with. 

 

 

 She had a good day of school, including getting taken out for a birthday lunch date with Grampa and Grama Trudi, at the restaurant of her choosing.  So Denny's.  :) 

We had pizza, Paige's favorite for dinner, and since Grannybob is in town, she got a couple more gifts.  One was a CSI fingerprinting kit from Grannybob, and a beginners astronomy book from us.  

She loved both, and got to work lifting our prints all over the place.

Lucky for her, the moon was full on her birthday, and the sky was really clear, so it was a perfect night to try out the telescope.  We all took a turn and it is really cool! 

Jess made us all a birthday butterbeer to end the day of celebrating our girl.

The full moon had me thinking about the night she was born, because there was a full moon then too.  My labor with her started intense, no buildup at all.  We left for the hospital and I can remember the drive so clearly.  The moon was big and full and bright, and we both commented on it.  I watched it for a good while on the drive, probably to distract myself.  Ha.  We were both caught off guard by how it felt to meet our baby.  Even more amazing than you expect.

 I was so happy and so relieved at how naturally it all came to us.

She was our only baby under 8 lbs, but she gained a pound her first week and got right to work filling out.  She was so happy and joyful, and such an easy baby.

She was a little beauty too, and we could tell she was a smart one early on too.

She has grown and changed so much, and even when she frustrates us she makes me proud of how strong she is.  

She won't be pushed around, that's for sure.  Ha!  

She's still our sweet, smart, beautiful, silly, joyful girl, and will always be our first baby, the one who changed our lives (and us) in the best way, and made us parents. 

Happy birthday Paige, we love you SO much.

Happy 4th Birthday Neely

Neely is four, as of Monday.  I can not believe that.  She's getting so big, and she's so proud of it.  She talks about how things were when she "was little" all the time.  :) 

Not too long ago, while planning Reed's birthday party, it hit me that I hadn't remembered to celebrate it being Neely's golden birthday last year.  So we made up for it, and the day before her birthday this year, on her last day of being three, we had a golden birthday breakfast for her.  She was a tad confused, but liked the attention.

 and the gold stars on her cinnamon roll.  :)

The next morning she had her real birthday.  She slept in, and then I made some eggs and some chocolate muffins for breakfast.  She opened her first birthday card, from Aunt Mindy and Uncle Randy, and was SO excited that it came with a cute memory game.  We played quite a few rounds of that, and she is REALLY good at it.  She beat me, fair and square, a few times. 

Then she put on a dance show for my mom, Reed, and me.

 She always asks to go to the park "with the wiggly bridge", which is my least favorite because it's always crowded.  So she doesn't get to go to that one as often as she'd like.  Of course on her birthday, we took her.  We met Jess for his lunch break and watched them play.

 She chose the meals for the day, pizza for lunch, and spaghetti for dinner.  She got to open some gifts that night too.  Just a few, the rest are for the party.  My mom gave her a Frozen pajama gown, and a Frozen sleeping bag with sleep mask.  :)  She got to cuddle in our bed and fell asleep in her mask, cuddling her kitty.

She wouldn't take off her gown all the next day.

Even for our trip to Walmart, where she got to pick out a doll she's been wanting for months.

 She's our feisty one, not afraid to let people know what she thinks.  She's also SO sweet and loveable.  She makes us laugh all the time, and will ask me out of nowhere if I know that she loves me.  I'll say yes and ask if she knows I love HER, and she says "Yeah, you don't have to tell me all the time."  Ha!  I can see some of my traits in Paige and Cason, and some of Jess in them too, but so far Neely is ALL Neely.  She is FAR more open with her feelings than either of us.  Everyone who spends any real amount of time with her will get to know her.  She's not a private person, like her parents.  At least not so far.  She has a TON of personality.  We love this girl.  She's adorable, tough, smart and funny, and so many other things I can't put in to words. 

She feels big and all, but she also still likes pretending to be a baby when she wants a little extra lovin'.  It's sweet.  She still adores Reed, and thinks everything he does is the cutest thing in the world.

 

She drew this for me.  Some dinosaurs of course, beneath a crescent moon, sun, and dragon if I'm remembering right.

 

We've started doing an interview with the same questions on their birthdays.  I'm sure most of you have seen this already on instagram, but it's a good little window into who Meewee is.  Love this sweet girl so much.  You make us so proud, and I would do anything for you Neely!  Happy birthday!

Halloween 2014

I love Halloween.  Last year I was busy lying around cuddling a newborn, so this year we tried to do more Halloween stuff with the big kids to make up for it, all month long.  Lots of Halloween movie nights with Halloween cookies, decorating, reading(cute kid's books, but also I'd never read Frankenstein I realized, so I read that over a few days this last week leading up to Halloween) and crafts.  Still didn't get to do nearly as much as I wanted to, but we had fun.

Neely made this paper plate version of her stuffed kitty that she named "Black Cat Green"

She's becoming quite the artist lately.  She did this drawing of Sparky from Frankenweenie all on her own.  

I've had big plans for Bentos this school year, but it turns out I'm not very good at them.  Ha!  So they'll just be happening for special occasions I guess.  I did do one for every day this last week(except Tuesday when they get Redneck's for lunch at school).  I looked online for some ideas, and just modified them to things I thought our kids would like better.  I still had the cape from when I made Paige a banana vampire her Kindergarten year.   Cason got him this time, and Paige had a pumpkin muffin vampire that day.  :)  I found, like decorating desserts, that this is not my "thing", but they turned out decent enough to make the kids happy I guess, because they came home and immediately told me they loved their lunches each day. 

 

 

Halloween was great this year.  I actually finished the costumes I was making BEFORE the party started this time, so I wasn't as stressed.  Ha.  Actually, the day before, I realized that the hooded footie pajamas I'd bought for Reed, and planned to sew the tail and wings to, were too small for him.  I ended up having to just add elastic to the wings and tail. Then I just cut the hood off of the too small pajamas, and added the horns/ears(whatever they are) and a tie for under his chin..  That way he could just wear another pair of black pajamas he (thankfully) has.  He looked pretty dang cute.  

So many people helped with food, I ended up only having to think about drinks and dessert.  So I made some spider-infested chocolate chip cookies, and ghost truffles.  Those ghost truffles would be perfect for one of those "Pinterest Fails" sites.  Haha!  Oh well, the cookies turned out okay.

Anyway, back to the kid's costumes...

Neely has a favorite Halloween book, called "5 Black Cats", though she thinks it's called "5 Black Cats on a Dark, Misty Night" and makes me say the whole thing whenever I mention it.  She wanted to be the cat that has a crescent moon charm hanging from it's collar.  It turned out Aivree wanted to be a black cat too, so since they're best buddies they wanted to match.  So we split up the work-I handled the tails, paws, and two moon charms.  Veronica took care of the ears and collars.  They looked adorable.  

 

Tyra was a black cat too, so we got a picture of the three of them.

While being pulled in the wagon, Neely declared she was the "queen of all cats".

 Paige and Cason wanted to be Aurora and Hiccup, and we bought their costumes. 

Faith was a ballerina..

Alex was a hippie.

Lily was the Queen of Hearts.  She was always on the move, so this is about the only one I got of her, and she didn't have her crown on anymore.

They all looked so cute.  Liam(Ironman), Colin(Thor), and Amelia(cute newborn in Halloween pajamas) joined us halfway through Trick or Treating, but my phone had died by then and I got no pictures with them.  :(  

I was a witch, so I had to get a picture with my black cat.

We all ate, and visited for a while, and waited for Trick or Treaters, but there weren't too many this year.  :(

 Grammy and Reed gave wagon rides to the kitties.

Reed didn't do any real Trick or Treating, but he had a nice little nap in the stroller while the other kids did.  It was a really fun night.  I even fell asleep listening to the wind blowing in a spooky way.  :)