Pirates & the Bathroom??

Little boys are so cute! E comes running in....

E: Mommy, you know how pirates like to go to the bathroom in the dark?

Me: They do?

E: Yeah! So I just went to the bathroom with the lights off! *giggling*

Me: Wow! That's very piratey of you!

E: I know! Hey J! Guess what! *running off to tell his siblings*

LOL

*I promise I have another post coming for my Vacation on the Cheap series! We are having issues getting pictures from my iPhone onto my pc. :(

"Prepared", As Defined By My 5 Year Old

Normally, each day I write out my kids individual assignments for school on some cute but cheap little blue note paper & distribute them. I'm sure there are plenty of other good ways to do this, but it's workin' for us right now. At any rate, I still haven't planned out E's preschool. So I was feeling quite a bit of mom guilt once again as this conversation ensued:

E: Mama, do you have my school work prepared?

Me: Prepared? (tee hee)

E: Yeah, prepared.

Me: No, baby I don’t, but I love that you used such a big boy word like “prepared”.

E: (tapping my arm) No, no, no, mom. It means did you get ready for me!

Me: Yes, I know what it means. No, I do not have it prepared for you. (Grabbing him in a bear hug, kissing his cheek, and still giggling) You are just too cute!


Despite the mom guilt, there was a certain sense of pride that my baby knew what prepared meant & could use it correctly in a sentence! LOL

Crazy Conversations

The craziest convo at my house in ages!!!
K: Mommy! E says when we move out of the house you and daddy are going to be divorced!
Me: (to E) You don't even know what that word means.
E: Yes I do!
Me: No you don't. And we're not going to be divorced, we're going to party like rock stars when you move out!
K & E: What?
K: Can you really marry your brother or sister? Because Elliott wants to marry me.
Me: NO! Not ever!
K: See? You have to find your own woman!
E: But I want to!
K: No, you have to find your own woman!
E: I need to find a plain woman like mommy.
Me: What? Get out!

A Funny Story

The other night I made cookies on a piece of aluminum foil rather than a cookie sheet (I hate doing dishes) and when I pulled them out, a corner ripped dropping several cookies down inside the oven. Today, I turned on the oven to make lunch & could smell smoke after a few minutes. That's when I remembered that I forgot to clean up the cookie mess. But when I opened the oven door, there were flames!!! The leftover cookies were on fire! I dumped baking soda on them, turned on all the fans & waved the door opened and closed to get all the smoke out. Luckily, Boo Boo Bear had dumped out half a bottle of carpet deodorizer earlier in the day, so the two smells sort of mellowed each other out.

It's A Wild Rumpus!

To celebrate Pinky Lee's 4th birthday and Boo Boo Bear's 2nd birthday we decided to throw a Wild Rumpus based on Maurice Sendak's classic children's book "Where The Wild Things Are". Pinky Lee loves this book, especially when we do the wild rumpus!
I spent three weeks planning and crafting for the event, but somehow managed to not get everything done come party day. That is what comes from wanting to do to much. However, all of the kiddos had a great time & most of what I tried to accomplish turned out. Here are some really great websites that I got most of my ideas from. I think I remembered all of them. Thank you to everyone who had great ideas for me to borrow!

My Rumpus - masks, boat & clipart

Metro Baby - magnets (I made these, but didn't get any pictures!)

Toy A Day - again, no pictures. Look for all 3 (Max, Moishe & Sipi) on his site

Caitlin Creer - bubble wrappers (nope, no pictures...but mine were orange with polka dots that resembled bubbles & had the same words as hers)

All of the following websites have great inspiration as well: Hostess with the Mostess, Simply Creative Insanity, Gauhaus, Creative Party Place , Mommy Star, Party Perfect, Skip to My Lou, Se7en, Fantasy Jr., and Story Connection Blog

I'm sure there are plenty of others out there, but these are the ones I found. Please check them out & explore their sites because they've got good stuff!

Here are the things I did:

The King of All Wild Things Tent

Here is my interpretation of the King of All Wild Things tent. I was drawing on the colors from the book & found these gorgeous fabrics. The top is supposed to come up higher, but I was working without a pattern & was off in my measurements. Oh well, still cute, the kids think it's fun & it's about to be a nice addition to the family room.

The Boat
In the story, Max reaches the island of wild things by sailing in his little red sailboat. Without it, this party would have been incomplete. Each of the guests got their picture taken in it. The credit for this project goes to my DH, and he did a great job!

Cupcakes

I was so behind on party day, that I had to frost these as the guests were arriving :0! My plastic bags that I was using to frost both ripped, which has never happened before, so they just got smeared with icing using my giant spatula. Not ideal. However, they were still quite yummy. Knowing I needed to use three cake mixes, I made layered vanilla, strawberry and chocolate cupcakes. The wrappers and the toppers are so cute though. I wish I had better pictures of them. The toppers are various monster faces or "Where the Wild Things Are". The wrappers say "I'll Eat You Up!"

Wild Rumpus Banner

The Thank You Cards

I made these thank you cards THEN realized that I didn't have envelopes that would hold them. So I had to make them by hand. It was more involved than I imagined since I had to make my own template. After completing all the envelopes I felt they were still lacking, so i made a collage of party pictures in black and white to line the inside of the envelope. The thank you cards have two pictures of the party guest, the group photo & one each of Boo Boo and Pinks.

The Invitations

For the invitations, I just used some clip art from the book (courtesy of Nat from My Rumpus), then added my own text, using lines from the story.

Other projects not pictured: magnets, bubble wrappers, personalized treat bag labels, food label cards with cutesy names like Monster Mac n' Cheese, decorate your own crowns & paper toys.

My Wild Things

The first slideshow is of each partygoers pictures in the boat (plus some others). The second slideshow is everything else at the party. There are lots of pictures so be prepared for it to take a while to load. Oh, and look for the cute little "Wild Thing" t-shirts I made for Pinks & Boo!

I hope you enjoyed seeing our Wild Rumpus!

Boo Boo Bear Turns 2!

As you can see, my baby has reached a milestone. The terrible terrific twos! He is such a big boy now. He can say all kinds of words. "NO!" is his favorite. He posesses all sorts of gross motor skills. He is most adept at hitting his siblings. He likes to use the potty. This involves standing, fully dressed, with both feet in the toilet. Hahahaha! Life with a toddler is like a roller coaster. There are the lows (as described above) and the highs, such as when he smothers you with hugs and kisses. Or when he says "I love you" and remembers to say "Please" and "Thank you" without any prompting.

So please excuse the mess on his face (he had just finished his favorite supper of pizza!), as you witness his delight in opening packages & playing with the contents. He LOVES cars. In lieu of cake, we had homemade brownies topped with chocolate ice cream (per Boo Boo Bear's request), raspberries, chocolate syrup and whipped cream. He could have cared less about the lit candle at the top, and just grabbed that spoon as fast as he could and started shoveling. It was precious!

Homeschool Christmas Party 2009

On Friday, we had our homeschool group Christmas party. The kids had fun making all kinds of crafts from hand painted sun catcher ornaments to chocolate covered cherry mice. (YUM!) Pinky Lee had fun making stuff, but Boo Boo Bear was only interested in playing with the glitter glue and eating cookies, so he played outside most of the time. Doesn't he look so cute trying to ride that bike? The adults brought cookies and had a cookie exchange. Then Bug and Lil' C played with the Uke-A-Doodlers again. Do you see all the chocolate on Lil' C's face? I told her twice to go wash her face, but apparently that chocolate was just stubborn! Oh well. It was fun and we all had a good time.

Thanksgiving 2009

Here are some pix of the kids playing with their cousins at Grandma S. and Grandpa T.'s house. Bug, Lil' C and Pinky Lee spend several days with them, and then DH and I drove up and picked them up on Thanksgiving Day. It was a short trip for us, but nice, and the kids had a great time. I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were glad for the silence when we left though! LOL

Halloween 2009

Yes, I realize this is a month late. Yes, I realize that some people's heads have been cut off in the slideshow. However, it is now on the blog for all to view, so I'm only sort of sorry for all the problems. At least it's up!
Bug was Optimus Prime, Lil' C and Pinky Lee were "spotty dogs", and Boo Boo was Winnie the Pooh disguised as a Hunny Pot. Bug chose his costume, Boo had to endure his for the 2nd year just like all the other kiddos since Bug have had to do (mostly cuz it's too darn cute!), and the girls really didn't get a choice about their costumes. I saw a pic on Better Homes & Gardens, I think, and decided they needed to be "spotty dogs", so I whipped up some homemade costumes. The ears turned out to be too small, so they ended up looking more like spotty kittens. Pinks lost the elastic in her top & it kept falling down. Good times. LOL
We spent most of the evening at a local church that puts on an evening of food, fun, and games. Then we tried in vain to do some actual trick or treating, but nobody seemed to be home...anywhere. It was really very weird. Oh, well. We all had a great time and my kids looked super cute. As always.

Halloween 2009 Pix

It's only hair, right?

My precious little Boo Boo Bear has been blessed with the gift of quick growing hair that the rest of us have. Unfortunately, that means frequent hair cuts. This is not easy to do to a toddler. He's already had his hair cut 4 or 5 times at least. We'd been stalling this time though, since last time had kind of been a big ordeal. It started to get kind of long, but still like we were aiming for the style that all those boys on Disney Channel seem to have. Then, for awhile, he sort of looked like David Cassidy with the feathered hair. LOL Then it evolved to this: Not the best look for a boy. Not only did he look like a girl most of the time, he was starting to look like a neglected little girl. Oh boy. So one night, we grabbed the clippers on the the longest setting and got to work. I'm thinking there might have been something wrong with the guard, because what we ended up with was this:

It's all gone. All that beautiful hair. As you can see, he's recovered from the ordeal. I have too, mostly. We both cried a lot that night. For several days it was as though I had lost my scruffy haired, hippy boy & had him replaced with military baby. He seriously looked like a different child. What do you think?

Boo Boo Bear's Shoes

Here is a random pic of Boo when we first started putting shoes on him. I think it was way back in November. Not sure though. I do remember him thinking "Why are these things on my feet?". I'm sure that's what he was thinking because he kept trying to pull them off.

Big Boy

Big Boy...Proud Mama

So this post is a little late, but back on February 20th (okay a lot late) we were at McDonald's after storytime. Every Friday we go to the library for storytime, and sometimes a group of us take the kids to play & eat at McDonald's afterward. Well, on this day, nobody from story time came with us, but Daddy & some of our other friends came and ate lunch with us. They all had to go back to work after eating, so I took Pinky Lee & Boo Boo Bear outside to play by myself. Wouldn't you know that on that day, of all days, Boo Boo Bear decided to crawl over to the play place and up the stairs into the tunnels ALL BY HIMSELF!!! We don't have any stairs at our house, but he just kept working until he made it! He was so proud of himself & so was I! What a big boy! He loved crawling around in the tunnels. I hope he does it again next time.

Then the next day, Daddy was trying to make him walk, and he took 2 steps all by himself!! YEA! Daddy always seems to miss the first steps of walking so he was really excited to see that. Unfortunately, since that day, he has steadfastly refused to stand or walk on his own. You try to stand him up and make him walk, and his little legs just turn to jello. So stubborn. Wonder where he gets that?

Boo Boo Bear turns 1!

Yesterday was Boo Boo Bear's 1st Birthday!!! Oh, it seems like only yesterday.....*sigh* Here are the pics from eating the cake, & us singing Happy Birthday to him. He liked the singing, not so much for the cake. Don't know what that was all about, although he had just eaten a very big dinner & he was very tired. Everybody else enjoyed the cake, which is good since I had to make it from scratch. Daddy said he didn't think he'd ever had cake made from scratch, which is a really sad commentary on my life because I love baking. How could I have never made a cake from scratch before??? Hmmm...

Anyway, it was a sweet little celebration just with the family. We will be having "THE Birthday Party" at the end of January as a joint party with his sister Pinky Lee (whose birthday is now only 9 days away!). It won't be until the END of January because Daddy decided to run off and leave us for at least 2 weeks for a "business trip" starting Monday. The last "business trip" involved a NASCAR race. But since NASCAR is on break, he may have to actually do work! *GASP!* LOL, just kidding Daddy! We love you and will miss you!

Oh, I digress again. Now, here are the pics:

For some reason, the slideshow keeps cutting off his head on the one where he's grabbing for the cake. I couldn't fix that. Sorry! Still cute though.

BTW, the icing is blue because I made it with butter, which turned it yellow, which I didn't think was so cute for my little man, so I dyed it blue. Yeah.