Per Your Request

I've had some requests lately for pictures from my last two celebrations.  I'm too lazy to edit them and make them all pretty and glowy and I'm probably going to be too lazy to really document anything about them.  But hey, most of you just look at pictures anyways.  One day, when I'm not too lazy to edit them and make them all pretty and glowy, I'm going to start a new blog that will feature all my knock-off ideas. One that will have tagged pictures and be Googleable.  But it will have to wait for a day when I'm feeling a tad more confident and ambitious than I am now....

So, without further ado, here's more pictures than you could ever hope to be forced to look at.  Sorry for making them individual, it's just easier for the two people who may want to re-post them.


I've intentionally omitted all pictures with people in them since this is not a post intended for journaling.  So if you were at either celebration, please don't fret over not making the cut. 


Mickey Mouse Birthday Party...

 Cupcakes made by Rachael...

 Cake made by Mallary...

 Photos taken by Lisa...

Vintage Birthday (some pictures are a little cut off due to size, please excuse them)...

 There's a lot I would change about this gathering if I could.  Like adding lemon slices to the vases...

 Cake by Mallary (sorry about the crappy lighting, the settings on my camera were wonky and I'm too lazy to edit)...

 I would have blown up the balloons more so they didn't have the stupid dark spot on the bottom...

I wish I would have taken pictures with the plates on the table and I wish I would have added doilies underneath them (they were clear plastic plates)...

 I hung these up at the last minute and by myself so I didn't notice the wonky spacing until I looked at the pictures...dang it...

 Best. Cake. Ever.  My mouth is watering remembering the goodness...

It was fun to try out new ideas with both parties.  There's a lot of things I loved enough to do again and some definite tweaking or adding before I throw another party.  I'm also going to start expanding my guest list now that I have a better feel for how many people I can comfortably accommodate.  I will accept monetary bribery to be added to the guest list.

Fulfilling a Saying

I recently became addicted to Pinterest.  I recently read a saying on Pinterest, "Good mothers have sticky floors, dirty ovens, and happy children."  I lived this today.  But in all honesty, for it to be completely accurate, it would need to say "dirty houses" not just ovens.

Thanks again to Pinterest for the activity idea.  The girls worked on their road map...

 while the boys put together $1 wooden vehicle kits from Michaels...

 I wish I remember what was being said here between the two girls, especially with the looks I caught on Sophie's face...

 Not sure what the deal is with Aubrey's E.T. finger...

 It was cool to see what kinds of areas each group of kids wanted drawn.  The girls wanted the ocean/beach, the beach house, tree's, a park and lots of roads.

 I'm super sad I didn't get better pictures of the boys' map.  They were very specific in the details of theirs.  First was the ocean/beach, then an airport, followed by a police station, fire station, a market "by the beach so when people were at the beach they could go buy stuff", a fruit stand, a helicopter pad, a park with a swing, a space station/launching pad, a hospital and palm trees.  Lots of palm trees.  They later had me add an island.

 The best part was when Colton painted a shark, complete with bloodied mouth, followed by a piranha.  That's Spencer's boat in the water, I never got pictures of Trenton helicopter or Colton's airplane. 

He also painted a dead guy (black stick figure with red blood) right outside the Fire Station.  Classic boy stuff.

Random Things I want to Remember about Today:

*The three extra kids didn't want to stay until they knew exactly what the project was.  Once I told them, they didn't hesitate to stay while Rachael went to the store.
*The boys did awesome putting together the vehicles by themselves.  Except Colton.  His was even a little tricky for me.
*Nothing gets them excited more than getting to use the glue gun.
*They were very impressed with my ability to draw a house that looked "just like our beach house!"
*That the first things they all wanted were oceans, beaches, and beach houses on their maps.
*That they were almost devastated by my lack of paints.  I need to replenish them soon.
*Their amazement over the fact that I could mix paint colors, especially when they needed brown.
*Colton's obsession with palm tree's with coconuts.  It was the first thing he painted.
*The boys' pre-planning meeting while I drew the girls' map.
*How much the girls, or really just Aubrey, played with their maps when they were dry.
*Sophie wanting to take it with her to my moms, after she made Jason close his eyes and taped it to the wall for him to look at.
*The teamwork and conversations and the fact that they're finally old enough to actually finish big projects.

I love that today I had sticky floors, a dirty house, and creative and happy children.

Randomness

Some of my favorite, picture worthy moments over the last few weeks...

---Katie came over the day after we got home from vacation and decided to paint the kids' faces...

 Batboy fell asleep mid-face. 

 The butterfly princess couldn't stop checking herself out in the mirror and Spencer wanted to be something scary...

---Rachael and the kids were here one day a few weeks ago and the loud laughter of the older kids made us get up from the kitchen to check things out.  This is what we found...

For days afterwards I would find Carson hiding under blankets in the bucket under the table.  It was funny every time.

---Another highlight of late was having Jason build the benches on the back porch.  Ignore the non-matching swagging red fabric and the black make-shift table in the middle, this was the morning of the 4th and I was trying a few things out.  I'm loving those benches.

Also on the 4th...

We're kinda loving the brick wall which is perfect for chalkart.  Now if we could just figure out a ladder/platform combination to make accessing the field a little more convenient.

We went to the 4th of July Parade again this year with Grandma and got our annual grandma/grandkid pictures...

 The kids loved the pre-parade street dance, even though I had to bribe the oldest one...

 

Sophie is demonstrating here why she can't do the limbo, claiming she can't bend very low...

 

---Spencer loved checking out the map we bought in Depot Bay.  He was making me laugh when he would say things like, "Oh, it's Wisconsin, not Westconsin," or when he pointed out to me the path from "Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico,"  and suddenly the song made so much more sense to him.

 

 ---On another day when everyone was here, I suggested a Lego building competition between Colton, Spencer, and Trenton.  All three of them exceeded my expectations in enthusiasm and creativity.  Gotta love the spirit of competition.  This was Colton's...

The ocean scene had a beach, a lifeguard, an alien police officer, a guy on a boat, a bridge, and my favorite, a shark wrestling section.  Spencer re-posed the guys while I was taking pictures so one guy was wrestling while the other guy was getting eaten.

Spencer's was a mad scientist's lab...

 I can't remember anything he told me about it, but this was my favorite part...

This guy spun around.  Pretty cool.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures of Trenton's since he decided at the last minute to take his apart and start over and then he had to go home.  Bummer.

---Spencer has been asking for a few weeks if he could mow the yard and Jason finally let him.  At one point Jason came in laughing and told me I needed to come check him out stating that it was like watching a rodeo.  The self-propelledness of the mower was a little to fast and it would seriously fling him around corners...

 

After he was done he came in the house and yelled, "Hey Mom!  Are you facebooking about me?  Cause I want you to."  Ah crap, the vanity has already started.

Trying to maintain household peace...

Thank you masking tape, thank you.

Sometimes it's True

When I realized that my last two children would be only 15 months apart, everyone told me that they would be the closest of friends.  It's moments like this when I realize it's true....

Carson woke up super crabby from a late afternoon nap and it didn't help that the inside of his upper thighs were irritated from running around in wet shorts earlier in the day.  He was super upset as I put some medicine on his legs and Sophie was right there the whole time comforting him.  Whenever he's hurt she brings him things to distract him, tells him to take a deep breath, and speak reassuringly while hugging or patting him.  Today she got him a blanket and offered to watch Barney with him.  As I got them both all tucked in, he turned to me and said, "Not you!  I only want BoBo."  (Not sure how that nickname has stuck for her but he rarely calls her Sophie.)  When I came back into the room a few minutes later, I found that she had moved them to the other end of the couch and they were snuggled together watching their show.  

Does it get any cuter than this?

Bringing in June

June has got to be one of the best months ever.  School gets out, the evenings get warmer and we head for the ocean.

The beach, the bay, the food, the sand, the water and the kids (though there are times we definitely wish we had forgotten them at home).  Aaaahhhh....I can't wait.

However, the last few days before we go are always super stressful to me.  I worry about the weather while we're there, the packing, the traveling, and the spending.  So, after being bombarded every where I look with people posting goals (seriously, every time I log on to FB or skim blogs, someone, somewhere, is starting a goal), I've decided to set one of my own in order to help relieve a little stress.  Besides, Rachael's even got a new one right now and I can't seem to let her succeed at a 14 day goal without trying it myself.  So here's mine...don't laugh...

See how I've even made myself a little check off area?  I've got to have some accountability somewhere!  And when I say no eating out, that doesn't include eating at my parent's, sorry mom and dad.  Sometimes I get a little sick to my stomach when I realize that unnecessary spending includes things like Netflix rentals, digital books, and fountain soda's.  Does it count though if you can pay for something with the change you've collected from under the couch cushions?

Because She Told Me To

Yesterday I got a call from Rachael and she simply stated, "You've only blogged once in May and that was on the 9th."  So, I resolved to post at least once more in May but yesterday ran out so here I am, on the first of June.

So, we were busy in the little month of May.  We worked on our backyard a lot and still have a lot we'd like to do.  Unfortunately money runs out but here's what we've got to show for it so far...

Here's a corner of the railing we added around the patio...

And the rest of it.  We'll be building benches along these two sides eventually...

 Two new chairs...

 And a newly painted old swing from my Grandma Goude's. 

And a fire pit area.  We'll plant grass along the back side of it and next year hope to fancy up the fire pit thingy somehow.  For now, we're just waiting for a Saturday night that doesn't get stormy so we can try it out!  Stupidly, I never took any before and after pictures, this was the only 'during' picture I took.

We also managed to purchase our first two wheelbarrows in the month of May.  You can see the first one here, hard at work.  Just your regular old standard red wheelbarrow there on the left side...

 And here's our second...

In order to pacify my concern that the small pick-up we just bought didn't have a working parking brake, Jason informed me that the first truck you ever buy is just a glorified wheelbarrow.  I'm not sure if that made me feel better or not.

The other photographically documented event in May occurred just last Friday night.  Somehow, unbeknownst to me, it was decided that I would be renting Justin Beiber's movie for Spencer and Colton and Graycie.  Being the cool Aunt that I am, I just went along with it.  After all, it was the first time in months that Colton showed any interest in coming to my house and I wasn't about to pass that up.  We picked up a pizza at Yoke's, they played outside for awhile and then came in for the big event.  During this whole time, I noticed a rather foul smell in the house and realized it was coming from Colton's feet.  He willingly went and washed his feet but a quick dip in water just wasn't enough.  Half way through the movie, as he kept creeping closer and closer to the side of the room I was on, I declared am intermission and sent all of them to wash their feet.  What the H was I thinking?  I had imagined three kids with their pants nicely rolled up sitting on the edge of the bathtub washing their feet.  This is not what I had imagined...

But it's what I got.  Three fully dressed children who "accidentally" fell into a bath full of bubbles.  They could not stop laughing.  Between the bath incident and the two times they played in the mud, I did a total of 4 loads of laundry in the 24 hours they were here.

Good times in May, good times.