little man mustache bash

What do you get when you mix family, cake, ice cream,balloons, a ton of fun hats (thank you Kari!), and mustaches? A little man mustache bash, of course! After all, celebrating one's first year of life should be memorable, should it not?

My kids don't have the expected "O-M-G, I'm in heaaaaaven, give me more, more, more," kind of reaction to their first taste of cake, and Grayson kept up the tradition

Being the wonderful big brother that he is, Kyle tried to help Gray see what he's been missing....

but Grayson really just preferred to use the cake and frosting like war paint.

Happy birthday Grayson Thomas!

This years Christmas card? Perhaps.

35 it is

Thinking about turning 30 used to make me less than excited, way less than excited. Now I think that if the 35 year old me could have given the 25 year old me a wee little glimpse into life past 30 I may have spent less time in mourning and more time looking with great anticipation at my future. After all, who doesn't want a little bit of this in their life! I'm just glad Grayson didn't go squirting off my lap. Lesson to all parents of littles out there ~ while the camera is shooting never stop smiling, no matter what the children do, don't stop smiling!

Times like this make me wish we could take photographs Harry Potter style. Kyle was jumping with excitement as I was opening his present. The present he made at preschool and kept hidden and *mostly* secret for almost 2 weeks. I say mostly secret because in a series of unknown events the necklace ended up moving from its hiding place under the comforter on the bed to being gathered up with a pile of clothes that got tossed into the washing machine. That and the fact that little sister is not good at keeping secrets and not less than 10 times in the past 2 days she came up to me smiling and saying my present was a "secwet" only to lean in close and whisper "it's a neckwace mama!"

Today I say goodbye to the first 35 years and look forward with great anticipation at what this crazy life has in store for me1

goodbye auntie cheerio

Yesterday we said goodbye to Auntie Cheerio. Right before the family went upstairs in the church for the funeral service, Emily saw a picture of Jesus. She was standing on the hearth of a fireplace and began singing "Jesus Loves Me". It was perfect and I know Cheryl loved it!

Auntie Cheerio, we will miss you more than you can know. Your lake cabin was your dream, but it was one that you so willingly shared with others. There are many wonderful memories that wouldn't have happened without you. Thank you for sharing your life with us.

"I may seem far away, but it only takes a thought to bring me near." 

lazy may and june days

The coming of July means Grayson will soon be three months old and that I will soon be returning to work. The older I get the faster time passes.  My blog remains sadly devoid of the picture filled, witty posts meant to amaze and astound family and friends of how we so easily handled the transition from a family of 4 to a family of 5. While I didn't fulfill my lofty dreams of cramming these precious days together with fun and adventure for Kyle and Emily, and my house looks more disastrous lived in then ever, I have a ton of pictures to remind me of everything we did do together, likesuchas (my newly discovered favorite phrase from a blog I faithfully stalk):

Kyle super slamming the basketball in itty bitty sports

 ...learning amazing ball handling skills

 ....cheering Kyle on

 

.....fishing at OWLS pond



 ...visits from super heroes

 ....brother bonding time

 ...going on a bear hunt at the zoo

 ...life from a prairie dog's point of view

 ...being cute

...sprinkler fun

...strolls in the neighborhood

 ...never ending yard work

...playground fun

 

....and this one has been busy growing up so fast

 

grannie's garden

I will always remember the garden that took up most of the backyard at my grandparents' house. They grew everything! Grandma used to give me a plastic shopping bag and send me out to pick snap peas and green beans. Usually by the time we got home most of them were gone, happily eaten during the car ride home.

Grannie spends a lot of time every summer tending her organic garden on the south side of town and we were lucky to be able to join her this weekend and help her with the start of this year's garden

 

 

 Now if the gophers and bunnies stay away we will be munching on peas, purple beans, red, orange, and yellow carrots and have tomatoes and beets aplenty to can for the winter!

 

we survived another birthday month

Somehow Emily got to celebrate her birthday 3 times this month. There was her actual birthday when we went out for ice cream

There was the family evening where she got most of her presents and a lemon-raspberry cake (which she totally asked for, btw)

And of course, the big Batman-Tinkerbell Extravaganza. Having two young kids with birthdays that are less than 2 weeks apart presents a unique challenge ~ how to celebrate each itty bitty without overdosing on cake and overwhelming family and friends with too many parties too close together. I figured that while the bigger itty bitties were still young that we could get away with having one big family party, which worked brilliantly last year. Now that Kyle has been in preschool for a year I decided he could invite some of his friends this year. When I started planning the party I asked Kyle who he would like to invite and he named a handful of boys from his class. When I asked if he was going to invite a couple of the girls that he has mentioned in the past he emphatically declared "no, Mama, NO wittle girls allowed!" In the end he did gracefully concede to allowing some girls like Emily, Brina, and his friend Addison to come. We ended up inviting 7 of his classmates (all boys). We reserved a park shelter close to a playground that would be fun for the toddlers and the bigger kids, since this seemed the easiest way to entertain a herd of 4 and 5 year old tornadoes. Luck was not to be on my side, however, and the weather went from unseasonably warm and sunny to cold and rainy the day of the party.

The weather was not the only party related disaster, oh no. The previous two years have produced cakes and cupcakes that were a "bit" on the dry side. And this year? What happens when I go into panic mode and attempt to make cupcakes without cupcake pans (because I forgot to borrow them from my MIL)? Cupcake blobs.

We all know how brutally mean honest kids can be, and since I didn't feel like being reduced to tears by a bunch of 2-5 year olds, I put out an SOS to Nana and Grannie. Luckily Nana rushed over with her pans and stayed to help me re-make the batch, and we ended up with more kid-friendly cakes.

When I woke up this morning and realized that instead of the perfect party where all the kids could eat as much cake and ice cream as they wanted and run off their sugar highs in a wide open park was instead going to turn into a OMG-what-am-I-going-to-do-with-all-of-these-kids-in-my-house party, I admit that I had a few moments of panic. 

In the end the day was full of fun and laughter, no major injuries to report, and Travis even overhead one of Ky's buddies proclaim that "this was the best party ever!" I can speculate that this sentiment was brought out by any combination of the following scenarios that occurred in my basement today:

1. the fact that Travis lets Kyle play all manner of sports in the house
2. the game dodge ball using my exercise ball that is bigger than most of them
3. the wrestling match that broke out downstairs
4. the discovery of the dart board 
5. Lord only knows what else

In addition to the general chaos that naturally follows a group of 4 and 5 year old boys, we had a feminine touch to festivities as well in the form of a houseful of fairy princesses

Happy birthday my littles, today you were surrounded by family and friends that love you almost as much as I do!

P.S. evidence why I won't be doing another Kyle-Emily party combo.

Doesn't look to bad, you say? Well this is only the upstairs. I was spared the after math in the basement by my amazing MIL who cleaned up while I tried to get an overstimulated Grayson to sleep!