A Paw Patrol Birthday Party

Zachary is THREE - three! - how did that happen? This was a exciting birthday because this was his first birthday where he was walking independently! Hooray!! Some parents get excited when their child is walking by their first birthday - I'm thrilled that he's walking at his third. =) 

Zach's most favorite thing at the moment is Nick Jr's Paw Patrol. I have to admit, of all the cartoons out there, this one is pretty good. It's less annoying than a lot of the other options. I'm always a little anti character-themed parties, but he loves it so much that I made an exception this year.

We were celebrating on a Sunday afternoon after church and were going to be out of town most of that Saturday, so I couldn't have too much crazy prep going on.

My mom helped me out and printed this banner from the Nick Jr website and sewed it to a ribbon. Thanks Mom!

My friend Stephanie made this cake for the party. Zach thought it was great that all the puppies were on it. =)

Of course he got some great Paw Patrol gifts that he and his brother have spent the next few days arguing over.....

I checked out some other great party's on Pinterest and picked my favorite ideas from a few. My husband grilled hot dogs for everyone, we had Pawtato Salad, Pupcorn and two types of Puppy Chow. I did the Cinnamon Curro and S'mores Puppy Chow (that one was a huge hit). I bought these great dog bowls at Dollar Tree! They were the perfect serving size for my snacks! I downloaded the blank food labels from Mom's Tot School and just hand wrote on them with a Sharpie.

Here's a lovely mid-party messy view of the table.... =)

I did get some Paw Patrol plates, napkins, tablecloth and balloons for the party. Although we had a few late minute RSVPs, so I dug in my past party supplies and found some blue plates and red napkins to supplement! Whew!

We just had lemonade in my lovely teardrop dispenser from World Market (I just couldn't handle drinking something that was called "Toilet Water" like I saw of a few other sites...) and some mason jar cups with fun straws. I printed off a little sign for the front door (sorry for the blurry photo) and printed off some graphics from the Nick Jr website for gift bags. The name tags were some more blank food labels from Mom's Tot School. 

I wish I'd remembered to take a photo of what was inside the gift bags, but it was a packet of coloring pages I'd printed off the Nick Jr website, a 4-pack of crayon's from Party City in Paw Patrol boxes, a small doggie tennis ball (Target), a mask of one of the dogs, a package of Annie's fruit snacks and some Paw Patrol tattoos and stickers also purchased at Party City.

It was a fun party, but I'm happy that the party-planning is now over for the year - birthday's are stressful! =)

First Summer Camping Trip

We like to take several camping trips each summer if we can manage it. It is my husband's busy time at work, but if we schedule far enough in advance we can make it happen.

This past week, the four of us plus my parents headed over to the eastern half of the state to Lake Pearrygin State Park. This was a new camp spot for us and our campsite was right on the lake! I was concerned it was going to be crazy crowded, but apparently we lucked out by going mid-week (Tues-Fri) and only the last day did the annoying neighbors show up. =)

The view from our campsite:

I was a little nervous about this location and Zachary drowning, but it was up on a bank and considering he's not very adventurous, I didn't have to worry too much. We had a nice relaxing week. The boys always love camping. I used this link from Pinterest and some leftover bags from Malachi's Hot Wheel birthday party this past March (which I apparently posted nothing about!) and put together a scavenger hunt for them. Zach is really too young, but he liked walking around with his big brother anyway. 

My mom and I tried out a few new meals (mostly her ideas). We had a camping pizza which was a big success, cooked our cornbread like pancakes to go with our chili and campfire french toast (moderately successful... if I'd followed the instructions correctly it might have been better!)

Malachi was excited to be able to fish right off the side of the lake. He learned to cast out a line pretty well over those couple days.

We walked around the nearby town of Winthrop, which is a little touristy old-timey town. Then we headed out to see the Falls Creek Waterfall. It was just a short little hike, but had a beautiful view.

All in all a fun trip! Already have a site scoped out for next year and ideas for what to do and bring since we've got a better idea of what's in the area. =)

I'll leave you with this.... this is what fun looks like... maybe too much fun. =)

Merry Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas with our families. Busy, of course. But good. 

The weekend before Christmas we spent with my in-laws. Malachi loves it because he can have a sleepover in the living room with his teenage cousins and spend the whole weekend playing with them. I like it because that means I don't have to drive there on the actual holiday. Win-win.

On Christmas Eve we did our traditional Christmas Eve service at church. That is always an interesting service because all the kids are in there. Mine almost don't know what to do with themselves - whether to be awed or frustrated.

Then we come home to dinner and our Christmas Eve tradition of new jammies, eggnogg and hot cocoa and watching The Polar Express. This was Zachary's first year staying up with us to watch the movie and he was so cute! He loved it! Here was a picture I tried to take of the two boys enthralled with the movie.....

Only to be given this look which says to me, "Mom! Why are you disturbing my first viewing EVER of this train movie??" LOL

Christmas day was spent opening our gifts at home, assembling lots of toys (why do they make things SO HARD to get out of the packaging??) and then heading over to my parents for opening more gifts and Christmas dinner! My mom very nicely didn't get the boys gifts needing assembly - unless you count Legos. We had enough of those at home already. =)

So now the toys are scattered everywhere, Zouff the Elf has returned to the North Pole, we have WAY too much candy in the house and I'm trying not to think about taking everything down next week.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Fall Fun

We are full speed into Fall and it's been busy around here! Malachi is loving school (even though I'm still not too sure about the crazy teacher and even crazier school) and Zach and I are enjoying our solo time together. =)

Zach and I spent a day together with our MOPS group at the local pumpkin patch. So fun to run around with this little man. I feel so blessed that he is finally running around like he should be. I can't even get too mad when he's running away from me!

This particular pumpkin patch has a lot of fun activities for kids. A huge sandbox in the barn is a big hit and so is the water trough and pump. We also saw some little bitty kittens that Zachary was super excited about. We went on a hayride, bought a few tiny pumpkins and went through a hay bale maze in the barn.

Definitely fun to spend time with friends and with Zach!

Malachi was disappointed that we weren't going to go to the pumpkin patch as a family, so Shaun and I decided to take the boys out all together to the other patch in town.

This was Zach's first day with boots and he was excited about that. =) Malachi had a great time walking around and "measuring" pumpkins for the right size (middle picture above). He finally found the one he thought was perfect.

Malachi and I carved his pumpkin a little too early.... it was rotting by the time Halloween arrived.... but we had fun doing it.

Malachi also went to the pumpkin patch with his school and his dad. Unfortunately, his dad broke his phone and he doesn't have the pictures from that day, but we DO have a good one of the giant pumpkin they carved together.

And last but not least - Halloween! My boys went as a cowboy and a pirate this year. Zach wore Malachi's old pirate costume. My mom made  both the costumes.

Malachi had a terrible runny nose, but he was super excited. I had to work, so all my pictures are secondhand from my mom and husband. Love these silly boys. =)

Family Photos

We recently had some new professional family photos taken. I used to have a friend who did them for free, but I lost contact with her for awhile and had to find someone new! It was hard! There are so many of them out there these days. I discovered a girl from our church was doing photos and decided to use her since Malachi already knew her.

The last time we had photos done was when we had Zach's newborn shoot. Two years! I think they turned out really great.

Here is my little model... he loves doing this.
This was before Zach was really walking around much on his own. And he was super shy.... 

And of course a few family shots... my husband is always thrilled when I decided to get pictures done (did you catch the sarcasm there?) I love how she  caught the evening light in this shoot....

And here's one of my favorite. It was completely by chance that these two pictures were taken. The one on the left is of Malachi at about 18 months, I think and the one on the right is of Zachary, age 2. Love it that we got these two almost matching photos of these brothers.

And there concludes the photo display for the day. Love the memories that are captured during these photo shoots. Personalities are visible and it's amazing how quickly the boys change at this age. 

Back to School

We have been in a bit of a crazy mode with Malachi starting school this month. It always seems that everything starts all at once! 

Malachi has school... can I just say I'm not enjoying getting up in time to get everyone fed and out of the house each morning. I'm only thankful that he doesn't have to be there until 8:40 am... any earlier and I'd probably die.

Can I just take this time to make a public service announcement? It is never okay to go out in public without a bra on? There are actually people who drop their kids of (and then pick them back up at 3:00 pm!) with no bra on. So you're wearing a sweatshirt? Too bad... they rest of us can still tell you don't have a bra on. Sorry to break it to you. And if you don't care.... hm... I'm not sure what to say about that.

For me, MOPS and Women's Bible Study have started up again. They are now much easier to get to those places on time because I'm already up and dressed. 

Because of Zach's evaluation with the school district last year to get him his needed physical therapy, he now qualifies for a free parent/toddler class. I didn't quite realize when I said we'd join that it's EVERY Thursday morning. Sigh.... another commitment.  It was very good though and I think he really enjoyed it. It is fun to do something special with just Zach. I did something similar with Malachi when he was a toddler. I might have to cut out something else... I haven't decided quite yet.

Malachi has become obsessed with Hot Wheels recently. He's watches demonstrations on YouTube.... he would rather watch that on TV than regular cartoons! Crazy! Now when he plays with his own Hot Wheels he wants me to video him and post HIS videos to YouTube. They are hilarious!

I have a bunch of projects I want to do. I thought I was going to have all this extra time with Malachi in school.... and I do... but I still don't feel like I've been very productive. I honestly almost feel more tired! I have a dresser to paint and use as my media console and I want to build a book caddy thingy for Zach's room (okay...actually I want my husband to build it so I can paint it). Hopefully I get to those things in the near future and then I'll have something to post here that seems productive!!

Summer Wrap Up

I can't believe it's the end of summer already!! How did that happen? In our house, we're gearing up for the beginning of Kindergarten! I'm a little terrified, but I think it will be good. 

Yesterday I received an email from Malachi's teacher to set up our "Kindergarten Interview".  Honestly, I have no idea what to expect from this year.... being homeschooled from 1st-12th grade doesn't give you a whole lot of practical experience for the public school system. To say I'm a little skeptical is a bit of an understatement. I think there are a lot of awesome teachers out there, but they can only do so much with a broken system. I'm willing to give it a try though, so hopefully it is a good experience.

We also went shopping for school supplies with grandma and make a trip down to the outlet stores for new school clothes - of course mommy and grandma got a few things also. =)

I've also been trying to figure out how to streamline our mornings. I'm not a morning person, so anything to help me out is great. I took this idea from Pinterest @TheGunnySack for organizing clothes for the week. I went to Target yesterday and purchased a six-cubbie haning shelf organizer. Malachi thinks its cool (??) and so hopefully that will get us going. This way he can get himself dressed in the mornings and I know he's actually match.

We've been trying to fit in all the stuff that I didn't get to earlier in the summer.... like swimming lessons! Last year I only got Malachi in for a week of lessons at the YMCA. This year I didn't think I was going to get him in at all, but then I got told about a local place that was a good price AND they had one last session for the summer. Hooray! Only 3 kids in his class and he's doing really well this year having gotten over his fear of putting his face in the water last year. 

We happened to see Zachary's physical therapist at the swimming place. It was exciting to show her how well his walking now!! Last time we saw her he had only taken a few steps between us. Hooray for finally walking!!

We're going to try to "quit sugar" in our house. I was offered this book to review by the publisher and didn't plan AT ALL to want to do it.

But after reading it I've discovered that I already agreed with a lot of what the author had to say, but had no idea how to go about implementing it. Sooo... I'm actually really interested in trying it. She has a 8-week sugar detox program, so we're ALL going to try it. Convincing my husband with the sweet-tooth ("does this mean you're not going to make cookies anymore?) took some doing... but he's on-board too. We'll see how it goes......



Lastly... found this precious picture today of Malachi holding his new baby brother in the hospital.... awwwww......

Woodland Themed Birthday Party!

I thought I'd share a few pictures of Zach's 2nd birthday party. We did a Woodland Theme. This is also how his bedroom is decorated, so I thought I'd just carry it through to a birthday party. Of course I scoured Pinterest for ideas and I think it turned out pretty cute. =)

First the food: I had my husband cut me these little wood rounds from his firewood stash in the backyard for my labels. I stole that idea from someone online.... can't remember where though. I used a collection of similar ideas from several sites to make up my food names and selections. I had Teddy Grahams in the bowl "Don't Feed the Bears", fresh fruit in the decorated white cups for "Forest Berries", banana chips for "Chipmunk Chips", gummy frogs and worms (Malachi was super impressed by the fact that there were gummy worms! lol). My mom made me some really cute Owl cookies (which I apparently never took a photo of) and those cute little acorn candies (Hershey kiss, peanut butter candy melt and a peanut butter chip). I also made some little cream cheese sandwhiches. One with salmon cream cheese and one with regular cream cheese and cucumbers. Yum!

I made this funny tree for the front door out of a roll of brown paper and some scrapbooking paper. Its a little goofy, but I thought it was cute. My friend Stephanie made this awesome cake. She has made all the birthday cakes for my boys' parties and I think they get better every year! This one had cute little frosting animals and mushrooms all over it. I found Zach on top of the dining room table a few days later munching on the animals!

Here's the birthday boy. His favorite part? The balloons. =) 

Can't believe my baby is TWO!! I'm a little traumatized if I'm honest. 

Sick Days

Some days just don't go as planned. We had a big week last week. Malachi had Vacation Bible School all week and I volunteered and then Zachary's 2nd birthday (sniff, sniff) party was on Saturday. We were running from one thing to the next. Well.. yesterday when I was at work, my little newly-two boy got sick. Too much fun apparently finally caught up with him.

So this was today. No fun. We had a pajama day. I was up with this guy at 5:30am catching up on Downtown Abbey episodes I am STILL trying to get through (I've seriously been trying to watch Season 3 for months now....) I was supposed to be at book club - but sometimes we just need a day at home, right? Sometimes I am I SO thankful for a day to do nothing. I'd rather it not be because my baby is sick, but we still got a lot of good moments out of the day, so I'll take it.

Hoping for a fever-free day tomorrow and another day at home. =)

Fun in the Sun

Today we were forced to stay at home ALL day. Not that this is a bad thing... sometimes I wish we did it more. Unfortunately, it seems like we have somewhere to go almost everyday around here. Is it bad that a part of me longs for the days without Women's Bible Study, MOPS, soccer and whatever other weekly activities we do during the school year? Anyway... my car was being worked on today (really more like being assessed, which seems to come with a future hefty price tag) and so we had to stay home.

Being that we had a day at home AND it was an amazingly gorgeous day here in the Pacific NW (over 80 degrees!), I cleaned my carpets and then forced Malachi to play outside. He's been begging me to play in the sprinkler for days now....

Isn't this the face of pure delight? I love the innocence.

And then there's my Zach. He napped for much of the outdoor play, but managed to get out and crawl around in the wet grass for awhile. Grass is not his favorite texture and I am slowly trying to get him used to it. I'm surprised he tolerated the wet grass at all! 

See those scarred up knees? Those are the knees of a master speed crawler. Of a boy who refuses to walk on his own. Those knees are not dirty... they always look like that; a constant rug burn. Can't feel sorry for the kid though... he could walk he if wanted!

And what was I doing during all this fun?

I was tackling this mess. This is NOT part of the yard - this is the garden area right up against the house. Looks terrible doesn't it? This is what happens when you rent and don't feel like righting the wrongs of those who have come before you because you might move. Well... I think I'm staying here for awhile and I've decided I'm just going to have to make the best of it... and that means dealing with this disaster. So... one blister and a sore shoulder later it's slightly cleared out. Hopefully there will be an "after" photo to share eventually!

Happy Sunny Days!!!

Quick update

I still haven't gotten myself a new computer - which is why I'm still only basically posting book reviews. One of these days....

We've been pretty busy around here lately. At the moment, both of my boys are sick with some nasty bug, which means we are staying home and watching movies and I'm doing millions of loads of laundry... unfortunately. I'm praying I don't catch whatever they have - yuck. Anyway... since they're moving kinda slow today (the 5-year-old is currently sleeping!!) I thought I'd take the opportunity to write a little post.

We celebrated Malachi's 5th birthday party on March 22nd. I can't believe my boy is FIVE! He wanted a Seahawks themed party, so we served Game Day food and he wore his jersey. It was fun. His big gift from us was a new bike. It's SO big. 

We are trying to make decisions on school for Fall, which has been a bit stressful. I want Malachi to attend a public school Montessori school in our area. The complicated part though? We're out of the school district. I was all prepared to use my parents address to give him a higher chance of getting in, but I just couldn't bring myself to lie. If it had been a situation where we were just trying to switch to another regular school in a different district, I think I would have been fine. Since it's by priority though, I felt like I was cheating and decided that if he was really meant to be in that school, it didn't matter where he was on the list, he'd get in. Well.... he's currently on the waiting list. They say there is a lot of movement over the spring and summer, so I guess I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and if he doesn't get it - well - then it wasn't meant to be. The school in our neighborhood is supposed to be fairly good. Maybe he is just meant to go there. =)

Zach is currently crawling like a crazy-kid. He's into everything. He likes to get in all my cupboards and do things that Malachi never got into. We're still going to physical therapy every couple months, but I think he is definitely making good progress. Maybe he'll walk by his 2nd birthday if I'm lucky! 

His vocabulary is also growing steadily and that's always a fun stage. He's always pointing and saying "look!" everywhere we go. His new thing is that he waves to all "doggies". When we take walks or just see people around town with dogs he waves to the dog - not necessarily to the people. Ha! A veterinarian in our future maybe?

Okay... well,  that's it for the day, I guess. Got to get back to these sickies. 

My Boys

What’s been going on with my boys lately? This has been a pretty great period of time. They have started really trying to play together. I knew that having three years difference in age was going to make it interesting when it came to playtime. Unfortunately, I think it got postponed even longer because of Zachary not being mobile for so long. Malachi wanted to play with him…. It’s just kinda impossible with someone who doesn’t move around.

Now that Zach is crawling –really crawling – I find them playing with their cars together and Malachi running with some ongoing imaginative storyline while they’re playing. It’s so fun to see them interact and Malachi is so thrilled to have a playmate. I know it’s only going to get better as they get older and Zach finally starts walking.

In November we started physical therapy with Zach. He had started a sort of army crawl on his own, but I was happy when we started the actual physical therapy. He very quickly figured out how to crawl on all fours and then probably mid-December we finally got him to roll over from his back to his front! That was a huge break-through of its own. He had only rolled over a handful of times and was like a turtle when he was lying on his back. The day he came home from PT able to flip himself over was an exciting day! Now he is into everything – no cabinet is safe now. This is something I never really experienced with Malachi. Zach loves the kitchen cabinets. I might actually have to child-proof them. Small price to pay for a mobile toddler though. Next is working on standing and walking. He is still very resistant to this… but we’ll get there. I’m so happy that he’s crawling now, that I don’t really mind that he’s not walking yet.

Malachi had his first visit to the ER a couple weeks ago. He was sliding across the hardwood floor in our house and caught his knee on the heating grate in the floor. It tore a L-shaped hole in his knee. Of course I was at work, so Daddy brought him in to see me down in the Birth Center and then up to the ER they went. Zach hung out with me until grandma came to rescue him (I didn’t really want him up there with all those yucky ER germs) and Malachi ended up with six stitches. What an experience! Trying to keep those stitches in there for two weeks on the kneecap of a very active four-year-old boy! Glad they are out and we all survived it.

Aren't you glad I'm not posting pictures? I could have had a nice gory one here. =)

More Outdoor Fun

This past Saturday, my husband was out of town and I decided the boys and I needed to do something fun. Another gal at work had asked me to switch weekends with her, so I ended up with a long stretch of days off - hooray!!

We had a busy few days: 
Thursday - the 4th of July. Spent with with my family. We went to my parents to light some little fireworks and have dinner and then headed out to the local fireworks show. Both boys LOVED it - even Zach! I wasn't sure how he'd do since it was SO long after bedtime, but he smiled and laughed through the whole show!

Friday - painting. My mom came over and we spent the day painting Zach's room a pretty sky blue.  It coordinates with a blue in the art work I bought WAY back at our last house. I'm finally getting around to putting a nursery together for him.... it's way past due. I am really happy with the result and I'll post some pictures when I get it all back together and art on the walls.

Saturday - the park! Somewhere along the way one of my summer goals was to visit a bunch of places we've never been (including me who has lived here my whole life!). So far this year we've visited the Mclane Creek Nature Trail and Nisqually Wildlife Reserve. I found an interesting looking place a little north of us in Tacoma for us to go this week. It was called the Tacoma Nature Center and it was sure fun!

The best part about this particular place was something called the Discovery Pond. It was basically a large playground. It was nice because it was enclosed but very spread out, so lots of kids could be there, but not on top of one another.

They also have nature trails with some nice loops - long and short. The 5 of us took one of the short loops and then later my Dad, Malachi and I took a longer trail, while my Mom stayed back with Zach while he napped. We had a picnic lunch at the Discovery Pond and it was a very fun day!

We've been blessed with some very nice weather around here lately. It's been warm and not much rain! Perfect for getting out and discovering new places!

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday

Months ago, I started planning a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party for Zach's 1st birthday. Little did I know how prophetic that choice was going to be. He really is like the Hungry Caterpillar in the way he eats. =)

My mom helped me out a ton with this party. It was meant to be fairly simple considering it's for a one-year-old, but it seems that even simple can be a lot of work. 

His shirt was just a white polo from Target with some felt circles sewn to it. I cut out the circles at work the night before (using my K-Cup as a guide!) and my mom sewed it together today before the party.

My mom made me this adorable tissue-paper garlands. I originally saw it done on another blog, but my moms followed the links to this DIY Tissue Garland. Seriously SO easy (or so it looked when she did it) and it added SO much to our decor. 

I had quite a few of these strung around the house: from the mantle, this one over the couch (on my currently bare wall), over the living room curtains and over the doorway in the dining room. Very colorful. I asked her to do the tissue circles double-layered. The blog I'd seen it on before only used a single layer of tissue and it was very transparent and I wanted a little more solid look.

I also put together a hanging caterpiller out of those tissue paper poms. There are a million tutorials out there, so I won't post one here. I just got red, light and dark green tissue and hung them from the ceiling with some fishing line. I had seen something like this made with hanging paper lanterns, but those things can be kinda expensive... so this was my alternative.

I was very excited about my food table. I researched lots of different parties and everyone had a cute idea. I finally decided on doing some simple foods and making cute little signs with wording from the book on them.

I got the graphics for the from Polka Dots and Puppies blog. (The link to her free printable is listed in the comments - FYI.) I made a little card for each thing for example: "On Saturday he ate through one PICKLE" or "In the light of the moon a little EGG lay on a LEAF". During the week, the caterpillar eats through a bunch of fruits and instead of having them each separate, I mixed them all up into a yummy fruit salad.

Our Hungry Caterpillar Food:

• Small dill pickles
• Mixed fruit salad (apples, pears, plums, strawberries and oranges)
• Watermelon
• Deviled eggs on lettuce leaves
• Salami and Swiss cheese tray with butterfly crackers

For drinks we had iced tea and raspberry lemonade. I got these super cute mason jar lids for another party (which I have to blog about eventually) and had these red striped straws left over from my Red Hot Bunco party.

And lastly - but most importantly - the cake. I am so blessed to have a good friend who decorates cakes and she always makes my boys their birthday cakes and does an awesome job. This year was no exception with this adorable Hungry Caterpillar cake. Isn't he cute!?

So there it is... the Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party. It was fun, simple and fairly cheap. Perfect for a little boy who won't remember it. =)