Cars Party!

Hard to believe, but our little man turned 5 this weekend! He's been so excited for his party that he had been counting down the days for the past month. To make it easier in showing him how many days were left we made a paper chain and each night before bed he would tear off one of the loops.

I asked him what kind of party he wanted and without hesitation the answer was Cars. So Cars it was! I went on Pinterest for ideas and found a couple easy cakes and we started planning. Here's what we came up with...

Excited to help Daddy build his new present!

I made each of the kids a 'driver's license' to include in the treat bags

It was a fun party! A few guests couldn't make it so we had a total of six kids, including ours. But it turned out to be the perfect sized group (and I'm sure they made enough noise to make up for the ones who couldn't make it!)  ;)  For the kids we had a late lunch of finger foods/snacks and cupcakes.

After our first little guests left we had about 15 minutes before Kyle's family arrived for our second party. More snacks, followed by a pizza dinner and cake & ice cream! Sooo much food! I feel like I won't need to eat for the next three days. :/

It was great that both our friends and family were able to make it to celebrate with us! Thankful for such wonderful  friends/family who show so much love to our children.  :)

Family Visit

Elise making herself comfy on top of her cousin

I'm SO happy that my parents could come out for a visit this summer! And to make it even nicer two of our nieces, whom we hadn't seen in about 6 (?) years also came. They all arrived on July 1st and were able to stay for two whole weeks! The last time my parents came down Elise was only two months old. Now that she's 18 months older and full of energy, she kept her grandparents amused (and busy!) every day they were here. She warmed up pretty quickly to them and her cousins and spent the entire two weeks being carried around and receiving all the attention a little girl could want!

I don't know if Parker remembered his Grandpa and Grandma from their last visit, but he knows them somewhat because we Skype with them every couple weeks. Hopefully he's old enough now to form some lasting memories of their visits. Needless to say, he had a great time with everyone! We let him join in when we all played board games and he had a blast. After our company left, Park was a bit disappointed that we no longer had enough people to play some of his favorite new games--Imaginiff, Wits & Wagers and Apples to Apples.  :)

My parents at Ripley's

We tried to see some of the local sights while my parents and nieces were here… We went up to San Francisco to walk around Pier 39 and, while there, also went to Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum. We were hoping to ride a trolley over to Lombard Street but the lines were so long we decided to skip that and take a boat tour of the bay instead. Good thing we opted for the boat ride--both girls loved it! Though I've been on the ferry to Alcatraz Island many times before, I had never been on the bay tour and sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge so I enjoyed doing something new myself, too!


Our other tours / excursions included the Winchester Mystery House, the mall, San Francisco Zoo, bowling and Great America. Our nieces don't have the big amusement parks we have here, so we wanted to take them on a few roller coasters. Well, technically KYLE wanted to take them on the roller coasters. I used to like them but not so much any more. Now I'm content to go on small rides with Parker and Elise.  :) We'd heard Great America was a good park for both big rides and kid ones so we wanted to try it.  One of the girls loved the roller coasters and went on several more with Kyle. The other didn't like them so much and came to hang out with the rest of us. All the little kid rides were right next to each other, so Parker had fun going from one ride to the next. There were a couple that adults could go on too, and we took turns riding with him but most of them he had to ride himself because of size limits. He didn't seem to mind, though! The funniest one to watch was the bumper cars. When Parker would get bumped he would let out the biggest chuckle like he was thoroughly enjoying it but after, as we were walking away, he would give a rather disgusted scowl and ask, "Why would they DO that?? Why do they keep bumping into me??"

Clearly he doesn't understand the concept of bumper cars. So the next time he went in that ride I got a great little video of him in his car, off in one corner by himself, turning circles. Love it!

 Elise tried a few rides but wasn't a big fan yet. She preferred walking around or watching from the stroller… or eating from whoever happened to have food at the time.  :)

Parker found his twin at Great America!

Over all, it was a wonderful two weeks! And, as always, it went by way too quickly. It's always hard to say goodbye knowing we probably won't see them for another year. The kids change and grow so fast that at times I wish we lived closer so they could see their grandparents more often (and yes, I wish I could see them more often, too!). However, the Lord has blessed us in so many ways just where we are--our children, our home, our church family, closeness to Kyle's family, Kyle's job, etc., etc that I can't really see a reason to complain or want to move!  Unless….  maybe the answer is to convince my parents to move HERE…?  :)

Easter Weekend

It seemed like Easter would never get here! I gave Elise her bunny slippers early so she's been wearing them for the past month. They're so cute on her little feet!  :)

I wasn't sure how much Parker would understand about the meaning of Easter. I tried to explain it to him but I don't think he really gets it yet. And that's okay--he's only three. Trying to process who God is can be enough for a little person. Add to that the story of how and why Jesus came to earth to die on the cross and the resurrection and it's probably a bit much to take in. We'll let him think about it for a while. We visited my sister-in-law's church on Sunday and Parker's class made these neat crafts--a tomb with the stone rolled away. I'm going to keep it for a while and maybe it'll be a good reminder for him of what the holiday is for. 

But we also wanted to make it fun, so we had an egg hunt for the kiddos. We did it on Friday since we would be away on Sunday. 

Parker and Elise waited in their room for a few minutes while I "hid" eggs around the living room. It's great doing it with toddlers--you basically just set all the eggs out in plain view and then you still have to show the kids where to look!  :) 

Parker found his pretty quickly. Elise, on the other hand, took her time. She would pick one up and look at it, then slowly open it. We had to keep prodding her to make sure she got them all. I'm not a big fan of giving little kids a bunch of candy so I filled the eggs with other treats instead--raisins, fruit snacks, socks, tattoos, stickers, etc. 

Friday afternoon we drove to my sister-in-law's house and spent that evening and Saturday with their family. It was a fun weekend of visiting, playing games, shopping and eating. And Parker and Elise got to meet their cousin's bunny, Princess! 

On Sunday we got together with more of Kyle's family in Sacramento. It was great to see everyone and the kids had a blast playing with all their cousins and aunties and uncles. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful and caring inlaws! :)

Finally, here are a couple pictures of Elise in her Easter outfits.    :)

 Isn't she the cutest bunny ever?!

 

Cold Spaghetti

I read a blog recently where the author made a big bowl of cooked spaghetti for her little girls to play with, and they loved it. What a fun, messy idea for sensory play!

We've had a couple really warm days this week so I'm looking for more things the kids can do outside. I was already stopping at Dollar Tree this morning so I grabbed a couple boxes of spaghetti while we were there.

After cooking it, I rinsed it really well with cold water, then used my hands to mix food coloring into small bowls of the noodles. I rinsed it with a little more water to get rid of any extra color, then put the dyed spaghetti into my biggest bowl and set it outside for the kiddos.

I thought they would dig in, but they took their time, pulling out a couple noodles at a time and putting them on the ground. After a few minutes they began grabbing handfuls, with Elise flinging it behind her. They pulled it back and forth, putting it into the bowl and taking it out again, until it was a nice bright, mixed-up rainbow of colors.

After about 20 minutes Elise got bored and walked off to play in the yard. Parker wanted to join her but wasn't quite ready to leave his sticky mess so I let him play for a few more minutes before calling them in for naptime.

The best part is that cleanup was super easy--just dumped the spaghetti onto the plastic tablecloth the kids were sitting on and put the whole bundle into the trash!

I keep reading that boxes of dried pasta/rice/beans are fun for kids to dig through too, especially if you hide some small 'treasures' in there for them to find. Maybe I can try that for Parker and Elise next time!

Stick Puzzles

I'm always on the lookout for simple art projects I can do with Parker. Given his love for puzzles, I knew this would be a hit! I even had all the supplies for it! Granted, we only needed popsicle sticks and pencil crayons, but still...   :)

First we taped 8 sticks side by side so they would stay together. Then we turned them over and drew pictures on the front. As you can see I'm pretty limited artistically, but Parker thought they were great. His drawings were a bit more abstract--I guess he wanted more of a challenge when putting them together later!   ;)

Once our drawings were done we took off the tape and mixed up the pieces so he could put them back together. I think I'll put a couple of these in our diaper bag so he has something to do next time we're sitting in a waiting room. 

Canada Scores!!

Is it just me, or is anyone else happy the Olympics are finally over? Nonstop coverage for the past couple weeks has become more than tiring. Unlike Kyle, who likes to watch all the events, there are only a few I really care to see. I watched a little of the snowboarding and ski jumping but my main interest was in hockey. I know, I know, I can watch hockey almost any night of the week so why choose that sport out of so many others? Not sure... although it's always fun cheering for our favorite NHL team, it's different when all the best players come together to form an all-star lineup called Team Canada. The win is so much sweeter when it represents your country as a whole rather than just a city. And since hockey is Canada's game, it's always a big deal to see them play in the Olympics.

So our home was a house divided last week--just for fun, of course! Kyle somehow convinced Parker to cheer for Team USA, so I dressed Elise in her little Canada shirt and we had our own cheering section of red and white. When the USA and Canada hockey teams finally met, it was a tense two hours! As you can tell by the smiles, this picture of the guys was taken before the game...

Canada beat the USA--and went on to win gold--in both mens and womens hockey! We were so excited to see them win!! And in the process, I won a dozen cupcakes in a friendly bet with someone. Ah...the sweet taste of victory.  :)

 In celebration of our win and to cheer Kyle up I made a Canadian dessert called Nanaimo Bars. Chocolatey, custardy goodness in a pan! I think it helped.  :)

Parker's Dog Kennel

As I may have mentioned, Parker has a thing for dogs (puppies, as he calls them). At last count he has eight small stuffed dogs that he carries--or leaves--all over the house. I was wondering how to keep them all in one place, partly so they are picked up, but also so he knows where they are if he wants them. He needed a dog kennel! :)

I was wanting to make something anyway, so I figured this might be fun. And when I mentioned it to Parker he thought it was a great idea. So off we went to Joann's! I already had decided I would make it similar to Daisy's (our real dog) kennel. Which meant it would have mesh sides so Parker could see the dogs inside, it would need a big door on the front, and a handle so he could carry it around. 

I bought a few large sheets of plastic canvas for the sides. I knew Parker would want green yarn on the edges so I basically just gave him a choice between various shades of green. And of course, he picked the brightest one. Nice!  :)  The only thing I wasn't able to find was a handle. Joann's used to sell handles for making purses but they no longer had them in stock. So the next best thing was a large 'D' ring--it would be plenty big for Parker's little hands. I grabbed a couple yarn needles and we were on our way home. Even though he knew I was making it, I didn't want him to see it until it was done so I waited until the kids were napping before starting it. 

I didn't have a specific size in mind, so I just cut the canvas sheets in half for the sides. But I thought that might be too big for a little guy to carry around, so I cut it down a couple times until it seemed like a good size--big enough for his dogs, but small enough for him to carry.  I cut out the two end pieces and a door and started stitching them together at the edges with the bright green yarn. I wasn't quite finished by dinner so I put it away and finished it after they were in bed for the night. Here it is after stitching it together. 

The next morning while he was at breakfast I put one of his dog blankets and two puppies inside and took it out to show him. Seems like he was pretty happy with it!

Parker carried it around all that day! He brought it from room to room and sometimes would go set it down next to Daisy's kennel for a while (pardon the mess--Daisy just had a bath!).

I still need to figure out some kind of 'lock' for the door so it will stay closed. But, as Kyle pointed out, stuffed dogs aren't going anywhere. So I guess there's no hurry.  :)