Kevin's 36th Birthday!

We celebrated Kevin's 36th Birthday today and a little bit yesterday and Friday too!! It was an awesome birthday weekend!!

On Friday during the day we went down to Facebook for a birthday lunch! The kids had fun exploring Kevin's new office building and getting some treats.

On Friday night we went out on a date to Blackhawk Grille. The food was delish, especially the rich brownie sundae and cookie sundae that we tried. Our neighbors were super sweet and surprised us by paying for our dinner. At the end of the meal the waiter told us our meal was covered. We didn't know who did it at first... but then we figured it out. Such sweet friends!

On Saturday morning Kevin went on a bike ride all the way to the top of Mt. Diablo with a friend.

We pretended that Sunday was officially Kevin's birthday so we let him sleep him and then we made him delicious coffee cake for breakfast. After church we had roast, potatoes, and carrots... his favorite meal choice!

Lastly we opened presents and ate some yummy lemon cake. It was a great day!

Andrew's Minecraft LEGO Birthday Party

Andrew's celebrated his birthday this weekend with some friends from school, kinderprep, and his class at church! 

We held the birthday party at Play-Well Teknologies where we also held his Star Wars LEGO birthday party last year. The studio was redone over the past year and had an even better set up this year than last.

Andrew and friends had so much fun making Minecraft projects with their teacher while Kevin and I just set up food, played with Catie a bit, and relaxed. Such an easy party!

Andrew was really excited about the creeper cake I hade made for him. Thank you Safeway!

Originally I was only going to have healing potion labels on the drinks but Andrew told me I needed more variety. He was totally right. This morning I stuck some new labels on some of the water bottles and the kids LOVED them... especially the invisibility potions.

The TNT was also a big hit.

After we built with LEGO for 1.5 hours then the kids ate snacks, pizza, and cupcakes. The 30 minutes of party time just flew by.

The kids all went home with very simple Minecraft goodie bags and we cleaned up! Kudos to my awesome neighbor Stefanie who gave me several of her Minecraft themed party decorations to borrow. Saved me some work!

Kevin wasn't super stoked to spend his birthday chaperoning a party of 17 first graders, but he was a good sport since there were no other dates available. We'll be celebrating his birthday again tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to Andrew (belatedly) and Kevin!

Hooray! No more birthdays until next October.

Backyard Redo

Our backyard is almost finished! We started redoing the backyard right after Christmas and it has just been a giant dirt hole for the past while. So fun to see it taking shape! We just have a few more flowers to put in and a little repainting/stuccoing to do and then we are done!

Here are a few before and afters. I am especially excited about the pretty flowers going in!

Mom & Catie Afternoon Crafting

Every afternoon while Ryan naps from 1-3pm Catie has quiet time in her room. Somedays she goes upstairs and I don't hear from her for two hours. I have 1-3pm designated as "office hours" for me for my blog job at Toddler Approved so it is always nice when Catie is happy about quiet time so I get work done.

After a week of being gone on vacation and then everyone being sick, routines have gotten out of whack a bit. Although Catie will go to quiet time for a little bit, she also just wants something to do that is more interactive or fun. This week I decided to do some fine motor activities with her to try and strengthen her finger muscles a bit... especially with regards to snipping with scissors since historically that has been really hard for her.

In the blogging world we typically create content a month or two before an actual holiday... so sometimes I'm doing Christmas activities in October... or in this case, we were doing St. Patrick's projects before March arrived. Fortunately my kids don't really mind... although sometimes by the time the actual holiday arrives I am totally done with it.

Our St. Patrick's Day and rainbow crafts turned out so cute which was fun since I haven't really been feeling creative lately! Catie has been loving our crafting time so much that I think we did it every day last week. Some days we did it during quiet time and somedays we did it while Andrew did his homework. Ryan even joined in on a few and I adapted them for him. Her ability to focus cutting has gotten so much better! I think we'll be doing a new cutting project every day!

Like I mentioned, I haven't felt like my creative self lately so my crafty sessions with Catie got my enthusiasm back. If I am not in a creative mode then I tend to start feeling down and negative. So glad I managed to snap out of it! Now my only problem is finding enough time to record all of the fun we've been having.

In addition to crafting the kids and I have been having fun playing crazy games with balloons lately, like "don't touch the floor" or balloon flights. The kids have also been loving playing toilet tag. Don't ask. It is really funny though. 

I love afternoons when we can play and craft and ride biks and have nothing scheduled. I am trying to hold on tight to a few afternoons like that so that we can continue it for a little longer. I will be so sad someday when the kids have busier crazy schedules and I don't see them as much. I share love all of the moments I get to spend with them during the day right now... even the crazy ones!

Little League Opening Day 2015

This year Andrew is in the Rookie League doing coach pitched baseball.

Our season kicked off today with the Opening Ceremonies this morning followed by his first game this afternoon. The rain held off (other than some minor hail) so we were so excited!

This year Andrew is on the Nationals. Last year he was on the Red Sox. Several of the same kids from his team last year are on his team this year, which makes it fun since we already know people.

Andrew played well and definitely goofed off quite a bit with his friends when he wasn't batting or in the field. Hopefully at some point he learns to just watch the game... but in the meantime I am at least happy he is having fun!

He got to played catcher today for one inning and was adamant that he doesn't want to do that again. He wasn't a fan. :)

The games at this stage go really slow. The game lasted two hours and the kids were really into it at the beginning and then were totally done at the end. Good thing there are snacks at the end! Definitely something to look forward to every week.

For the next few months Andrew will have a game three days a week. I am so glad I don't have either of the other kids in any extracurricular acitivites or I might go crazy! I don't like having tons of scheduled events.

Today Andrew managed to hit the ball every time that the pitcher threw it to him. Yay! I think we're going to have a great season!