Jessie's 25th Birthday Bash

We celebrated Jessie's birthday a few weekends ago. Andrew helped plan the party... so it was a hit.

The first game he came up with was Booty Bingo. I helped him refine the game a bit and we created Booty Bingo boards. It was so funny!

Everyone had to go around and share a favorite thing about Jessie. Then they had to draw a picture of it on their Bingo board. Once our boards were filled with everyone's favorite things about Jessie, we played bingo!

When you got 5 in a row you got to yell- BOOTY! -Andrew's favorite part (and stick your behind into the air).

Caters just enjoyed going from person to person and stealing M&Ms

After our game, we sang Happy Birthday and ate mint chip ice cream pie

Cat and Scott brought a confetti gun that seriously made Andrew's night

Little dude loved goofing around with Jess too. 

and Catie ate bowl after bowl of pie

Kevin decorated the house for the party using his fancy streamer skills... 

He is so sad that he shared this talent with me... now he is forever in charge of decorating :)

After ice cream pie, we played musical chairs and I just cracked up watching Catie and Andrew dance and compete with everyone.

Such a fun night! Happy 25th Birthday Jessie!

Adventuring in Palo Alto

It has been far too long since we've ventured to Palo Alto/Menlo Park, so today we went and met up with some friends for some adventuring, chatting, having fun, and exploring!

We started the morning off nice and early at Shoreline Park. We walked, the kiddos played, and I caught up with my good friend Ashley (a friend and PAUSD work buddy). Her son Jack is absolutely adorable and it was fun to watch the kids interact a bit while we chatted. Once my phone recharges I will add a picture or two of Catie and Jack!

After we hung out with Ashley, we ventured to MP to chill with Aunt Jessie and play at her cute little apartment playground.

Catie and Andrew absolutely love Jessie, so they had fun showing her some acrobatics, talking with her, and hunting for spiders around her apartment complex.

We spent the late afternoon hanging out with the Balenas chatting and eating and relaxing. Andrew and George played nicely outside while Liz and I hung out with Catie and Henry. Catie had fun learning about make up brushes and lip gloss from Liz and I am SO MAD I didn't get a picture of her getting "pampered." It was adorable to watch. Liz got us lunch from Lulus and I ate every last drop of my salad. Yum! 

After our fun with the Balenas, we played at Holbrook-Palmer Park for a little bit and then ventured over to explore Stanford because it has been forever since we've roamed around there!

Little girl with an atti-TUDE 

This discovery was quite a surprise...

Pink fountains at Stanford for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Andrew's shooter thing sabotaged my attempt at a cute photo shoot

Poser... and his annoyed sidekick

Catie's head down look is a favorite of mine... it is her pouting without letting anyone see her

So mad I wouldn't let her swim in the fountain...

there was actually a group of 5-6 kids swimming in there.

Exploring

There were so many fountains and things to check out... we will definitely need to go back and explore again. I love how you can walk a block or two with kids and they are amazed at everything! Helps make me appreciate the beauty around me more!

After an hour of so of exploring (and trying to really tire the kids out), we picked up Kevin, stopped at the new Chick-fil-A for dinner (that is right along our way home... what good fortune!), and then we dove into Friday night traffic and enjoyed chatting while we ate.

My favorite way to get Catie to practice making requests and using polite language is to eat food in the car. My total slacker mom skills have significantly helped her talking skills. :) I give Andrew chicken nuggets and sauce to hold in a little container. I give her one chicken nugget and then she has to ask Andrew to dip it in ketchup for her and then she politely thanks him and eats her food... until she needs another dip or some more chicken... and then the process repeats itself. She stays much tidier because Andrew is quite stingy with the ketchup and I can enjoy the drive not worrying about helping either of them. Hooray!

When we got home from our adventure tonight I went to Andrew's school to help set up for Community Science Day and was excited when I got home to discover that we'd been BOO'ed by a neighbor!! I'm hoping it is from one we know? I'm trying to not be paranoid and wonder if the bags are filled with poison candy...

Catie and Andrew are going to be sooo excited to check out their BOO bags in the morning.

We also got a cool Mrs. Fields package from Grandma Julie that the kids are going to LOVE opening in the morning. Can't wait!

Such a great busy day! I think we will sleep well tonight!

Life These Days

It is much easier/quicker to update life on Instagram than on the blog right now... since not too much is going on...

Our weeks are pretty chill and I love it. I sat down the other day to write out a very detailed schedule for whoever watches Catie and Andrew while I am in the hospital having the baby and I realized there really isn't much that is that critical on our schedule. Pretty much anyone could follow our schedule and life really wouldn't get interrupted at all...

6:20/30am- Run with friends (usually three to four days a week)... or sleep in
7:30am- Do dishes, read blogs, shower, check Facebook and email
9:00am- Wake up (if I didn't go running with friends) and make breakfast
10:00am- Go to a park with friends... or run errands... or do crafty projects at home
11:45am- Feed kids lunch and pack Andrew's bag for school
12:30pm- Drop Andrew off at school
12:45pm- Catie naps and I waste time doing whatever I want for 2 hours (usually that means that lately I take a long nap)
3:30pm- Pick Andrew up at school
3:45pm- Meet friends at a park or play with neighbors
5:30/6:00pm- Come home and make dinner and play inside (or veg in front of TV)
7:00pm- Catie goes to bed and Andrew starts getting ready for bed

I am enjoying every minute of not being very scheduled. I decided to skip enrolling kids in gymnastics and soccer and really anything else this Fall so that we could relax... and it has been great. I love our afternoons at the park and think it is so cute to see how nicely Andrew and Catie play together when they aren't inside our house fighting over toys.

If only they could be as good of little buddies inside our house as they are outside of our house.

Knock on wood- there have been a few moments in the past few weeks when they've played together nicely for 30 minutes in Andrew's room (not doing anything destructive) and didn't fight at all... it was amazing.

They spend pretty much at least 30 minutes to an hour every day just covering black pieces of paper with Halloween stickers... and then they go hunting for ghosts together.

They also take every opportunity possible to dump out the laundry and be bucket-heads or basket-heads. They also love to be rockets and chase each other around the house playing tag.

I love watching them interact. Even their constant fighting is sometimes funny... especially with regards to what they fight over. Catie wants anything that Andrew looks at or touches... and visa versa... We spend a lot of time talking about using our words to ask for things. Catie loves to scream at the top of her lungs when she wants something or doesn't want to do something and it usually causes Andrew and I to start laughing. She totally knows how to talk, but she seems to think screaming is more fun.

Despite her love of screaming, Catie is the most polite almost 2 year old I have ever met. She is constantly telling me and Andrew "thank you" when we help her with anything and is also great at saying, "please." I wish I could record her all day long because the way she says different words is so cute!

Catie is still also the most huggable loveable child ever. She will get out of the car and just randomly decide to hug my legs while I am getting the mail and say, "I love you mama." It is seriously precious. It never gets old. 

Andrew keeps us entertained with his new rocket obsession. You can get him to do anything by telling him to blast off and go do it (and then counting down backwards)... Every single item in our house has become a rocket to him and he's decided he's having a rocket themed birthday party and we are making these Space Shuttle Party Treats for his friends. He talks about it daily and keeps asking if we can go back and look at more rocket things on Pinterest. I think I created a party planning monster. I pacified him today by checking out six books about the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 missions from the library. He thought I was the best mom ever.

That's the excitement at our house this week :)

Halloween Carnival 2012

I have decided that I think Halloween might be my new favorite holiday. Talk to me again once Thanksgiving or Christmas roll around... but for now, Halloween is the best. I think it has something to do with how EXCITED Catie is about everything related to Halloween... in addition to Andrew's intense enthusiasm. Anything I do is SO APPRECIATED, so it makes planning parties and other fun events really rewarding.

On Saturday we hosted our annual Halloween Carnival. Past years can be viewed here (2011) and here (2010). I'm almost 8.5 months pregnant and just came off planning a huge neighborhood BBQ with my neighbors/co-social directors, so we decided to do this year's carnival on a bit of a smaller scale and I just hosted at my house (instead of in the cul de sac with everyone) and we invited far less people (40 versus 150+) and had a few less activities... but definitely still had just as much fun!   

I managed to snap some pictures while I ran around before and during the party. 

For food we had ghost rice crispy treat pops, mummy and spider cupcakes, pigs in a blanket, sugar cookie bars (brought by Jenny and sooo yummy), spinach dip, graveyard bean dip, and all sorts of other cookies, cupcakes, and snacky foods. The food table was overflowing onto side tables, but I didn't ever get a picture after the party started. No one went home hungry... but they definitely inhaled a lot of treats!

For games and activities the Going Fishing game (manned by Uncle Scott), Tattoos (manned by Aunt Tito), and the Candy Walk (manned by Kevin) were the hits of the day. Our living room was crammed with kids trying to win candy after candy from Kevin. Smart kids.

We also did a modge podge pumpkin craft (Catie covered hers with googly eyes), Monster golf, a pumpkin toss, and then had two bounce houses! Chris and Jenny brought over their little one so that the little kiddos didn't get trampled and then the big kids bounced in the big dog bounce house. Sugar + bouncing = best party ever according to Andrew. He asked if we could have a party like this every Saturday.

The center bottom pic of Andrew was taken at the end of the party... he was so bummed everyone was leaving.

Here are a few pics I managed to snap of some of the guests. I was too lazy to put together a photo booth this year, so I didn't get a picture of all the kids in their costumes... but boy did they look awesome! Andrew wore his astronaut costume up until everyone arrived and Catie wore a cute Halloween shirt from Grandma Shari.  

My favorite little guest was cuddly little Pierce (bottom left)- only 2 weeks old! I loved getting a chance to snuggle with him while I chatted with friends. Made me so excited for our little one arriving in about 3 weeks- crazy!

Surprisingly, I didn't go into early labor after the party... so maybe I'll throw another party closer to my due date? :) Most likely the reason was because Kevin- my super helper and decorator extraordinaire did so much work to assist with the party!

If you look in the collage above you can see the awesome spider web he created from crepe paper. He also decorated all the doorways and hung or moved all of the things I needed him too and set up games and furniture. I think he also sampled all the treats (and then some), so he is ready for a week of detox at this point. I am so lucky to have such a helpful, creative, and fabulous husband!

We seriously had a great time getting to chat and hang out with friends and family. We were so grateful to have Cat & Scott willing to come and help out too. Catie and Andrew just adore both of them. It is so fun to have them close by!

Now... if only I had a magic wand to make everything get cleaned up and go back to it's place!
You can find all of the individual pictures I took of the party here... just in case the ones above weren't enough :)

Can't wait till next year!

Dog Party

Yesterday we hosted our little monthly Mommy and Me Book Club... only a week or two late for September :) We had it scheduled a little bit ago but then I flew to Arizona instead for my Grandma's funeral. 

For our Dog Party we read an adorable book called RRRalph! by Lois Ehlert and had four little friends come over. 

The dog cookies were the hit of the day. I found the idea for them from my friend Danielle's cute blog... so I just adapted her idea using stuff we already had around the house.

I have never seen my kids sit still and be so engaged for so long. Catie savored every bite. Andrew wanted to save his cookie and then went back and forth to keep eating it for the subsequent hour.

The friends loved the cookies too! Andrew's friend Rose even came decked out as a dog to the dog party... without knowing it was a dog party. So cute! The kids all made dog hats, played some doggie games, and did a dog craft project.

The day was a lot of fun... especially watching them hide the "bone" all around the house and then helping each other find it. We encouraged them to hide the bone in harder and harder to find spots and then they'd all go looking for it while the moms sat around and got to chat. It was a brilliant game! :)

Can't wait till next month... er this month again (since we're behind)! ;)

Cute Stuff about Miss Cuters

Catie is seriously cute. Even when she is throwing a gran mal tantrum (as I like to call them) she is adorable. The way she forms words and phrases and almost complete sentences sometimes totally amazes me... and it is hard not to laugh when she gets a huge pout face on.

Since I am now 8 months pregnant I am definitely not the most patient with her sometimes. I get sad lately worrying that she might get the shaft as the middle child, but she makes it so difficult to forget about her or not give her attention because instead of being annoying (other than during the tantrums) she is just absolutely, positively, lovable, and huggable.

Tonight she and I had a little girls night out while the boys went camping. She was so excited! We went to Blackhawk and got a sandwich from Draegers to split for dinner and we bought duck food as well! We fed the ducks, chased them, "rode" the rides (love that she doesn't care if they move yet), played on the playground, and then came home and played toys, dress up, and watched a few minutes of Max and Ruby before bed!

I love the picture above of her on my lap of the two of us because it reminds me of how during the day every day she'll come up and give me a hug and say, "buddy hug!" I dance around and sing the "My buddy" song with her sometimes (you know this one from the 80s)... so she likes to talk about being my buddy. This photo she was calling our buddy picture. I also loved how she discovered the ruffles on her shirt and then thought that 'ruffle' was the coolest word... and then was showing me all the cute things she was wearing- ruffles, a clippy, etc. She is such a tomboy and girly girl at the same time!

I am not the most huggy sort of person so it is really special to have this little energetic, persistent, happy little one always cuddling with me and giving me hug. It is hard to ever have a bad day with her around.