Around the Bay- Saturday Family Adventures

My favorite way to measure the success of a day is how dirty the kids are by the end of it. If they are too clean, it means we didn't have enough fun!

Ryan was our fun family day mascot on Saturday! He went through three outfits by the end of the day. His red slurpee stains are still on his face and stomach... no matter how I scrub at them. Such a fun day!

Kevin & Andrew started off the weekend with the Father's and Sons Campout that Kevin helped organize. Then they hurried home so Andrew could change into baseball clothes and we were off for little league!!

The game was stellar and Andrew got the game ball at the end of it. He was STOKED! He even made a special stand for it out of Legos.

After the game we zipped down to Palo Alto to meet up with a few of our favorite people visiting from So Cal- The Hayes family!! We had too much fun chatting, eating, and running around after little people, so we sadly never managed to snap a photo! It is so fun to see out littles hanging out together. Ryan and Graham loved seeing who could be the craziest swinger and screecher! It was adorable!

After our PA lunch we grabbed quick slurpees (and took a diet coke pitstop for me) and then we headed up for a gorgeous adventure in San Francisco!!

The kiddos napped on the way up... and for a little while longer once we got to Golden Gate Park, so everyone felt very well rested for park adventures!!

We ran around at the park for almost two hours, rode the carousel, and then headed out once things started closing down for the night.

We grabbed dinner at the Wharf and then made our usual stop at Ghirardelli for treats. Yum Yum!

We ended the night with a fun but quick reunion with the Bond family! Can't believe it had been almost 2 years since we'd last seen each other! So fun for the kiddos to get to meet and Andrew & Catie can't wait to hang out again hopefully this summer.

The best part about leaving SF after 8pm is that it took us less than 40 minutes to get home. The kids crashed immediately once we got there and so did we! Busy Saturdays sure are fun AND exhausting!

Ryan at 18 Months

Little buddy turned 18 months old last Sunday on April 27th!

The last 18 months having him in our family has been positively delightful! He is such a sweet, kind, and loving little guy.

He had his 18 month appointment today and is about 33.5 inches tall (85% or so), 26 lbs (75%) and has a growing head (95%)!

He just loved smiling at the doctor and nurse and we easy peasy when it came to getting checked out! He obviously hated the shots, but loved the prize he got to pick... and then when Catie stole his prize, he loved the Frozen sticker she gave him instead. He is such an easy to please kid!

Some things about Ryan right now... 

• He is growing through his clothes faster than I can get new clothes out of storage. He wears 18 months to 2T outfits that he inherited from Andrew.
• He loves balls, cars, trains, climbing, birds, dogs, and anything his big siblings like... especially destroying Andrew's lego creations or stealing Catie's favorite doggies.
• He LOVES to eat! If the big kids leave food behind, he steals it. 
• He wears size 5 diapers... or whatever type we can find :)
• He is awesome with a spoon and a fork. Catie still loves to use her hands and has a harder time with utensils, so it is funny to have such a demanding little guy who gets grumpy if I don't give him a fork like everyone else!
• He sleeps from 7-7 or 7:30-7 or so every day and rarely wakes up in the night. His sound machine is awesome.
• He has a gazillion teeth and we are hopeful he is taking a break from getting any more since that period was painful!!
• He says loads of words... but his favorites are "MAMI" (mama), dada, Baboo (Andrew), Catie (he says very clearly!), NO, more, dink (drink), doggy, guun guun (bird), car, and babals (bubbles)!

Ryan also loves treats and that might probably be his favorite word ever. I thought Catie was good at catching me sneaking treats... but Ryan is even better. He follows me around saying "treat, treat." He is a totally chocoholic like his mama too... so he sure loved his chocolate bunny on Easter!

Little dude also has one speed.... running!! He is a mover just like his siblings and his favorite direction to go is anywhere AWAY from me!

We sure love this little guy and are really enjoying watching him little personality develop as he grows. He is definitely not one to take things lying down, will defend himself if someone takes his stuff, but he is also super huggable and kind to his siblings... unless their hair gets too close by and he decides to give it a little pull!

Love this kid!

Kevin Versus Haleakalā

Last week when we were in Hawaii Kevin and my sister Jessie rented some sweet bikes and rode up Haleakalā. Most people drive to the top, look at the sunrise, and ride down the volcano. Not these two. They trained and prepared and then conquered going up the volcano. It was pretty cool.

Despite riding in a downpour the entire way up the volcano (while climbing 10, 023 ft)... they didn't give up!

If it had been me, I would've quit at the beginning. So proud of these two!!

Maui Trip Journal by Andrew

Andrew had a big packet of homework to do over our week trip to Maui. One of his assignments was to write a journal. Here's his Maui Trip Journal. He has two more pages to finish tomorrow, which I will add in when he is finished. It is funny to see what things were important to him on this trip and I just LOVE his invented spelling for some of the words too! I helped remind him to add periods to the sentences otherwise this would've been one big run on sentence. See if you can decipher some of the more creatively spelled words.

Love this kid!

St. Patrick's Day Mayhem

I love holidays, but I think St. Patrick's Day is my least favorite... maybe because I don't own anything green?

As a teacher I always created total mayhem in my classroom on St. Patrick's Day with footprints and chocolate coins scattered about along with tables and chairs knocked over. I always hate cleaning up the mess, but the reactions from the kids was always seriously awesome.

Fast forward over 10 years (can you believe I started teaching over 10 years ago?? I feel old)... and when Andrew was two I started doing sneaky Leprechaun stuff at our house too.

Typically it involves making a leprechaun trap the day before- nothing fancy... it is all kid created... and then the leprechaun comes the next day.

This year we forgot to make traps before we left for Utah and Andrew would not let the idea die. I think he got brainwashed in kindergarten ;) He spent all morning today looking for the perfect box for his trap and then got Catie all excited too... so after school they both worked on their traps for awhile.

I felt terrible because we didn't have any coins, so we swung by the party store and grabbed some.

The Leprechaun ended up sneaking into the house while I was taking a "nap" and destroyed the kitchen. Catie came downstairs and found me asleep on the couch and the kitchen covered with gold coins and candy. I think she must've scared him! He left the screen door wide open when he left. Can't believe I never heard him! ;)

We ended the day with green pancakes and green milk for dinner along with shamrock green rice crispy treats!

The day after St. Patrick's Day we had two friends and their kiddos come over for a low key party. We ate green mac & cheese, made fruit loop rainbows, went on a chocolate gold hunt, and ate Lucky Charms rice crispy treats. It was so fun!

Next up... EASTER! Definitely a holiday I like better. Can't wait!

New Bed for Catie!

Ever since Catie turned 2 and started climbing out of her crib and stopped sucking her thumb she's struggled with sleeping. She used to sleep from 5:30pm until 9am every day... and never woke up.

Now we are lucky if she only wakes up once a night, but often it is three times or more. Things could be a lot worse, but we are still super tired all the time!

We have been trying lots of things to help her sleep better. This week we decided that her uncomfortable toddler bed needed to take a hike. She was so excited when her new big bed arrived!! There was lots of jumping involved.

She and I had a lot of fun rearranging her room too. Here's what it looks like now. 

At some point this weekend I plan to actually iron the pillowcases and bedding, but once I tried the bedding on the bed to see if I liked it, I was too lazy to pull it off right then and iron it.

When I put the flowers on Catie's table she said, "Oh! that is so sweet!" and just sat and admired them for awhile. If I knew Ryan wouldn't smear dirt all over her room, I'd leave them... but I know better. They looked cute while that lasted though. :)

I want to find some other cute accents and a white headboard sometime soon as well. Someday hopefully we'll repaint it too... If you look closely you can also see the tip of a princess castle hidden behind the bed. Catie now plays with all of her princesses and animals in that back corner.

Her new bed is SOOOOO COZY. Both Kevin and I have fallen asleep on it while "playing" with the kids. 

Let's hope she decides that the bed is too cozy to get out of at night and stops waking us up!

Andrew's EASIEST and BEST EVER LEGO Birthday Party

I love when the words EASY and BEST EVER go together.

Remember this LEGO birthday party when Andrew turned four? It was definitely the best ever... but it was not easy.

I love putting 150% into throwing parties and fun events, but I've realized that when it comes to my kid's birthday parties I want to enjoy the party, have fun with my kid's friends, and not be stressed.

We discovered the best place ever for LEGO-obsessed kids called Play-Well Teknologies. There is one about 20 minutes from our house and Andrew takes a weekly class there.

Although the birthday party package is not cheap it was worth every penny to me with how fun and easy the party was today, Hooray!

I was sick for a good chunk of last week. I thought I was better on Thursday and then Friday was the worst day of the week. Nothing contagious, just a bad reaction to too many meds from earlier in the week when I was actually sick that made me feel terrible! Kevin was sweet and stayed home from his YouTube ski trip to watch the kids while I just slept a good chunk of Thursday and Friday.

If I had been throwing an intense party I probably would've had to cancel it... but I woke up today about 75% better. Hooray!

We had basketball this morning... then t-ball for two hours... and then I put goodie bags together and cleaned our house and we were off to Play-Well for Andrew's party! We also hired our fabulous babysitter Melissa to watch the two younger kiddos because I've decided that birthday parties are a celebration for me too... and a LEGO place filled with tiny bricks is no place for a crazy 16 month old or his emotional little sister.

Here are some photos from Andrew's Star Wars LEGO birthday party today!

The party included about 20-30 minutes of free LEGO play. Then the instructor taught the kids how to make an AT-AT walker (from Star Wars) and they added battery packs to the walkers and got to drive them around the room.

Since Andrew knew how to make them from class, he zoomed through making his and helped his friends work on theirs too. Such a sweetheart!

After everyone had their walker made the boys had a battle with them... replicating The Battle of Hoth... Andrew was in heaven. The kids had a great time!

Meanwhile Cara and Aunt Jessie were my party helpers and Kevin was my good-looking Party co-host & pizza orderer extraordinaire. The table looked pretty fancy with with ONE tablecloth I bought. :) Somehow I thought 16 kids could all share one tablecloth... Not my finest moment.

After a few worrisome minutes... the pizza finally arrived and the kids inhaled all of the pizza plus my super snazzy Star Wars Cupcakes (courtesy of Safeway and Williams Sonoma).

Andrew had really wanted Darth Vader rings and light sabers on the cupcakes... which I ordered on Wednesday and should've arrived for the party. In my sick haze I missed an email about my payment not working... so on Friday when we realized that they wouldn't arrive in time from Amazon, we cancelled the order and SUPER DAD Kevin drove to Walnut Creek to grab some of the last Star Wars cupcake liners & figures before they all got sold out (apparently they were on sale for under $5 last week and were flying off the shelves).

All I kept hearing from Andrew was that it was the best birthday party ever once the party started. His friends seemed pretty happy too.

I sure love this cute kid! Andrew was so appreciative of all of the presents he got, the nice notes his friends wrote him, and he just was seriously the happiest kid all day today. LOVE HIM! What a fun birthday party!

Now hopefully he goes to bed at some point... instead of staying up all night putting together some of the new LEGO kits he got at his birthday party. I think we might need to hide them.