Happy 7th Birthday Rachel!

Rachel is a friend from MG's 1st grade class.  After being in school for a few weeks, the only name I ever heard MG utter was Rachel this, Rachel that...Rachel, Rachel, Rachel...
Well, Miss Rachel had a birthday party the day before Mother's Day at Build A Bear!   Have you been before?  This is her second time there...

1st, you choose a bear:

Second, you "help" stuff it  (so while standing there I couldn't help but notice that although the gal asked them to pump that foot pedal, some children - mine included - was lazy and did not pump one bit and the machine still functioned!  So, really, did they stuff it?  I don't think so!  But MG won't realize this until she reads this in high school.  By then, she won't care "how" Brownie -- the creative name she gave her bear! -- was put together!):

Third you wait and try to ignore your mom when she asks you numerous times to turn around and smile for the dang camera....

Fourth, the bear gets "sewn" tight (so... while standing there again, I wondered how she could be so efficient in sewing all those bears together.  So Winston and I investigated how the bears were pre-assembled... seems the threads are already in and the gal just needs to pull it shut, tie it, and cut off the excess thread!  voile instant sewing!) :

Fifth, you give it a "bath" (So, it's just air blowing on the bear and the children brushed it with a brush. Not too exciting, really.):

Then you hug it even more with your friends near by...That's birthday girl, Rachel, in the middle:

A group photo opp...

The best part afterwards was the ice cream cake next door at Cold Stone!

This is the card MG made Rachel.  I love how they just say like it is!  Simple, right to the point!(It looks like a grammar error got passed me... we just had a talk about the words "you're" and "your"... she may have gotten a bit overwhelmed by the conversation!  Oh well... we'll keep working on it!)

Happy Mother's Day (to me)

MG wrote this in class:

"I love my mom for three reasons.
First I love my mom because she helps me do my homework.  She helps me do my book report.
Next I love my mom because she lets me help do the garden.  She lets me help plant the vegetables.
Last I love my mom because she taught me how to make my bed.  She helps me out the stuffed animals in their places.
These are the three reasons I love my mom."
Her class made pen flower pots for their moms... hers sort of fell apart when she tried to "fix" it for me.

Her Daisy troop made this:

If you look closely, you will see that she is wearing her Daisy uniform!  Ha!  I thought that was very clever of her!  The purple flower is a paper holder type of thing -- it has a huge clothes pin glued on that huge popsicle stick.  It is very cute!

MD's card said this:
"Mother Dear
Can you guess
Who it is that
Loves you best?
I'll give you three guesses
1-2-3
There, I knew
You'd think of..."
And when the bag was opened up... I saw these 2 handsome faces:

Yes, while E was in the class for the 5 minutes when we dropped him off, Mrs. Gardner managed to grab a photo of him and made a flower for him too!  (Told you she was great!!!)

More to come....

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I hope all you  mommies out there had a lovely day!  I certainly did...

Vince and Matthew were VERY busy in Clare's kitchen!

Corinna was an awesome help to Vince!

Matthew did  a lot of work assembling the baked eggs and he enjoyed every minute of it!

Vince cracking more eggs:

to assemble these lovely "baked eggs"

In the other room, Jim is keeping Mom and Clare entertained with a slide show of his hometown in Amburg, Germany.

They are patiently waiting for the popovers to... pop over!

After the table was set it was boom, boom, boom.... no time for photos!  A few minutes later, a group of very satisfied people sat very still at the table -- too full to move!  Great job Vince!!!  Thank you for a delicious Mother's Day brunch!

It didn't go as planned...

Last Saturday, May 1, 2010 MG and I had to work at the school's walk-a-thon and the boys wanted to go fishing.. so we split up!  Vince took the boys for the day (mom decided to accompany him).  MG and I left the house by 8 AM... a bit sleepy eyed... Nothing much exciting happened while setting up for the school's walk-a-thon... but plenty of excitement for the boys... kind of.
You are not seeing things, that is NOT a fish... and the boys did NOT fish after all.

When E came home, he told me he touched a "rock crab."  So cute!

They had packed and gathered everything necessary to fish... but the season was not right for what they wanted to do.  The pier was empty except for some people who were out crabbing and even that was slow!  So they had a fun day walking around and visiting with others who were crabbing.  I'm not sure what they did in detail though...

But these photos show that some fun events took place!

Good thing they didn't bring her home -- they are the same size!!!

He loves riding statues!  Where ever we go, he finds them and has a seat!  You should see him at the entrance of Happy Hollow!  Oh my!!!  Let me just say that there are statues everywhere!

This was the only photo he allowed mom to take -- not sure what he's doing!

E and Ma

It was a  fun day for everyone!  MG and I had some bonding time.  We had a nice visit with Matt and Leo -- Matt made us a yummy breakfast of eggs, bacon, and biscuits.  Then we went driving to scope out some garage sales.  We found a free cozy coupe for E!  Then we went home, sat on the couch, and had ice cream! What more could I ask for???

Crazy Hair Day

Last week she had  crazy hair day at school.  She didn't want to be too wild -- so we went simple.  We just tied a bunch of hair ties that I recently made her.  It was a fun day -- but we were running late so I was unable to capture the event  at school!  Hawaiian day is coming up!

He thinks it's his classroom

It's really MD's class...

But E thinks it's really his as well -- Look at him getting into the games with MD's peers!  And MD's peers don't even mind one bit!  ;)

 

He just plants  himself in there with them during circle time...

Big brother is always showing E how to take turns in the classroom...

Mrs. Gardner lets E participate in all the activities...

It's no wonder he thinks he is in preschool NOW!

Oh -- all that hard labor... and now to eat  --  the best reward of all!

MD was very proud to have E in the class today to help out.  We all had a great time!

Mrs. Gardner is great!

Do You...

1) Ration your child(ren)'s holiday candy?  (I do!  We just finished last year's Easter chocolate!  I kept them in the refrigerator!  Time to start on Halloween's!)

2) "Pretend" to be asleep when you put your children to sleep... but REALLY do fall asleep?  (I do -- ALL the time!  Many times I find myself awkwardly stretching in their bed to finally realize it's NOT my bed and then wake up... at 2 AM or not at all!)

3) Cook one meal for dinner in hopes that your child(ren) eat something from it or they go to bed hungry?  (That's what I do... hasn't failed me yet!  If they don't want it, they pick around it!  I only make one meal because I am NOT a short order cook!)

4)  Pray the little one does NOT nap during the day so they are ALL in bed at the same time at night?  (I tell ya, it's pure bliss around here at 8PM... because they are all asleep by 7:30 and I finally wake up by 8PM -hee hee) 

5)  Lay out the next day's outfit?  (Yes, I do!  In the morning no one argues over what to wear because I can't function sometimes in the morning.  It's all routine!)

6)  Make and pack the next day's lunch the night before?  (Especially if the boys and I are going on an outing after we drop off MG at school!  Everything is packed and ready to go!  Morning time is no time to argue or think, it's GO, GO, GO!  Sometimes I leave the house at 8AM and do not return home again until after we pick up MG from school.)

7)  Stay up waaaay too late working on projects?  (I am sooo guilty of this because it's my only down and quiet time.)  This is what I've been working on:
A few birthday shirts for our friend, Theordore.  One word of advice -- white fabric paint on a dark blue shirt is not a good idea!  It was so hard to paint!  And the details on this R2D2.. .oh, man!  I thought it turned out nice enough.  And he was happy to wear it, so that made me even happier!

Hey, Marailee -- I tried the same picture you used but in a different way, what do you think?  I didn't have the same patience as when we worked on Nikash's.

A shirt for MD -- and since this one, we made a TIE fighter plane too.

E is so in love with one!  "I Yoda!"  he proclaims.  

And my favorite was working on Morgan's "outfit" for an upcoming birthday party.  Anita had given me some awesome fabric when she last visited.  It's been sitting in the closet waiting for me to experiment.  So, experimented I did!  I made her a skirt (similar to this but only 2 tier for now) and a baby doll mei tai carrier (I didn't really use a tutorial.  I looked at this one and adapted based on my ability or lack thereof!) I made MG's so it is similar to Olivia's since they play together often.:

And I also made a matching flower pin to add onto her shirt to match her skirt:

And now I am VERY addicted to making these flowers (same as above just without button) but now I am making them into hair ties!  She has a new one every couple of days when I need a break from editing.

8)  Check out library books in themes?  (So when the children ask numerous questions, you have back up references?!  I can only name so many Star Wars, Transformers, and Pokemon characters before they realize that I do not know them all by heart!  It's shameful, I know!)

9)  Make them listen to a variety of music?  (I may not enjoy them all but I try to expose them to whatever is at the library and beyond.  It's such a shame that radio stations have so much commercial.  That's why I don't listen to the radio with my children.  I check out a lot of CDs from the library and we go through them one by one until they find something they like and we talk about it.  Recently, they have been listening to see what instruments they can identify!  We're working on classical music right now.  They LOVE Mozart!)

10)  Read a lot to your child(ren)? (I love to read to them and they love to listen to me read.  I randomly pick up books off the library shelf and bring them home.  Sometimes we read books by the same author and discuss similarities and differences.  Sometimes we read books from authors we know and authors we do NOT know.  We read chapter books until we run out of the next sequence -- Magic Tree House for example!  Oh, we are waiting patiently for the next book!  We read books that are sometimes above and beyond our comprehension! I read some Greek mythology to them that they liked but when I went into detail, they were done with me!  Too much information could be a bad thing I guess!  They did not want to know about cannibalism -- and it was scary explaining it!)

It's been busy around here...and I am loving it!  Although I could use a few more hours of sleep here and there...