Dual Purpose

Tonight Aidan was being such a sweetie. So, after putting on his pajamas, I was taken by surprise when he insisted on ...
"Game"
Um...What?
"No, Aidan, we don't need to play a game, it's time for bed. Please put your pants and shirt in the hamper."
"GAME"
I went to get him a new diaper for bed, and on my way back to the living room, noticed a barstool in the entrance to the laundry room. Hmm...so, I turned the light on and again asked Aidan to put his clothes in the hamper.
Total meltdown.
He now had the game in his hand and was working on turning it on, so I took the clothes from his hands and put them in the hamper. Of course.
WOW. Okay, NOW total AND complete meltdown.
So, I finally figured it out, took the clothes out of the hamper, gave them back to Aidan, turned off the light, and walked out.
Aidan settled down instantly and went about his activity. HE was the one who put the barstool in the laundry room...to reach the light. The "game" was his flashlight so that he could see in the laundry room to turn the light on. When he finished it all BY HIMSELF he was again, sweet little Aidan.


Yes, it was way past bedtime.

Off For The Summer

Allie: So, is tomorrow the last day of church?
Mom: No, church doesn't have a break for the summer. It just keeps going.
Allie: Oh man. Aw.

This small exchange tonight took me way back. I remember being Allie's age and thinking the exact same thing. The year I realized that church didn't have a summer break was also the year I realized that Dad didn't get work off for the summer either. Wow, life seemed pretty unfair. Tonight it just made me smile....and shed a small tear for childhood innocence.

What A Difference A Day Makes

One day, you're feeling just fine, planning your meetings, grocery trips, children's activities, play dates, and meals for the week. The next day you wake up with a slight illness, nothing you can't deal with quickly. Over the weekend, mild illness turns into can't-get-out-of-bed-104-degree temperature and you're eternally grateful for frozen lasagna and children that are old enough to turn on the oven. After a few days of it, you just wake up Wednesday morning and you're suddenly...better.

I always feel awe that I can feel so good and then so bad and then so good again. What a difference a day makes when our body is playing tricks on us. I'm really amazed at how hard it is to understand the complete tiredness that I felt. Even though I experienced it first hand, to look back, it just seems not possible that I felt the way that I did. I'm still trying to comprehend the feeling of knowing, and yet, not knowing. Maybe I'm trying to over analyze "sick" when it just really doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I'm so happy to be awake again. I'm so happy that I can see and stay awake and enjoy small everyday things that I sometimes forget to love. Now, rather than making myself get up for simple tasks, I have to make myself go to bed. This is just as it should be!

I love being healthy!

Happy Birthday, Allie!

On Wednesday, Allie came home from school to her new sandbox for her birthday. Yes, we bought her some sand. It's actually way more exciting than it sounds. (But surprisingly, NOT exciting to clean out of hair every night.)

Cupcakes to school and a cake for her party on Saturday, meant that for her birthday candles on Wednesday, we didn't want cake. So, Allie got to blow out the candles on her birthday cookies and color a picture of what her cake for her party should look like. She already told me that it should be purple, with a pink flower in the center and hearts around it. So, imagine my surprise when she drew up an elaborate multi-layer thing, bigger bottom layers, smaller top layers, just like in the cartoons. The top layer had flowers on the side, the next layer down had dinosaurs (for the boys), then ballerinas, then dogs, and the bottom layers are still not finished.

The Invitations: A Garden PartyWe folded the petals in to form a circular invitation.They open to become the full flower and reveal the party details. Allie and I drew up a couple different versions before deciding on this one.
This is the petals all folded in. We wrote the "invitee's" name on the outside petal.

On the back of the "center" we wrote a celebration version of the "Roses are Red" poem
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Allie is turning six
And wants to celebrate with you!

Party details are in the center. "Join Me In The Garden" We were going to write it right onto the pink flower center, but the 'roses are red' poem bled through just enough that we didn't want to fuss with it. We used some paper that looks like hand pressed flowers to create a new center.

The Food: Simple and Fresh

PB&J sandwiches were shaped as butterflies; PB&H sandwiches were tulips.

The Cake

Allie actually directed all aspects of the design.

The Games

1. Painting the Pots

Since they had to dry, we decided to paint them first and let them dry while we partied. Some of the girls used the stencils, but mostly, they freehanded their beautiful creations.

2. Food, cake, and presents.
Allie and Aimee made most of these tissue paper flowers earlier in the week for the centerpiece.

3. Stick-The-Bug-On-The-Flower: The game Allie actually wanted play BEFORE the food. The garden party version of "Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey." I drew the flowers on poster board and printed off the bugs. (The children really did a much better job of clustering the bugs around the flower; I moved them all, except the lizard, for picture purposes. The lizard was actually Allie's piece. It was positioned first and this is exactly where she placed it. I thought it looked great!)

4. Garden Bingo

5. Planting the Flowers.

6. Jumping This was actually what Allie wanted to be a long jump game. But, I forgot about this game in the preparation, so she improvised and used sand tools for the lily pads that she had wanted. Then, it evolved into jumping through the hoop.

The Friends

Thank you for celebrating with us. Sarah, Paris, Grace, Jenna, Allie, Aimee, Maria, Jett, Alex, Aidan (looking totally "safe" with a balloon on his face.) (Tiana is not in this end-of-party pic because she had to leave early. We're happy that she came for a while!)

No, Really, I'm a Cowboy

Aidan has a small obsession with Pirates and Cowboys (yeah, in his world, they are important enough to be capitalized). When we saw a man in his cowboy hat in the restaurant, Aidan didn't get any of his food eaten, but he was awfully patient for us to finish. He just wanted to look at the cowboy hat. Okay, truthfully, he wished to wear it, but that's slightly out of the question. It happened again at another restaurant and at the grocery store, he actually followed a man in a cowboy hat around for a bit (no worries, Aidan followed the hat, I followed Aidan; he was just showing me the awesomeness).
He's very resourceful and plays pretend all the time. We often have items that are "DADDO" (or lassoed), so I didn't expect to be taken so off guard at this get-up. Aidan found the lasso while I was cleaning out the entertainment cupboard. He immediately ran for his "Baboy hat," and here's what he ended up with.

I thought he looked more like a cable guy, construction worker, something like that. But our elephant watering can was definitely "DADDO!"

Easter Pics (LOL idk why I didn't post these earlier)

This is the first photo that we took and it is one of my favorites.

Each of the kids wanted to choose a "photo location" so we moved around the house,
in and out, front and back.This was actually Alex's location choice. Dustin had to work,
so Alex thought I should be in the pic via the mirror.

Since we were officially home from church,
Alex didn't want to have to tuck his shirt in again.
*sigh*

Our Sunday morning was surprisingly low key.
On Saturday, we found that the Easter Bunny had come a day early since our dad would be working on Sunday. After finding all the eggs, we headed over to the park to meet our friends for a barbeque. Our friend Serenda planned it perfectly to work around all of our husbands shifts and found a day that most of them were actually off. Unfortunately the weather didn't check out their schedule, so because it was freezing (by Texas standards, but still...) and very windy, we moved the barbeque to our house. Of course 45 minutes later, the skies cleared and the wind died down. But, Serenda had planned an Easter Egg hunt for all the children and we went ahead with that. Wow. Two hunts in one day. Way too much candy.
(And yeah, I threw a bunch away ... right in the garbage. I've become very good at that.)
So, Sunday morning, we just got dressed for church. Huh. Amazing. Of course, we still managed to be rushed and had to postpone pictures until after.

Happy Easter doesn't sound like the right way to end this post, but oh well.
Happy Easter! Welcome Spring! Welcome Renewal!