Mother's Day/ Jace's Birthday

Jace, Gaga and I had to share our special days this year.  It was three times the fun!

Jace got a Thomas balloon and more birthday presents.

I got lots of lovely homemade cards and presents.

(Rylee made me this jewelry box at school and this beautiful perler bead picture frame at home.)

Gaga picked the days activity (swimming) and dinner (Jon's delicious grilled pizzas).

Jace is having a little trouble making the number 2 with his fingers.  It sort of looks like the loser symbol (twice).  :)

Rylee used the big pool slide so Jace tried the small slide into his pool.  I remember how much Rylee loved to do this.  It was a hit with Jace as well!

After dinner, we celebrated with Thomas cupcakes.

Yum!

May the Fourth Be With You

The day after Jace's party was May 4th. Jon heard about a "May the Fourth Be With You" Star Wars event at a local comic book store so Rylee wanted to go as Princess Leia.  She was a big hit!

The below photo, which the comic book store people captured as well, was featured on their webpage!  :)

It was a great event.  They had an air conditioned tent (thank goodness!) with Star Wars movies playing, a make your own light saber station (out of a pool noodle), and lots of characters to get your picture taken with:

Rylee also got two free Star Wars comic books so we bought Jace a couple of Star Wars board books for his birthday.  He loves them!  Maybe Jedi Jace can make an appearance at next year's event.  :)

Jace's 2nd Bday Party- Gifts

Jace got so many nice presents from his friends (and their very generous parents).  I don't have pictures of them all, but here is a sample.

Of course, anything Thomas related was a big hit, like this cool take and play track.

The Jake and the Neverland Pirate ship was a favorite too.  You can shoot pretend water canons out the front.

Rylee was the master of ceremonies.  She commanded Jace open his presents on her microphone.  (She's also wearing the tickle monster gloves that came with one of Jace's presents.)

Another fun Thomas set, this time with mini trains.  Whoo!  Whoo!

Jace's 2nd Bday Party - Fun!

The kids had a blast in the splash pad. My kids were soaked before the guests even arrived. :)

Struttin'

Beautiful babes...

Jace is all smiles in this pic, but you can tell that he was trying to sing in others.  Too cute!

A little birthday kiss... ahhhh...

Jace's 2nd Bday Party - Guests

The kids are the guests so they get named, but we were glad to see the parents too!  :)

Miller & Mason

Kenzie & Mikaela

Oliver and his little new brother, Parker, in the baby carrier

Brent

Brighton & Devri (their brand new baby sister, Perri, stayed home)

Madison

James and his new little brother, Samuel

Henri

Caitlin & Sean

Ava & Kaila

Sofia & Julia

For some reason, my photo of Alexa & Ryan didn't upload, and somehow, I missed my family shot of Asrielle & Tamar altogether.  Oops!  I know, I'm slipping!

Jace's 2nd Birthday - Thomas Party

Jace turned 2 on Mother's Day!  I know it's cliche, but I seriously can't believe he's 2 already.  I wanted to do a special blog for his birthday, but my computer is at max capacity and hasn't been functioning properly (a similar thing has been happening with my brain recently, but I digress).  I finally freed up some space, but that required moving almost all my photos off my computer so... catching up on his current festivities will have to suffice. Sorry Jace, you're the second child and your birthday is in May (the busiest time for teachers) so you're probably going to have to get used to it.  Love you!  :)

We decided to try having a park birthday party (our first attempt).  We picked a location with a splash pad for the kids to stay cool (sadly, I was still wringing wet with sweat).    We went with a Thomas the Train theme as Jace is obsessed ("whoo whoo!").  There wasn't much decorating I could do outdoors, but here are a couple of pics.  A little snack train...

The super cute gift bags I made, plus you can kind of see three trains in the table in the background.  They're just covered cardboard boxes, but it was a cute way to store food supplies, chips etc.

The birthday boy got a special Thomas cupcake.  The other cupcakes had a Thomas character toothpick, but I hadn't put them in for the photo.

We also ordered a cheap Sam's Club cake.  It wasn't the best.  First, all their cake decorators called in sick so it wasn't ready on time (my Mom had to stay behind to pick it up so she missed a little bit of the party).  Second, they smudged up the y in birthday.  Third, the color of Jace's photo made it look like he was wearing fuchsia lipstick!  Lastly, it tasted horrible.  All complaining aside, it really wasn't a big deal.  I honestly didn't stress about it (too much).  

Oh, and talking about screw ups, I forgot to mention they gave us the wrong pavilion at the park.  What are you going to do?!  It was a fun party in the end so none of those little details mattered.

Goodbye Friends!

Two weekends ago we had to do the unthinkable, say goodbye to our dear friends (family really!): Jerry, Jess, Norah and Caleb.  Even though we are excited for them, we are broken hearted that they left us.  Our little kid crew won't be the same without their two silly monkeys and our adult crew will certainly miss Jerry's pranks and Jess's wit.  Will we ever laugh again?!

Mark and Meagan hosted a nice send off at their house.  The kids played at their park, swam in their pool, and even posed for a few photos (sort of).

Watching Frozen...

Thank goodness for Facebook and Skype, but it won't be the same.  Missing you already guys!

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Gymnastic Feat

Rylee started doing some work on the high balance beam two weeks ago, but I never had the chance to post. Considering she's never even done these skills on the low balance beam before, I was quite impressed.








Last week, they did a lot of vault practice: running, hitting the spring board, and somersaulting on the mat. They even added a little spread eagle jump.  It's been fun to see her progress even over these few short months.  I'm not sure I want her to fall in love with gymnastics though.  I watch the older girls do their tricks and it scares me.  :)

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Easter - The Rest & More

We had some down time in the afternoon as Jace took his nap and my parents went home to check on Angel. Somehow the topic of silly string came up and we remembered that Grandpa Chip had given us a can for Rylee's birthday years ago, but we never had the chance to use it.  We took Rylee outside to see how it worked.  Jon sprayed some in the yard and sent Rylee out to examine it.  You can pretty much guess what happened next...

I was amazed at how easy it was to pull off (and that a three year old can still worked).  We also learned that one can is basically good for one pelting.  Just fyi... :)

After Jace's nap, Jess, Norah and Caleb came over.  Rylee set up an Easter egg hunt just for them.  I'm pretty sure Rylee was going over "the rules" at this point.  She gets very teacher-y at times.  I wonder where she gets that from?

The kids hunted for eggs and played on their own, while we women sipped wine spritzers (inside joke) and visited.  A big thanks also goes to my Mom for planning, shopping, and cooking the delicious Easter meal.

Our delightful Easter weekend was interrupted when Jace woke up puking at 11 pm.  The poor guy puked every 15 to 20 minutes for 2 hours.  Jon was a trooper.  He cleaned everything up since all Jace wanted to do was hold onto his Mommy, then he sat up with me while we all watched Thomas and tried to distract Jace between pukes.  We all finally went to bed around 2:30. Jace slept the rest of the night and was fine the next day.

Rylee had puked the week before, but it was more of a one and done kind of thing.  (Jon had to clean that one up too since I wasn't even home - poor Jon!)  And then my Mom, Dad and Jon all got sick this weekend.  It was a bummer since it was my Mom's 65th birthday (happy birthday shout out!) on Sunday.  We ended up doing gifts, dinner and cupcakes on Monday night instead.  Hopefully we'll all be healthy for Jace's birthday party this weekend.  :)

Easter Sunday - Part 4

We tried to get some family shots. Between the kids and dog not cooperating and my squinting into the sun, they didn't turn out that fabulous, but what am I going to do... post them anyway apparently.  :)

Rylee looks very proper here...

Jace is still working on those jelly beans...

Party of five...

Gaga and Papa (holding all the bribery and props from the previous photo attempts)...