Happy Almost Birthday!

Morgan turns 5 Saturday, & I guiltily realized, I hadn't ever thrown her a party before, though my in laws gave her a few when we visited with her cousins, I, the mom, had never made the efforts to give her a little shindig of her own out here, so I put together a birthday picnic in our front yard today for some of her friends.  Here are my tips for keeping things low - key:

1. The dollar section at Target was my inspiration, not pinterest.  Here's why, pinterest is adorable & amazing, but it requires MAKING things.  Instead of slaving over a needle and thread, I found a bunch of red, white, & blue stuff for 4th of July & used that as our theme.

2. A kid party = kid food.  I made PB & Js, a few coldcuts for the moms, fruit, and chips, no time or $ for stuffed mushrooms & risotto, let's keep it basic.

3. Forget originality: I went old school and we had a ring toss, and pin the tale on the donkey, it was fun.

 4. Keep things moving.  A party with a bunch of kids under the age of 5 is bound to end with tears and tired tantrums so as soon as people get here, we eat, we sing, we play games, we keep things rolling, conscious of moms who have brief windows of time before naptime calls.

 5. Cupcakes rule, they are so much easier than slicing cake.  Can I get an amen on that ladies?

Okay, so now that you all are thinking I'm the laziest mom ever, I'll show you some pics.  Oh & one more thing, I had the party on a Monday afternoon, gives moms a chance to get out while Dad's at work, and it doesn't take up someone's precious Saturday, because let's face it we all have enough to do as families on Saturdays!

Kids, not Babies

This summer, my four girls will turn 5, 7, 7, & 9 years old!  That means, I'm officially the mom of four "kids," not babies, not toddlers, not preschoolers, KIDS.

Here's what I'm discovering:

The GOOD: They all washed their own hair today!  I could have cried.  This newfound independence frees me up A LOT.  They can shower on their own, go to the bathroom on their own, wake up & go to sleep on their own.  This is AWESOME.

The BAD: They all can spell or sort of sound things out now.  This means Dan and I can no longer spell things out in front of them, and we really have to mind our P's and Q's.  Anything we say may be repeated by them to others, or will be comprehended by them.... Scary!  I miss the freedom of babbling on in front of them, knowing they still couldn't speak!

The GOOD/BAD: They are forming their own opinions.  This is sort of fun as I figure out their individual personalities more and more, but this is sort of bad, especially when their opinions differ from my own.  What  do you mean my outfit doesn't look good?  Why don't you love that book I gave you?  I loved it.  You're supposed to think all of my ideas are AMAZING.  Come on....

The GOOD: They're still not toooo big to need mom:  In the car today, one said something about pirates.  Another responded, "Pirates are real you know, right mom, there are such thing as pirates?"

"Yep, there are real pirates in the world."

"Well then, are mermaids real too?"

"Mermaids? Um, no, no mermaids."

Yeah, they're getting older, but it looks like they still need me around for a few years to come!

 

Think Julia Roberts

So in addition to the end of the school year, multiple birthday parties, and graduations, we thought we'd squeeze in a wedding!  My cousin got married to a beautiful bride in picturesque mountainside setting in Palomar Mountain.  It was a first for us, traveling with my parents and all the kids, and it all worked out pretty well.  It was a treat to see all of our cousins, and the food and weather were all perfect.  But the highlight was without a doubt, the fact that the bride entered on a horse!  Of course this reminded me of Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride, but without any of the silliness.  It was seriously a movie moment, she looked stunning.  I'm not much of an animal person, but it was impressive.  And the girls got to ride the horse after the wedding was over, I'm not sure any other wedding can compete with that for them!

"Poor People"

Yesterday, we spent a few hours in the the girls' bedroom doing a little "beginning of summer clean up."  This involved making a few different piles.... some clothes that are too small and can be given away, some stuff that just needed to be thrown out, and a bag of toys that we could drop at goodwill.  Sometimes the girls are a little reluctant to get rid of their things, and so I went through the whole explanation of what the purpose of the goodwill store was, and helping kids less fortunate, etc.  But it wasn't until today when I loaded one of the bags into the trunk of the car that I saw that one of my girls had labeled the bag, "poor people."

Um, I think I'll switch bags before I make my drop off.

Note to self: Our next mother daughter conversation will be defining and explaining the word "tact."

Mini Milestones

    June means graduations.  I thought a graduation for the twins from kindergarten, and
  then a graduation for Morgan from pre-k was a little much, but I must admit, for a mom
  of four, it was nice to have a few moments to reflect on my kiddos individually! (note: instead
  of graduation caps, Morgan and her peers were wearing fruit hats to represent the fruits of the
  spirit, and for their song, they sang, "I'm just a big bowl of fruit," pretty cute, I must admit.

         June for us also means birthdays!  Lorelei turned 9, and her birthday matched up
     up with the last day of school.  So on that half day, we invited her class to pizza & cupcakes!

And here are the twins singing the song their AMAZING kindergarten teacher wrote and had
them sing together at the end of each day.  This was a special year for them because of their vibrant
and talented teacher.

Eat Much?

For my birthday, I got spoiled.... and I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I have a preoccupation with food.
            To begin my birthday weekend, Friday my 7th graders decorated the whiteboard with Twix candy bars.

                                    And then Saturday, my husband took me to dinner...... seafood, my favorite!

                                        And then Sunday, after church,  my sister took me to tea (in Beverly Hills,   Thank you very much). 

                                     And there was a coffee stop in there Saturday morning (but I forgot to take a picture of that).  Instead of taking pictures of all the lovely people in my life, and all the sweet gifts I received, I just have pictures of food to share with you.  It makes me wonder if perhaps my priorities are out of whack.

Overall, I must say my birthday was delicious! Thank you everyone for feeding me with treats &  love (which is much less fattening)!