TWO!

Oh boy am I behind on blogging. I'm not going to start another post with a whole paragraph explaining how we've been house-hunting and getting our house ready to sell I'm joined the Vestry of my church and became chair of the grant's committee of the Arkansas Breastfeeding Coalition and busy teaching German and helping with some projects for the kids' school auction and teaching a college class and insanely busy at work and drowning in laundry and thank you cards and hopelessly addicted to Downton Abbey.... nope. Just gonna go right ahead and post about...

Henry turned TWO this month!!! His actual birthday was on the 7th, but we had his party on the 18th, so that all of our family who was in town for Wyatt's baptism could attend. It was probably the most mellow birthday party we've ever had, and it was perfect. I made a train cake - but because I make it right before the party and didn't really have time to do anything fancy, I just made a poundcake in a train pan and made some chocolate frosting to go on it. Davis ran to the store at the last minute to get me some Oreos for the wheels.

I don't think Henry ever really figured out that it was all about him!

He was totally dazed and wouldn't blow out the candle, even though he loves blowing out candles. Amelia couldn't stand it and blew it out for him. She told us later that she made a wish for him - that he would be a prince when he grows up. I think that's pretty awesome.

Henry and his best friend ;) William

Henry got a little tricycle for his birthday. Of course. Because he's two and a boy, and what two year old boy doesn't get a tricycle for his birthday?!

As Henry says, "happy day!"

Henry is the sweetest, snuggly-est, most spoiled little guy on earth. His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds every day. He points to everything and says "see?" which means he wants to know what the word for something is.

This morning he walked into our room with only a diaper on. I said "Henry, where are your pants?" And he said, "No. No pants." I said, "Henry, where is your shirt?" and he said (you guessed it), "No. No shirt." He just has this sweet little voice - it makes me want to sit and talk to him all day long. LOVE that boy! I just wish he'd stop growing so quickly and keep his little chubby toddler fingers and round belly and funny way of saying "bilk" for "milk."

Birthday Week

Birthday Week has come to a close! Amelia turned FIVE years old on Tuesday!!

Her morning started with her five balloons and her favorite breakfast (cinnamon rolls) - and of course a quote from Dr. Seuss's birthday book on sparkly pink paper

Then I brought cupcakes to Amelia's school. I made "hot chocolate cupcakes" - the cake is made with cocoa and the frosting has marshmallow creme in it.

Aren't they cute? They looked like little cups of hot chocolate and her class loved them! They were big, and everyone asked for seconds.

My camera died, so here's a phone photo from school. Mmmmm CUPCAKE! Ha!

There was even a Brian Kinder concert at her school that morning - it was really cute!

That was all Tuesday.

Then today, Amelia had her party at The Wonder Place. I'm a big fan of just having parties at our house, but she wanted to invite everyone in her class plus a couple of other friends, so we decided that was too many 4/5 year olds for our little house!

It was a rainbow-themed party - easy and happy.

Her big gift was a bicycle (before Davis raised the handle bars and adjusted everything for her)

Henry liked it too

Party favors were packages of modeling clay.

Amelia's friend Stella - love this sweet girl!

Wyatt chilled in the Ergo even though it was crazy loud and hectic!

The kids had fun playing and no one wanted to stop and pose for pictures.

Her rainbow cake was a very happy cake. And yummy too.

Amelia was so funny opening presents - the kids were closing in on her shoving their presents at her and talking over each other, and she kept saying, "calm down, guys!" Ha ha!

Sophia got her a "Baby Snow White" - have you seen these? They are Disney princesses as babies. Silliest thing ever, but she LOVES it. Seeing the girls pick out gifts for each other is one of my favorite things - it shows how well they know each other and how much they love each other.

And! Kit got a horse! Wow, those American Girl doll things are so cool.

Our sweet birthday girl - she doesn't like posing for pictures.

And Quiet Wyatt

My dad came to town for the party too! He took the girls swimming at his hotel this morning so I could finish the cake while the boys napped. We came home to some beef stew in the crock pot and now we're all ready for bed!

It was a happy, happy day!

SIX!!

Happy Birthday to my big girl (posted over a week late)! I just can't believe I have a six year old - a first grader! I look back at pictures of her from the beginning of the school year, and she has just grown up so much. I am so proud of her!

Sophia is the best helper, and she does a million things to make my life easier all day long. I'm so glad she is my oldest. She is also me in so many ways, it is scary. I have often realized suddenly, and shockingly, that my own attitude needs adjustment and that I need to by much more mindful of my tone of voice, when I see my little mirror interacting with her siblings or baby dolls.

Sophia is finally reading, and it makes me so happy. I am (or used to be ha!) a huge reader, and I just knew once she got the hang of it, she would find joy in it too.

Sophia is so creative, I love how her mind works. We played a game for family night last week, where everyone scibbles randomly on a piece of paper for about 10 seconds, and then passes the paper to the person next to them. That person then has to take their scribble and turn it into something. We all turned zig zags into crowns or swirls into galaxies, but Sophia's drawings always came with an elaborate story. Yesterday I asked her when she came into our bed, because none of us could remember her sneaking in. She said she couldn't remember either, and probably some little trolls came and moved her. The trolls brought their little dog, which explains why the iced tea in the fridge smelled like a puppy (another mystery from that morning). We have to watch her, because sometimes she uses her imagination to scare the pants off her sister!

On the morning of her birthday, Sophia got pancakes and six pink balloons. And for dinner her favorite - spaghetti.

Her party was last Saturday and a pottery painting place called Painted Pig - we love it there, but haven't visited as often as we used to now that Henry is mobile!

This was the first time Sophia has seen some of her friends from Kindergarten, and it was so sweet to listen in on their little conversation. They said things like "I've been thinking about you."

and "I've missed you SO much!"

They had a blast!

Happy Birthday, Silly Goose!

Henry's Firetruck First Birthday Party

Here are the details from Henry's first birthday party. I had so much fun with this one!

The invitation was from this Etsy shop (this was the sample) - this seller was fabulous and has the most adorable cards!

And here were his decorations. I made most of them with just some scrapbook paper and a printer.

I just made plain vanilla cupcakes and frosting, and used fondant cupcake toppers from this Etsy shop. They were adorable! They would be pretty easy to make, except red and black fondant can't be bought without buying two separate huge kits and they are the hardest colors to mix, so I was happy I found some to buy! Henry was happy too!

I just printed these images on sticker paper and stuck them on some water bottles. (I bought the image of the firetruck from this Etsy seller).

I got the idea for the clothespin photo timeline from Jess. I just punched out some scrapbook paper circles and hand wrote the numbers on them, then glued them to clothes pins. I used the clothespins to stick the photos onto a piece of ribbon - one picture from each month of his first year!

I made the little birthday hat out of some red card stock and pom poms, and I glued a piece of elastic into it - I was surprised how well it held up!

Oh how I LOVE these circle garlands! They are all over the blogosphere, and I was delighted at how easy (and addictive) they were to make - just make circles of coordinating scrapbook paper with a circle punch (mine was 1") and sew together.

I loved it so much, and it happens to match the colors in his room, that I moved into Henry's room after the party :)

Food

For the kids at the party, I found some images of different kinds of old fire trucks online and turned them into coloring sheets

For the adults, I had a little "pop quiz." The popcorn containers are from the dollar section at Target.

For party favors, we gave out little red pinwheels (Hobby Lobby) and bags of cherry sours with printed tags stapled on them.