Kendrick's Bob the Builder Birthday Party (August 27)

We celebrated Kendrick's 3rd birthday a few days early this year with a small group of family and friends. We had such a great time! And with the meal being simple and clean up a snap, it was the first party I felt like I actually really enjoyed! With the weather being a bit cooler, we opted to skip the kiddie pool, bring the party inside (for the most part) and bring the little bouncy house to the front yard so it could be on flat ground and not inside. These were all great choices!

Menu

We kept it super simple for the menu. Kendrick had requested hot dogs and mac and cheese (his favorite), so we did that alongside chips, baked beans with bacon, oreo salad and fruit salad with our favorite punch (orange sherbet, ginger ale and pineapple juice). It was all a hit, and it was all super simple, so it made my day easy :)

Cake

I feel like my cake-making days are coming to an end, although I know I'll probably forget that haha The cake was tasty (as box mixes usually are), but I had zero inspiration, beyond crushed oreos on top for dirt. I initially tried to make a large orange traffic cone, which turned into what my husband thought was a giant boob, so I turned it into a pile of dirt instead. It was a hit anyways, I guess haha Thank goodness for CAUTION tape to dress it up a bit, and for chocolate cake pops!

Activities

We didn't do anything too crazy for the party as far as activities. We stuck to a pinata (which the boys had both insisted on) and the bouncy house.

Decor

This was such a fun theme to do! It didn't really take much prep, aside from ordering some cheap, plastic orange traffic cones, plastic tablecloth, and cheap plastic hard hats. Decorating was easy and quick and fun! Being a boy mom three times over, we have no shortages of dump trucks, which I used as part of the food serving decor (holding packaged chips and cake pops).

Guests and Party Pics

The hats were a hit! Granted, they didn't fit the average adult's head very well, and they didn't stay on for long, but everyone had a fun time with them :)

Opening Gifts

Kendrick got a LOT of help opening his gifts this year. In fact, while he opened one, big brother Cashel ended up opening all the rest. He got some fun stuff: Various sizes of tractors, a bowling set, some books, a backhoe digger and a racing car track.

We had a wonderful time and were so glad our friends and family could join us! Next up on the agenda: NOTHING! We can't wait to do absolutely NOTHING! :)

January Recap

Disclaimer: I'm going to shake it up a bit this year and ::gasp:: just post when I feel like it. No holding myself accountable for making sure every event gets documented (although I'm sure I'll be kicking myself when I get to scrapping events and I don't have a nice little commentary on them). I just don't have the time to keep up with it, and I'd rather spend my time NOT doing a play by play.


January.

I knew it was coming, but I still couldn't be prepared for how completely insane the month of January was. January is notoriously the absolute worst month for me at work: Every January I vow I'm quitting. It is usually fairly busy, and it is also when my boss usually is out on vacation for about three weeks every year. This year was no exception, except for the part where things were (unexpectedly) extraordinarily busier than usual, and I had to recall a LOT of hardware and networking knowledge from the past six years just to stay afloat each day, which is just...well...so completely exhausting. I really don't like hardware and networking: I dare say I loathe it. And to top it off, people were just not very pleasant about their needs, so my daily interactions were a compilation of really rude and mean people who were angry because I didn't know what I was doing and was doing my best to figure it out. So January? Yeah, January can just kinda go away.

But that really, really hard month is now OVER!!!!!!!!

Don't get me wrong: We had some really great moments in January: Moments where my boys just made me laugh and giggle and smile. We had tickle fights and played in the bouncy house together. We painted and colored and had races ("It's time for marks, guys!" -Cashel).

The boys clung to Daddy...

We were sick...and then well.

Happy...

and then sad.

We ate a heck of a lot of popcorn.

The boys enjoyed a fun evening at a daycare party in town :)

I got my new camera!!

We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, and it obviously did a heck of a lot of good with two toddlers in the house ::sigh::

We are still fighting the nap battle with Cashel, and it's getting old fast. He'll push all day to not take a nap...

...and then BAM. Always at the most inconvenient times he's just done for the night. Before supper. Which means that he wants to eat at 3am.

We had a wonderful night "off" from parenting in which we ate, we shopped and we worked on projects! We're not THAT old, though: We did actually consider hopping a plane to Vegas for 24 hours haha And then we laughed and laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. We didn't want to waste our precious time off traveling.

We enjoyed lunch with Great Grandma Vi :)

Cashel turned THREE (and I DID still do a recap on that - click here for it!)

 

Looking Ahead...

Yeah, we're done with the trip and all now, but I wrote most of this up before we left and just never got it posted, so I'm not changing it.

We are GIDDY about some time off as a family in Key Largo!

We will be leaving these temps (which are arguably pretty great where we live for this time of year!)...

...for these temps :)

We cannot wait, and we're mostly packed and ready to go. The boys are really excited to fly on an airplane :) Mommy and Daddy are really excited to STOP WEARING COATS for a week! Oh, and Mommy is excited to not NEED to have a second cup of coffee, but to relax and enjoy one anyway :)

And that, my friends, is as far as we have thought about our future for the time being. We've been too weary to think about much else. We know there are events coming up this year and plans to be made, but for the time being, our minds are on vacation, and I just have to say: It's about time!