Unbirthdays and Birthdays

Oh birthday parties! I'm taking a sabbatical from birthday parties. Rowan gets an invitation at least 2 times a month and we've only gone to one since September. There seems to be a trend here that you have to throw a birthday at some kind of expensive rented facility and invite everyone from your child's classroom. For me, I feel like the present you bring needs to match the extravagance. True or not, if I haven't heard Rowan talking about his classmate often enough, we don't attend. Also if it is held on Sunday, which has happened a few times. I miss the simplicy of birthday parties back in Illinois, but in retrospect they weren't always that simple.

Before we left Illinois (almost literally- it was like the week before we moved), I had a combined unbirthday party for Nadia and Rowan. I'm so glad I did, although the timing could have been better. We got to say goodbye to a lot of their friends (as many as I could manage anyways!) and have one last hurrah before we hit the road. I went a little crazy by making homemade pinatas, but thankfully had the wisdom to ask a good friend to make the cakes. We wanted to go to a park, but due to rain we ended up in the church gym. It was a fun little get together.

Driving with our haul of stuff to the church


As I was packing up I came across two leftover punch balloons and had the genius (crazy) idea to make homemade pinatas. Sure, I had more pressing concerns like packing up our house and cleaning, but I wanted to not spend $40 on pinatas and more truthfully I needed a distraction from the craziness of our move. I used up some leftover red spray paint and slapped some Dora and Diego decals on one and Rowan's rendition of bad guys on the other. It worked pretty well!
It was nice to have one for the little kids and one for the big kids. The basketball hoops worked great for hanging them up.


We had a water gun game set up as we were waiting for everyone to arrive. Dollar store guns and dixie cup bad guys. If I haven't mentioned it already, the party was a mishmash of Dora/Diego and Lego themes.


Then the Bobo brothers and Swiper came and stole our legos, so we went on a lego hunt through the church. Each kid had to find one of each color. Rowan was into it. Nadia was not.


She ended up needing some daddy alone time.
Then we pulled out our bubble sword/wands and went outside for a brief reprieve before the cake/pinata craziness began.


Then it was pinata time. Nadia was pretty beside herself at this point. I wonder if the stress of the impending move was affecting her, but it might have just been too overwhelming in general. At least she liked one of the games, the presents, and the cake! Rowan, on the other hand, enjoyed every second of the day.

She ended up holding the stick for the rest of the time and we used the big kids' stick when they were done with theirs. I'm not sure if she felt like she needed to defend herself against all the other kids or what. Halle didn't seem too intimidated anyways.




I was hoping the fact that the pinatas were homemade would actually let them be breakable as opposed to the ones that you buy at the store that are nearly indestructible because they are made with cardboard and staples. The little kids still struggled though. At least until Liam came along.



The cakes my wonderful friend Tiffany made.



This year we didn't specify no presents. Probably not the best idea as we were trying to downsize for the move and we weren't expecting such generosity!

After a lot of the kids left, we hung around for a while with the Nyes.


When we got home, Nadia promptly did the following. I may or may not have been far behind her. So exhausting, but so worth it.


Looking through all of these pictures reminds me of how much I miss our friends back in Illinois. We've finally reached the point where we have friends here in SC, but we left some great people behind. I'm so glad my kids had the opportunity to know some of them.

So in light of having just thrown a birthday bash at the end of May, I didn't want to try and do another in December, especially in the middle of Christmas break. So I decided I had fulfilled my motherly obligation already and we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese instead. Grandma gave them both huge cups full of tokens and they went to town. It was a total treat. I think Steve and I enjoyed ourselves as much as the kids did.
Hahaha- I love it!
See if you can spot the kids in this picture. Ignore the lady who thinks I'm taking pictures of her.

Rowan struck gold at one of the games where you had to precisely time when to shoot. He ended up with 50 tickets!
When I try to get pictures of my mom, they end up one of two ways.

With her head turned...

Or giving me a "look". Sorry kids. Your grandma loves you and is with us often, but I don't get to document it without death threats.
Nadia and Rowan also get attention heaped on them from afar while we celebrated their birthdays. Grandma and Grandpa Luke sent both of them lovely presents! Rowan got to pick out the lego set of his choice (video MIA) and Nadia finally got her very own backpack! Thank you!!



Rowan bought Nadia a little stuffed kitty with his own money. Very sweet!
Little Pet Shop and capped off the evening with cupcakes.


If you are still reading this, I'm amazed.

Baby in Heels

My little girl wore her first set of heels to church today. She crash landed a couple of times, thankfully not on the pavement though. Those skinned knees are from running in her rubber boots, which are equally as treacherous at times.


Forgive our mess. I could say it was a deliberate attempt at an obstacle course to test Nadia's "heel readiness" but the reality is it's Sunday, I'm decidedly too pregnant (lazy) to feel like picking up toys, and those are all the excuses I have for now.

Nadia-ism

On the way to church: "OOPSIE! I forgot my pants!" (apparently we don't wear dresses enough)

After Grandma Dorothy finished singing Rock-a-bye Baby: "Grandma, that isn't a church song!" She was a bit appalled at the ending.

Naddy-Boo

My little girl is 3! I love this age. Nadia wakes me up every morning with a hug and a kiss. She is truly the most loving little girl. She cries like the world is coming to an end when she gets put in time out (a surprisingly rare occasion) and has such a soft heart. But she definitely has a temper if you cross her. Her Christmas present to me was being completely potty trained, with the exception of telling other adults she needs to go when she's under their care. I was much more relaxed and gradual with her than I was with Rowan and it worked so much better.

Nadia sings all the time to herself and likes to "read" to herself which usually sounds like this- "Chapter 8, the kitty goes to bed. Chapter 9, the kitty plays with her mommy..." This kid LOVES cats and wants one more than anything in the world. She pretends that she's a kitty sporadically throughout the day which usually involves a lot of conversations with the word "meow". She also has started to write her letters and draw people.

This is a picture of her and Rowan. You can see she tried to write their names on top.


This is another portrait that she did of herself a few months ago:
And Nadia's favorite letter. It regularly makes appearances throughout out house, thankfully not TOO often on the walls.
She loves to say "N is for ME!" She claims full ownership and points it out wherever we go. She also loves preschool that we do once a week. I've been meaning to catalog all the work she's done thus far, but most of it ends up ripped in her loving arms. I seriously can't keep up with all the paper that goes through this house, especially all of Rowan's stuff from kindergarten. Most of it ends up in the trash. :(

Here's a couple of things we've done though.
"P" week- Made purple playdough, did pumpkin puzzles and talked about pigs:


Nadia has also just barely made the graduation from nursery to Sunbeams. She's been doing great!


Princess Leia's evil twin sister. Nadia you keep us laughing- thank you for being part of our family!

Nadia-ism
Nadia: (completely out of the blue) I don't want to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus!
Me: !?! Oh...?
Nadia: No! I want to live with you and Daddy! *starts to tear up* My teacher says I have to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus.
Me: Honey, we'll be there too! We'll all be together.
Nadia: Okay... *long pause* Mommy, I don't want to live with them, just you!
Me: Ummmm....?