3 Years Old

Little S's birthday bash was a blast. The theme was a bee in the garden - inspired by the beehive cake on the cover of Martha Stewart Living this past summer and the unfortunate and unexplained demise of the bee population (my grandpa is a retired beekeeper so the struggles of our bee friends hit close to home).

For D and I the birthday is our big event of the year. We like having all the fam and friends over, enjoying food and games and the November California weather in the back yard.

We enlisted lots of help with party prep. Auntie L and Matt helped make the huge tissue paper flowers that decorated the back yard. My mom helped with invitation supplies and preparations, mailing multiple boxes of stuff to me from Utah. I commissioned my dad to create a 15 foot garden mural on canvas for the kids to paint - he used his artist's discretion and added Dora, Boots and Swiper and the final product was a sort of Dora-meets-Rousseau scene (btw - Little S was ecstatic when I pulled the mural out of the box and she saw Dora on it). And finally, the night before the party, our good friend Jay helped D get the mural mounted/stretched on a wood frame in less than 15 minutes! Jay is a master of construction - D admitted it would have taken him an hour or two to do it himself :)

The invitations above.

We had the kids paint the mural for the first part of the party as everyone arrived. It was an even bigger hit than I imagined. My dad used permanent marker on the canvas for the outlines and the kids painted with washable tempera paints.
Action shot of the artists at work. As the younger kids moved on to the other games, the older kids wanted to keep painting - they were even hiding jars of paint behind the mural so the moms wouldn't make them stop :)
As usual, D and I were running around crazy at the start of the party. So my gal pals Cass (above) and Chanel got the painting rolling for me - what would I do without them?!
After the mural painting, we had the kids play a bee game that I made up. It was a version of the magnet fishing game but with bees and nectar instead. Each child decorated a bee and hung it from a fishing pole type thing (crafted by D, of course) that had a magnet on the end. They dropped their "bee" into the white flowers scattered in the yard that were filled with magnetic nectar paper and then carried their nectar to the beehive where the queen bee, 11 year old Haley, gave them a piece of candy for each nectar they brought. I had Flight of the Bumblebee playing on the ipod during this game, but I don't think the kids really noticed...Pictured above is our neighbor and good friend Lauree helping Little S and Hayden with their bees. Lauree is one of Little S's most favorite people in the entire world.
Next came the balloon hats and animal creations made by the birthday girl's dad. D has mastered the art of ballooning and can really wow a crowd of little people. (Little S is wearing the bee necklace and bee hair ribbon Grandma Shiela sent her for the big day - Auntie L, whose birthday is 6 days before Little S's, wore the birthday ribbon too.)
After a light dinner came the cake. I bought 2 of these molds - I love it! We served the cake to the adults with berries, cream and Nutella.
The kids decorated their own cupcakes - I used a cupcake and frosting recipe from Giada with mascarpone cheese in it - super easy and way better than just a box mix.
After food, cake and presents it was dark and we passed out glow bracelets and necklaces to everyone. Here, Auntie L models the glow jewelry and a balloon hat!
Finally, the kids wanted rides in the wagon before the night ended.

We were tired at the end of the night, to say the least, but so happy, too. There is no better way to spend a weekend night than at fun party with friends.

I'm back

After a 2 month hiatus and both my husband and mother asking if I'd given up blogging completely, I decided to get back in the saddle. Also, baby #2 is due in just over 2 weeks and I'm trying to tie up loose ends before the stork arrives.

Because I want to print my blog entries as a family journal, I'll be posting highlights from our family adventures during Nov and Dec 2008 to make the year's entries complete.

San Diego Zoo

For Little S's actual birthday on November 10, we went as a family to the San Diego Zoo. She insisted we listen to Carlos Vives during most of the drive down (D and I were going a little crazy, but she was the birthday girl and we gave in). She really wanted to see an alligator and a mouse - we couldn't produce the mouse request, but the polar bears and watching the gorillas eat lunch were highlights of the day.

She loved posing with the sculptures of animals - much less intimidating than the real thing.


We couldn't resist these head shots in the toddler play area. I asked D to take her into the petting zoo area at the end of the day - bad idea! Her allergies went crazy during the car ride home. We even pulled over to buy some medicine because she was coughing and tearing up so badly! Later that week at Little S's check-up the pediatrician told me to not venture into petting zoos again... Live and learn.


We ate lunch near the gorilla exhibit and Little S insisted on eating her fruit leather while laying with this mama and baby gorilla sculpture.

Halloween

It is a VERY big deal in our neighborhood. The big victorian houses on the main street go all out with decorations and the police block off the surrounding streets (ours included) and put up spot lights. We had hundreds of trick-or-treaters from 5:15 until we turned off our light at 9:30! We went through 600 pieces of candy and a few hundred packs of stickers. (D carved the pumpkins pictured above - he's so creative!)

Little S was a dinosaur. My mom's friend made the costume and let us borrow it. Little S wasn't set on being anything in particular - some days she said she wanted to be a bug, other days a bee, and on halloween she said pirate.

Costume party with her preschool class:
Our good friends stopped by with their kids during trick-or-treating. Chanel's girls and my friend Cass's boys were excited about handing out candy - and gave D and my little sis a break from the task. It was fun to have a house full of friends and a porch full of trick-or-treaters.

Auntie L and Matt as pirates:
Chanel's girls distributing candy on the front porch:

Best costume went to this trick-or-treater who took a rest on our front yard:

The fellas overseeing the candy distribution - Jay, Chad and D.

Little S and friend Colin counting candy at the end of the night:

Pumpkin Patch

Last week we went to the local pumpkin patch with Little S's preschool. The fieldtrip included a tractor ride and feeding the sheep in the petting zoo. We've taken her there each fall, though I don't know how many more years the patch and Christmas tree farm will survive (i.e. not sell out) as big development goes up all around it.

These wagons are a hit with all the kids - I've never seen anyone fill them with anything but small children! Little S with 2 friends from her class (this past spring I posted about waiting all night to get a spot in the preschool class. Well, you're looking at the 3 kids whose parents were numbers 1, 2, and 3 in line that night :)

Little S and I have been reading and loving this book from the library: The Pumpkin Fair by Eve Bunting.
We read it multiple times a day, but it was due so I returned it while she was at school. When she realized it was gone, we had to go back to the library to see if we could check it out again (no luck).

Birthday Week

D initiated birthday week when we were first married. When it's your birthday, you pick when the week starts (usually your birthday falls near the end of the 7 days) and you get to do whatever you want that week - choose what we eat, where we go, any fun stuff you want to do - it's your week! And you get small gifts during the week, too.


Last week was D's BW and we had a fun time as a fam celebrating the big 33! At the end of the week, this is what I found in the kitchen after noticing the house was a bit too quiet for too long:

Good Inspiration

Find it at my friend Becca's blog, ahabitatforhumanity

In an effort to find "the good" all around her (and keep a good attitude about her daily duties), Becca started writing brief posts about everything from the architecture around her New Haven, Conn. neighborhood to good recipes for the kids. I especially enjoyed her recent Oct 10 entry about the community of Chinese grandparents moving in with their Yale student children to help take care of their grandkids!

Becca is a great writer and friend and I miss living closer to her. We went to grad school together and have, in the 4 years since graduating, lamented together about leaving our stacks of art history books on the shelves for these few years while we dedicate our energy to the crazy but always cute little ones we're raising.

Here's to the good all around us!