Wordless Wednesday

One Sticker Chart Down

We have been doing a sticker chart with Nicole. She earns stickers when she is a: Kind friend, Good eater, Good sharer, Good listener, or Happy girl. I made the chart kinda big, probably too big, so we decided to have her reward be a new play cell phone since her old one broke and she was really sad about it.

Well, after a lot of work and stickers, she finally earned her new cell phone. Here she is with her cell phone and the sticker chart is on the fridge behind her.

Happy Birthday Nicole! 3!

 Nicole was born March 30th 2009, but because Matt and I will be out of town on the 30th for our anniversary, we decided to celebrate Nicole's Birthday a week early this year. Ironically, we celebrated on the 24th, our anniversary.

Nicole decided to have a Mickey Mouse themed party because she loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. That worked out quite well because I had seen ideas for Mickey parties on Pinterest.

I made this banner for Nicole for her birthday.

Here is my beautiful 3 year old birthday girl!

I was prepping for this party for days. Making the banner, buying the food, making cupcakes, cleaning, buying presents, games, party favors, etc. This was my first time throwing a children's birthday party and I have to say that it is a LOT of work! Thank goodness Matt and I are only giving our children a "friend" party every other year because I don't think that I could do this every year.

So, my decorations for the party were very minimal. Just the banner, balloons, and I made Minnie Mouse cupcakes.

I tried really hard to plan out each element of the party ahead of time, but Matt obviously had a better idea of how these things go because he enhanced my plans and made them better. Matt set up a table in the backyard and took out all of our sports equipment and some of the kids toys and that was pivotal! As people and kids arrived, they grabbed a corn dog or a hot dog (because it was a hot-diggity-dog lunch) and headed out to the backyard to eat and play in the backyard. This totally saved my house from excessive mess and entertained the kids while they were eating. I am so grateful that we have a backyard with a fence now!

Damon was in heaven because there were balls. He kept signing "ball."

Here are the kids playing. You can see Nicole over by the fence. She went over there to cry. I don't know why she was crying, but it wouldn't be a birthday without the birthday kid crying right?

Here is everyone eating at our brand new folding table that we got for the party.

We let Nicole pick out the chips for the party and she picked these giant Cheetos cheese curls. Dan got a hold of one and loved it! They were a hit with all of the kids. I never would have picked them out because they looked gross, but it was the right choice for kids.

Dan tried to eat the corn dog, but since he doesn't have teeth, it didn't really work out.

After everyone was done eating their hot dog lunch, we played a little "pin the nose on the mouse."

Lucy

Nicole won this game because she totally cheated and opened her eyes while putting her nose on. 

Olivia

Damon

Dan just wanted to look at the thing taped to his hand,  and didn't know why he was putting it on the mouse.

After this game, we moved on to the main event, the PINATA! Matt strung up the pinata in the garage and had spent all week cleaning out the garage so we could play the game in there. It was a little bit of chaos when the kids first saw that pinata, but once we got everyone calmed down, we let the kids take a whack at the pinata youngest to oldest. Luckily, the pinata was strong and all the kids got a couple whacks and the oldest child, Danielle broke it open in the end.

Damon

Olivia was so cute! She was scared to get too close to the pinata and swung from afar.

Coley

Ethan was a little scary with this stick. He was swinging widly.

The kids loved the pinata and everyone got a couple whacks at it. After Pinata, we did presents. Nicole was not inclined to look away from her presents to look at the camera. She was very focused on systematically opening each gift.

tinkerbell plate from Jill

Lalaloopsy, My Little Pony, and Littlest Petshop from Marie

Baby doll with swing/highchair which she loves! From Momma Kimball

Mickey figurines from Corinne.

Backpack and book from me and Matt.

Nicole was very spoiled and got a lot of gifts. Luckily, we learned from Christmas and waited to open any of the gifts until after everyone left. Because Nicole melts down if other kids touch her new toys.

Finally, we finished the party off with cake, which was cupcakes. Then everyone went back outside to eat.

The party was a success! The kids had fun and I had fun and I'm also glad that it is over.

Day in the Life... Work Day

I've read other moms do Day in the Life where they chronicle a day in their life, hour by hour. I, as you know, am a working mom and a day in my life is a little different then a day in the life of a stay at home mom. So, I thought I would do a day in my life.

Though, you may notice that some of my day is vague and general because I signed a NDA for my work and can't actually tell you about what I'm working on. Use your imagination!

6:15am Alarm goes off and I press snooze.

6:24am Alarm goes off again and I get up and hop in the shower.

6: 39am Out of shower to get dressed.

6:50am Grab my breakfast of a granola bar and leftovers out of the fridge for lunch and head off to work.

7:06am Get to work and sadly leave my car where I am listening to Harry Potter Goblet of Fire and every day I wish that walkmans still existed so I could listen to my books on tape all day.

7:10am Get to my desk, fill up my water bottle, check my emails and start working.

7:15am Get bored already and open up my blog to start writing this post.

7:22am Back to work and editing stuff.

9:30am Go to meeting and miss my cozy desk.

10am Go to another meeting and think fondly of my origami that litters my monitor stand.

10:30am Start to get hungry, but resist temptation to eat lunch absurdly early.

11am Eat lunch even though it is a little early. Pretend to myself that I am totally justified in eating early because I wake up early.

12pm Receive phone call about documentation that I am hearing about for the first time that is due in one week. But no worries because I'm awesome.

12:30pm While diligently reading specs, my eyes close and then when I open them again, 10 minutes have passed. That was a long blink.

1pm Run over to the other building (because my company is separated into different buildings and we get to run back and forth between them) and do research but call it exercise because I had to get up from my desk.

2pm Find cake in the other building and eat it because carrot cake is awesome and totally ruins any "exercise" that I may have done.

3pm Leave work and head home to take care of my kiddos.

3:30pm Kiss Matt goodbye so that he can go to school.

3:32pm Nicole falls asleep on the couch even though we are trying to cut out her naps. Sigh, and let her sleep for a little bit.

3:35pm Make Dan a bottle and put him down for a nap as well. I know he needs it because he keeps telling me "night night."

3:40pm Start picking up toys, shoes, books, and everything else that is on the ground because my sisters are coming for dinner and I better have my house look semi presentable.

3:50pm Vacuum and it surprisingly wakes neither of my children. They are death nappers, nothing wakes them.

4pm Do the dishes.

4:15pm Start making bacon and chopping ingredients because I'm making pizza for dinner.

4:30pm Nicole has been sleeping too long so I go to her and move her around like my little marionette and talk in an annoying loud voice to finally wake her. But she doesn't want to stay awake, so I bribe her with my tablet and she perks right up and begins to play computer games.

4:45pm Sarah, Mark, and sweet little Jack arrive and I feel very ill prepared because I haven't even put the first pizza in the oven.

4:50pm I put the first pizza in the oven and I hear Dan hollering at me from upstairs. I retrieve him from his crib, settle him in with Sarah and Mark and go to get the pizzas out of the oven.

5pm The first two pizzas are out of the oven and Marie, Anthon and Damon arrive.

5:05pm I start serving up pizza for my kids by cutting it into minuscule pieces for Dan and small pieces for Nicole. Even though her aptitude at biting has gotten better since we fixed the front tooth, she still doesn't like to do it.

5:15pm I start the next round of pizzas and I think I eat for myself while doing this.

6pm Finally, all the pizzas are made, everyone is fed and my wonderful husband calls to tell me that he is skipping his last class to be home with me and my heart soars because I miss him so much.

6:20pm Matt arrives home and the rest of us are eating delicious cupcakes.

6:30pm I am cleaning off the table and putting dishes in the sink when my Mom arrives.

7pm My kids are happily playing, but my sisters' kids are melting down because they are super tired. So, even though I finally have time to chat with my sisters, they do not. Such is the life of a mommy.

7:15pm Do the dishes... again.

7:30pm All the mommies have had it and my sisters and my mom pack up to go home and put the babies to bed.

8pm Everyone is gone, so I take my kids upstairs, do diaper change, pajamas, brush teeth, potty, bottles, prayers and bed.

8:30pm Nicole is knocking on our door, "I need something." Me: "Go to bed Nicole." She goes back to bed
.
8:32pm Nicole is back, crying, "Please, please open your door, I need you!" I open the door, lead her back to bed, give her kisses, sing her 3 songs, kiss Dan, and go back to my room to read my book while Matt studies.

8:40pm Nicole is back again, sobbing, "I need you! Please open your door!" Matt goes this time and talks to her and it actually sticks, perhaps he is a super hero and has magical kid staying in their room powers.

9pm I read my book for a little while and Matt studies next to me and it is the first moment of the day that I am relaxing and doing what I want.

9:30pm Sleep because I am so exhausted and cannot keep my eyes open any longer.

So yep, that is one working day for me. I wouldn't say it is a typical day because I don't usually have visitors at night. I often just have to cook for just myself and the kids and then we play until Daddy comes home, but yesterday was a busier day. Maybe one of these days I will do a weekend for you so you can see what I do when I am full time mommy.

Dan Likes Spatulas

Stair Climber

Nicole didn't try this until she was two. Dan is 11 months. Boys are definitely different than girls.

The Perfect Day

Have you ever had a perfect day? Saturday was pretty darn close for us.

Dan finally slept longer than three hours Friday night and we were able to get 6 hours of sleep before Dan woke up because of his ear ache and cough. And, Nicoley was a fairly good sleeper too. Good sleepers make for happy parents.

The day started with bacon and eggs for breakfast, requested by Nicole. Though she decided that she did not want to eat, Matt and I still enjoyed our breakfast treat.

Then, we all went to the backyard and worked in the garden. Nicole played around and pretended to garden with her play garden tools while Matt and I actually got the garden ready for spring planting. Dan loved it too. He was very interested in what we were doing. Gardening only took an hour because there were two of us and it always goes faster with two.

Then, we ate leftovers for lunch, so I didn't have to cook and it was glorious and both kids ate, which was a miracle.

We then commenced to Lowe's to purchase a new weedwacker since our battery powered one is dying. The batteries, charged at full power only were lasting 15 minutes and trimming the lawn became quite a pain.... for Matt since I don't actually work with the lawn. So, we got a new gas powered trimmer that should work a lot better and last longer than four years.

We were off again up to Eagle Mountain to visit my parents because I love them and miss them. Also, my Mom has the best scrapbooking room and I wanted to make a banner for Nicole's birthday party. So, here are some pics of our day at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I don't know why this pic is sideways. It is saved upright. Oh well. Dan and Nicole loved climbing all over this moose while we were there. I'm sure you have seen these moose at Costco. My Dad bought one for my Mom for Valentines. I don't know if she enjoys it as much as the grandkids do.

Dan kept attacking my mouth while I was making dinner. He thought it was hilarious.

Here is Nicole sitting in her chair and refusing to eat dinner. Ah, good times.

So, while at The Parent's, we chatted, I made my banner, Mom cleaned, Mom and I made dinner together and it was just so relaxing and nice to spend time together. But, we did have one little incident while we were there...

I was in the scrapbooking room and Dan was at my feet playing with a vial of glitter that Nicole had gotten out. Nicole was unable to open it, so I thought it was safe for Dan to play with. Dan was playing at my feet and got quite, which should have been a clue to me, but instead I thought, "Yes, now I can focus on making this banner." Matt comes in and says, "DAN!" I look down and he has opened the glitter, poured it out everywhere and has started to eat it. Yuck!

Grandma swooped in and started cleaning off his mouth and hands, so I didn't get a pic of him totally covered, but here is my little guy with his glitter-tastrophe.

His face is all clean here, but you can see the guilt in his eyes.

Dan is not happy that I am cleaning up his glitter.

Glitter legs

Glitter carpet

I guess I should never underestimate what a curious boy can accomplish. Dan has already figured out that doorknobs open doors. It took Nicole almost two years to figure that one out. Boys want to explore! Nicole was always just content with the situation presented to her.

Well, our Saturday ended with us driving home and the kids falling asleep in the car. We got the kids out of the car and I put Nicole in her pajamas and put her on the potty and then back to bed and she slept through it all. Dan took his medicine and went back to bed. Both kids were in bed, and asleep by 7:30pm. It was a miracle! This has never happened before. We just sat in our room waiting for them to wake up thinking that they had just taken the greatest nap ever, but they didn't. They slept until 7am the next morning!

I felt like the luckiest parent's ever because they went to bed early and slept for almost 12 hours. This never happens. My kids usually sleep from 9pm to 7:30am. And, all last week, we were woken up multiple times a night because Dan was sick.

And thus ended our nearly perfect day. We accomplished all that we wanted to accomplish, we got to do the things that both Matt and I wanted to do and the kids went to bed early. It was a glorious day.