Let the festivities begin!

Today we celebrated Sam's 5th birthday! (His birthday is not until the 22nd, but he wanted to have his party at Teddy Mountain and next Saturday was booked.) He spent the night last night with Grandma & BeBah, but was up at 4am this morning (thankfully he was at their house!). He was so excited all day and it seemed that 3 o'clock would never get here. He had 8 friends come and he had a great time. They each got to pick out a stuffed animal, then they got to stuff it and pick out a shirt or pair of shorts for it and then get their picture taken with it. He got a lot of fun presents - our gift to him was a Buzz LightYear and Woody toy. He was so excited about them. I made a Toy Story cake for him. It was sort of a tower of cupcakes with his Toy Story toys around it. I have to say it turned out pretty cute!

We plan to go to Chuck E Cheese next week and he is taking a friend with him. We're actually doing that the night before his birthday. Our tradition is to have Dunkin Donuts for the kids' birthday breakfast and then I'll take him back to Teddy Mountain to get an outfit for the dragon he got today with the points we earned.

I can't believe my little man is almost 5. I always get sentimental around his birthday, but this year seems more so. Before I know it, August will be here and he'll be off to Kindergarten. He is such a blessing to us and I am so grateful to be his Mom!

Happy Birthday Sam!

Eggs! Where are you?

Yesterday was the last day of preschool for the week, so the kids did their Easter parties. Abby's class had an egg hunt close to my classroom, so I was able to sneak out for bit to watch her class hunt for eggs. Abby, as many of you know, is very vocal and speaks very well. The rest of the class was pretty quiet as they were getting their eggs, but you could hear Abby loudly and clearly shouting, "Eggs! Where are you? Do you hear us?" It was so funny! They all looked so cute. Her class had a fruit party (thank you teachers!) instead of candy and junk, so they also didn't fill the eggs. Abby was a little disappointed, but I told her it was empty just like the tomb and she went along with that pretty well.

We have 3, yes 3, more egg hunts tomorrow. I'll have my camera for these and will post some pictures for you.

We just finished an addition to our back deck and had our fence pressure washed. What a difference! The deck is now big enough to actually enjoy and just makes the whole backyard feel bigger. The kids and I went out to enjoy it this afternoon, but several giant bees started hanging around so we had to sneak inside quickly!

We're looking forward to Easter and being able to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. The atonement is such an amazing gift He gave us and I've been trying really hard this week to teach Sam and Abby the real reason for Easter. For FHE this week we did a scripture egg hunt, with 12 eggs, each egg having a scripture and item to tell the Easter story. I think they enjoyed it and it was a fun way to teach about Easter.

Buttons

To know Sam is to know that he does not like buttons of any kind. He especially does not like to wear clothing with buttons nor does he like to touch anything with buttons. I forgot this bit of information about him when I purchased a new comforter for my bed yesterday. It has buttons all over it and makes the fabric gather a bit. I think it's pretty. Sam's first words were, "I'm never getting in that bed again." According to Mike this is worth its weight in gold. Often times he'll find his way to our bed in the wee morning hours and go back to sleep with us. Guess that problem is now solved! Who knew after all this time of us trying different things to get him to go back to sleep in his own bed, all we needed was a comforter with buttons!

It's March already??

Sadly my posts seem to be getting farther and farther apart!

Life seems to have been very busy and hectic lately. I feel like I'm behind on everything! So what have we been up to the last month?

We joined the YMCA and I have been working out about 3 times a week. Once we are finished with preschool in May that number will increase. I've been enjoying it and have even taken a few classes - something I don't normally do. It's helping me get back into the swing of things. It's been about 5 years since I belonged to a gym. I'm a bit rusty! Anyway, today I did a Zumba class for the first time and LOVED it! I can't wait to go back next week. I'm not much of a dancer, so I was a little aprehensive at first (didn't want to make a total fool of myself), but thankfully the class was large and you have to pay attention to keep up, so I figured no one was really looking at me anyway! The kids seem to be enjoying the child watch, which is good. It makes it easier to not feel guilty about "me" time when I know they are having fun. One of these days Mike will join us there too. I've been trying not to give him too hard of a time. :)

This week we had a few lovely spring days and were able to get outside and enjoy them before the rain started today. Abby must have loved it because she keeps asking if we're going to the playground again today. I think we all have a little spring fever.

We are so proud of Abby. She started potty training about 2 weeks ago and is doing so great! She's had just a few accidents and still gets tickled when she goes. We gave Sam skittles when he was learning, but her reward has been to make a phone call. The first few days of potty training she would call Grandma right afterward and exclaim, "Grandma! Iwent tee-tee!" She would then talk for the next several minutes walking around the house with the phone in her hand. She's a girl for sure!

Abby, Mom, and I took a trip up to Concord Mills Mall in Charlotte last weekend. It was a fun girls day and Abby is a great shopper. In Bed Bath & Beyond, our first stop, she found a plastic princess chair and informed me that she was getting it. I tried to talk her out of it telling her we didn't have room for it in the stroller, it was our first store, etc, but she said she would carry it and proceeded to push it all the way to the front of the store. Thankfully it was lightweight and only $10 because we did indeed buy it for her! (I know, I'm a sucker for those big blue eyes!) I think she really felt like a big girl and behaved herself very well. She'll be a lot of fun as she gets older and I look forward to many more girls days with her.

Valentine's Day

Since Valentine's Day fell on a long weekend this year, we decided to make it a 4 day weekend and spend it with Mike's mom, Dianne, down in Isle of Palms. We love to go visit her and the kids especially look forward to it.
We knew snow was in the forecast and it started out that Columbia would get a dusting and most of the snow would be near Charleston, so we were excited about the prospect of snow. Of course, with our luck, we should have known that's not quite how it would work out. It seems that wherever we are, snow is not!
As it turns out, Columbia got a good six inches or more and IOP only got an inch or two. Nonetheless, Sam and Abby were so excited about the snow. When Abby woke up Saturday morning I had her look outside to see it. She looked at me and said, "Now we can build a snowman. Let's get our coats." She was ready!
We ate a quick breakfast and bundled them up. Seeing as how were aren't exactly prepared for snow we had to improvise. Luckily, they had both gotten rubber golashes for Christmas so they wore those for boots. They had been wearing their fleece footie jammies, so I had them just put some clothes on over those. Poor Sam didn't even have gloves, so he wore a pair of Dianne's socks! Abby reminded us of the little brother from A Christmas Story - she looked like as stuffed tick!
Anyway, they enjoyed being out in the snow. The snow was too crunchy to really make snowmen or snowangels as they had hoped for, but Sam did get to slide down the golf course hill on a cardboard box and they had fun holding it - at least until their fingers got "stingy" as Abby put it. Of course it was all gone by lunchtime, but it was pretty to see snow on the beach. Not something you see every day!
On Valentine's we did a treasure hunt this year. I think this will definitely need to be a new tradition. Sam and Abby loved it! I had hidden clues around the house and we all followed after them reading the clues. It was cute to see them try to figure out where to go next and get excited about finding the clues. Their treasure ended up being a new squishy dinosaur for Sam and a Strawberry Shortcake set for Abby along with a few DVDs (Mike got a little carried away at Target!). It was a fun day spent with the ones we love. Abby curled up next to me to watch her new Barney DVD and just said, "I love you, Momma." These are truly the moments you cherish as a parent.
We finished up the day with some delicious BBQ ribs that Mike and Ralph (Dianne's boyfriend) made us for dinner - Yum-O!

Hibernating

So I walked downstairs a bit ago only to find Sam sitting at the table eating a banana. Ok, but he has a plate in front of him with an apple and another half eaten banana. Hmm. So I ask, "Why do you have 2 bananas?" His response, "I'm hibernating and you need to make my room like a cave with bats & darkness." I think he's serious. At least he's hibernating with healthy food.

We got him all regsitered for kindergarten today. We've applied to 2 other schools other than the one we are zoned for, but we had to turn in the paperwork at the school we're zoned for. I was impressed with the school, and the vice-prinicpal even gave us a spontaneous tour of the school. That helped both Sam and I be a little more comfortable with the prospects of kindergarten. I think he'll do fine wherever he goes.

Yesterday Sam and I went to the SC State Museum. It had been a good 10 years or so since I had been there and they have a dinosaur exhibit right now, so it seemed like a good way to spend the afternoon.

I have to interject here to say that Sam has just informed me that he's full and ready to hibernate. He'll be in his room waiting for me to make the bats. When I asked what I should make the bats with he said paper and then punch holes and use string to hang them from the ceiling. "Hurry, I'll be waiting," he says. Guess I should quit blogging for now and go make bats. I'll let you know about the museum later.

(Ok, so he didn't actually hibernate but we did make and hang a few bats from the ceiling fan. Too funny!)

Anyway, the museum was fun. The dinosaurs were big and moved and made noise. He got to sit in a T-Rex footprint, brush away dirt to uncover buried bones, and take pictures with a few. He asked me this morning if we could go again today, so he must have enjoyed it. I'll have to post some pictures later. I had forgotten my camera and borrowed Mom & Dad's when I dropped Abby off there. She stayed with Grandma and took a nap. :)

Where has January gone?

My goodness! It seems like Christmas was not so long ago, but it occurred to me today that January is already almost over! What a busy month it has been. We've been working on getting back into our pre-school routine. It's amazing how quickly you can get out of your routine in just 2 weeks! But back in it we are, and busy, busy. Sometimes, well many times, I think I really need to get better at time management. There just never seems to be enough of it!

Sam had two birthday parties already this month (and another coming up this week). The first one was a skating party. Sam had never (and still hasn't) skated. We arrived a bit late and the other kids were already "over" skating so they spent their time playing in the play area. It was basically a giant McDonald's like playground. He and the other 2 boys had a great time and it was a great way for him to get some of his wiggles out. They also danced on some platforms to the music playing. That was certainly a cute sight!

His second party was last weekend at our neighbor's house. This was a pirate themed party and he and Abby had a great time. I had intended to leave Abby at home, but the party was mostly outside and I kept looking over at our house next door and seeing Abby with her sweet face pressed up against the window watching it all. We felt so bad, we brought her over to play with the big kids and she had a good time too without getting in the way.

Last Friday the weather was amazing! We've had some really cold days this month, so we took advantage of the warm weather and headed out to the zoo. Some friends from church joined us and we ended up being there for about 4 hours! I think we saw about every animal and climbed on every statue at least once while we were there. It was a great day!

This past Friday we tried out a new bounce house and Sam and Abby bounced for 2 hours. Sam dressed up as a swamp monster and Abby tried on a Snow White dress and paired it with an indian headdress. They did puzzles and Sam and I played a short game of air hockey. All in all, a great time!

Yesterday, Dad came over and helped me build some shelves in our storage area under our stairs. It's basically just a big closet, but I now have 5 shelves about 38 inches long and 16 inches deep. They are fantastic. Now I can continue building our food storage and stocking up on sales and actually have somewhere to put it all! Thanks so much Dad!

After Church today, I tried out a new recipe for cupcake bites. I've been following Bakerella on her website (www.bakerella.com) and finally decided to try out one of her recipes. It took a few hours, but I was pretty pleased with the outcome. Mine turned out better than I expected, but not quite as good as Bakerella's. The kids sure liked them. It makes so many we have plenty to share!

This week I have to finish up Sam's kindergarten registration. Yikes! Is my little guy really that close to starting school?!?! I'm certainly having a hard time coming to terms with this. In our school district we can choose which school we'd like our child to attend, but it's all done by lottery. I've been busy researching the different schools and even a few magnet programs. Not an easy choice!

Also on my "to-do" list this week is to join our local YMCA. I feel like the lady in the Special K commercial who's rear end gets stuck in her chair after the holidays and it's time to do something about it! Mike is also on high blood pressure and cholesterol meds so hopefully he'll take good advantage too and make some improvements with his own health. We're going to be healthier in 2010!