J.'s Birthday Party

Saturday, September 27th-- J. had her birthday party here at the house on Saturday. She wanted a dress-up party. I spent a few weeks gathering her many dress-up outfits and came up with over 20 costumes and princess dresses. Wow. We have waaaayyyyy to much dress up. I did go to our Goodwill store and pick up two beautiful dresses for $2.99 along with some halloween masks. She had boys coming to the party too so I needed a few boyish things.

I had the dining room table set up in four stations. One was a fingernail station with polish, glitter and stickers. One was a hair station with green/purple/glitter hairsprays, bows, accessories, hair paint and the works. One station was a do-it-yourself make up station with mirrors, eyeshadows, lipsticks, and blushes compliments of Dana and her Mary Kay business. Thanks, Dana!! The last station was face painting where I was doing the kid's faces for about an hour. Whew. That was tiring.

J. wanted a mint-chocolate chip ice cream cake for her birthday so I made a two layer cake and she got to put whip-cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles all over it. It was very yummy!

For a birthday present, she asked for Mr. Juan to come for a visit. Juan showed up with his neice and J. was VERY excited. She even asked the week after her party if Juan's neice could come over for another playdate. Seems J. has found a new friend. Which is great! Now we might all be able to see Juan more often!

Happy Birthday, J.!! We love you and you are our PERFECT little girl. You are getting soooo BIG!

Murals

I finally finished the murals in the kid's rooms the week before J.'s birthday party. Well, J.'s isn't finished as she wants bugs in amongst the flowers but it looks finished until I can get to the wildlife. J. got new bedding for her birthday and so I created a quick flower mural to match the colors in her bedding.

M.'s mural only took me two years to finish. I started before his 5th birthday and finished a month or so ago. I am a major slacker! But, here they are.......

Balloon Festival

Saturday, September 20th--Every year we attend the Balloon Festival. Well, at least K. and the kids do. I miss a year here and there for important things like Scrapbook Weekend. Whoo hoo! But this year, I made the festival. The kids had a great time as usual and S. even made his debut appearance.

We sat on a very steep slope over where the balloons are inflated. Poor S. was having a very hard time with the incline. He couldn't even sit up or he would topple forward. We had the kids sit at the bottom of the blanket and act as a barrier to catch S. each time he rolled down the slope. Yes, rolled, just like in the movies! It was very funny.

The festival includes all the usual vendor booths, food, souveniers, etc.. This year even the SPCA was there. I had a very hard time walking away from the little female 5 month old Border Collie mix but I did it! Around 6:00 in the evening, the sky divers dive out of airplanes above the festival and parachute down with flags and streamers. The balloons are then inflated and take off. More balloons land or arrive and are inflated around dusk and they have a 'Twinkle' where the balloons light up to music and countdowns. It is very beautiful.

This year they added fireworks at 9:00. We stayed to watch. The kids love fireworks. M. thought they were a bit loud, though.

We had ridden the bus to the festival only to find out that it seems EVERYBODY rode the bus this year. The bus home had about a 2 hour line so K. decided we would walk back to the station where we parked our car. Oh, only about a 3 mile hike....with baby and two exhausted kids at 9:30 at night. Needless to say, we only made it about half a mile and the kids and I stayed and played on a church lawn while K. ran back to the station for our car. Fun, fun!

My New Table

Yea! I finally got a new table. I have been looking since S. came along for a new table or for 6 chairs to match my grandmother's table. It only had 4. I searched Craigslist everyday for either chairs or a whole new ensemble. I found the perfect mission table with six chairs! It is beautiful. It has two leaves to extend it up to 7 feet long.

Of course, it had pristine white tweed seats which made for a beautiful contrast to the dark wood. I changed that immediately! I went and found some dark vinyl to cover the seats at least for the next few years. The table is not quite a striking anymore but the seats are safe from three small messy people for a while.

I had a bet going with a few friends for a Biggest Loser contest. We each threw $100 in the pot and whomever lost the largest percentage of body weight in 8 weeks got the pot. K. said that if I won, I could get a new table. I really wanted a table, had already been looking for awhile, and really wanted to get rid of the baby fat......and here we are. Yea!