Birthday Fun, Part II

The day after Sydney's roller skating party, we had Evan's birthday party at home. Since he is such a fan of Elmo, we hired my niece to make his birthday cake:




He loved it!




He also had a good time opening cards and presents:





(His cool new wading pool - all three kids LOVE it!)


Of course, Sydney got to open her family presents and had no problems showing them off:


(Some silky soft pajamas just had to be modeled.)


(The whole Harry Potter series - she's currently in the middle of book #2.)


It was low-key, but we had a great time!

Birthday Fun, Part I

Sydney chose to have her 7th birthday party at the local roller rink. (Yes, there are still roller rinks. Except they don't play Billy Joel and REO Speedwagon while the kids skate; now they play Lady Gaga and Usher. :( )

This is how she spent most of the skating portion of the party:




We got her a pair of roller blades a few days later as her birthday present and she caught the hang of it fairly quickly. Now she's zooming all over the place.

Liam, however, took to skating in no time:




We're actually thinking about getting him a pair of skates for home, too.

Ryan and I got in on the action, too. He donned a pair of skates to help the kids (well, Sydney, since Liam didn't need much help) around the rink and I ventured out to help Sydney do the "Hokey Pokey":




It's really hard to do the Hokey Pokey on skates!

Of course, we had to have some pizza:




And some birthday cake:




And everyone went home with a chocolate party favor:




We all* had a great time.

I'll post some pictures of Evan's party in the next day or two.

* I say "all" because although you don't see them in the pictures, several of Sydney's friends and their parents came to the party, too. I just didn't feel comfortable posting their pictures on the internet without their permission.

500

This is my 500th post. Can you believe it? Me, either.

What started as a way to keep friends and family updated on Sydney (since we only had one child at that time), has turned into an outlet of sorts for a stay at home mom who doesn't have the discipline or interest to sit down and write in an actual journal. As an added benefit, I've learned a little bit of HTML and as a huge benefit, I've "met" lots of wonderful fellow bloggers over the past few years.

I know in the grand tradition of blogging, one is supposed to mark the 100th and 500th posts with a truly poignant post or a giveaway of some kind, but I'm at a loss for something truly awe-inspiring to say and the only thing I know to give away is my homemade chocolate and let's face it, due to our already 90 degree temperatures, whatever I sent would be a big pile of brown goo (doesn't that sound appetizing?) by the time it got delivered to someone. (Geez - sorry for the run-on!) But, I promise that once it cools off (so let's say November or December), I'll do another chocolate giveaway.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a short list of some of my favorite posts from the past four and a half years.

* There's the post about our former neighbor, George, and his contributions to my insomnia.

* There's Liam's post.

* There's my rant about Katrina evacuees.

* There's my letter to the gymnastics moms.

* There's the post outlining a really bad day I had.

* There's the post where I announced my pregnancy with Evan.

* There's the trip Sydney and I took to NYC.

* There's my run-in with a live shrimp and one involving a whole chicken.

* There's my post on the woes of being pregnant.

* There's the announcement of Evan's arrival.

* There's the Christmas Carol post.

* There's the post documenting Sydney's big haircut.

* There's the post revealing my doubts about being a stay-at-home mom.


With 500 posts, I could go on and on, but I'll stop because I've already hogged the computer for three hours looking through old entries. But, it's been lots of fun looking back through nearly five years of my life. People may make fun of "mommy bloggers", but I think it's a great way to document our lives.

The Big Two!!

Poor Evan. Not only is he the oft-forgotten third child, but his birthday is just two days after Sydney's. And since he doesn't really know what a birthday is yet, his party/celebration is a little more subdued than Sydney's. Oh, who are we kidding.....it's a lot more subdued. I'm sure in a year or two, though, we'll be doing the whole big party thing for him, too.

For now, I leave you with a few pictures of my sweet boy.

At a few days old:




His birthday last year:




And now:




Love my big boy!!!

Seven!!

My first baby turns seven years old today. Somehow I don't feel like I'm old enough to have a seven year old, but I have the photos and paperwork to prove it.

She's gone from a sweet baby:




To a precocious toddler:




To a big girl who loves swimming, reading and riding her bike:




Just where, I ask you, does the time go? Seems like it's just flying by.....

Evan's Post

Hi....I'm Evan. I'm hijacking my mom's blog today.

You see, my mom is pretty tired today. It's not that she stayed up too late last night or had one of her bouts of insomnia. Oh no, it's just that she spent an hour and half trying to get me to go to sleep last night.

While my brother and sister went to bed at the usual time with no arguments, I decided to see just how many times I could get her to come into my room. I was trying to break my personal record of six times.

First, I yelled her name. She poked her head in my room and told me to go to sleep.

Then, I yelled, "Poo poo, Mommy! Poo poo!" That always gets her attention. She came and changed my diaper.

Then, I decided to see just how far I could reach outside the rails of my crib. Well, what do you know...I can reach the light switch if I stand in the very corner of my crib and hike one leg up on the side. I kinda liked the disco look I had going on until she came in my room and moved one end of my crib toward the middle of the room. Of course, she doesn't seem to have a problem with my brother''s neon blue night light. Talk about a double standard.

It took me a while to come up with another distraction. But I discovered that while one end of my crib was a good two feet away from the wall, the other side wasn't. In fact, it was the perfect distance for my being able to lie on my back and kick the wall. Fun times. At least until she came in and hissed at me to go to sleep. I was really getting to her at this point.

I quieted down a bit and I could almost hear her sigh of relief. And that's when I put my final plan into action. I started yelling and throwing all my animals and blankets out of my crib. She came in, and seeing that all my animals were on the floor, told me that I'd just have to sleep without my "friends." She shut the door.

I yelled some more and pulled both the sheet and mattress pad off my bed. I couldn't quite hoist them over the crib railing, so I bunched them up in a corner of the bed. I yelled some more. She came in and told me I'd have to sleep on a plasticky mattress with no sheet. She looked like she meant it, too.

But I wore her down. It's amazing how thirty straight minutes of crying and whimpering can grate on the nerves of a parent. I cried so much, I almost had myself asleep, but then she came in, set me on the floor, re-made my bed and tucked both me and my Pooh bear in with my favorite blue blanket. She kissed me on the forehead and whispered, "You win this time," and closed my door. And I finally fell asleep.

So I managed to get her to come in my room a record seven times last night. I'll be going for eight tonight, but somehow I don't think I'll manage it because I heard her mutter the words "baby benadryl" under her breath last night. Maybe I'll get lucky and turn out to be one of those kids who becomes hyperactive on benadryl. I can always hope, right?

The Saga Continues

Remember when I thought my local library was telling me I read too much?

Well, the saga continues.

I was told then that the new computer system would be up and running by April 30th. So, Type A person that I am, I tried to log into the system on April 30th.

There was a little blurb on the web page saying that the system wouldn't be ready until May 1st. OK, no big deal....it's just one extra day.

So I try to log in on May 1st. Nope again.

Although I was getting nervous that I wouldn't be able to get one of my book club's May selection, I took a deep breath and vowed to be patient.

And then I got an e-mail from the library telling me I had not one, not two, but twelve overdue books, books I knew I turned in a good ten days before. And, of course, I tried to log in to the system yet again only to be told that yes, the system was up and running, but I now I needed a stinkin' password in order to see my account and reserve items.

Grrr....

I packed the boys up the following day and made yet another trip to the library, which is no small feat when you've got an active three year old and an almost-two year old who have yet to grasp the meanings of, "Use your 'inside' voices, please" and "Please stop pulling the books off the shelves!"

Turns out, the overdue book e-mail notification was a mistake and the magic password for the system was a very secretive "1234" (so that I could log on and change it to whatever I wanted).

Whew! The nerdy crisis has been averted and I can now reserve books again.

All is right with the world.

Star Wars, Kiddo Style

Yesterday, May 4th, was officially known as Star Wars Day. (May the fo(u)rth be with you. I know....pretty bad, huh?)

Anyway, I didn't get around to it yesterday, but managed to pull this together today.

Enjoy!

(Sorry - Jib Jab has become cheap and won't allow me to imbed the video into my blog. You'll have to click on the link to see it. It's totally worth it, though!)