Little Man's Birthday

Little J's birthday is coming up soon and I'm feeling so torn.  Mostly excited about how fun it is to be his momma, but he is growing so fast that I'd love for time to stand still.  When he was a wee bebe I loved to call him my little man.  He was such a stud and still is.  He loves learning new things and he devours information.  He's so much like his daddy.  We'll be talking about something--like just recently how fast alligators grow--and  he'll say, "oh yeh, I know.  I read that in a book!".  He loves checking the weather and Find It books and mazes and games.  He loves that I keep a big calendar on the wall so he knows what's coming up.  Little does he know that he is the main person I thought would like it and that's what motivated me to make it.  He loves snuggling up to read with me.  He loves all things sports and all things outdoors.

Yet, he is my most hesitant and reserved kid and we have to (gently) push him into facing many of his fears.  I know he will get over those and that it's our job as parents to help him face them rather than ignore them.  He is a tough little man but he still cries and every time it breaks my heart.  He's the kind of kid who will unload the dishwasher in the morning before anyone else wakes up and not announce it to everyone so they know he did it.  He loves to do things with his sisters and family.  He is not the kind of boy who complains when things don't go his way.  He loves jokes and he loves to laugh.  He gets an idea in his head and can keep it there a long time.  He thinks life is pretty darn cool.  This past summer he LOVED watching the Olympics and was a serious Olympic fan.  It didn't matter which sport was on because he loved them all.  So, this year for his birthday we decided on an Olympic birthday party.  This worked out perfect for me as well as him because with Thanksgiving holidays his party had to be the day after we came back from Louisiana and this turned out to be an easy party to do.  It helps that he likes to keep a small circle of good friends but also I'm trying to keep parties more simple.  I planned out the party before we left but otherwise was able to get everything together the day of the party.  You may enjoy listening to this while scrolling through the pictures so get you in the mood as we did at the party (you'll have to open this again in a new window and wait 15 seconds for the comercial).

Creating their Olympic Flag

Same.  I include this picture because an apparently arm-less woman makes an appearance!

These two working well together designing their half of the flag.

I made an Olympic torch that the kids took turns taking a lap with before handing it off to the next athlete in line.

Our Olympic Sports included:  hurdles (as seen here), discus (frisbee) throwing, long jump, weight lifting, shooting (nerf gun at target), and soccer shootout (best of 5 goal attempts).  The first three events they got two attempts to show improvement.  They loved all of the events.  And fittingly little J won overall gold, which he thought was ideal as the birthday boy.

Six little cuties with their Olympic flag and torch.  

We decorated with the five olympic color balloons outside and Dollar store gold stars hanging from the ceiling inside.  Easy peasy.

Pizzas, Olympic style.  

Okay, so I had to put something blue in the blue spot, so they didn't actually put blueberries on their pizza but everything got eaten one way or another:  blueberries, black olives, red pepperoni, yellow/white cheese and green onions.

The party favor.  There are also Rolos hidden inside.  I also tried my hand at those water bottle covers I've seen everywhere only I did it on Gatorade, obviously since that's the chosen drink of athletes.  

and the most important thing--> I think they had a grand time celebrating my favorite little man's birthday!!

New Orleans!!

Okay, I really love cities!!  I love love love walking around everywhere or using public transportation.  I love the excitement you can find just around the street corner.  I Love the energy in a city.  If I didn't care about having a backyard for my kids I may just totally dig a city lifestyle.  I keep saying I'd like for us to retire to a city apartment but also have a ranch or something bigger too.  I was definitely digging our 2 1/2 days in New Orleans this past weekend.  HUGE shout out to Big J's sis and his parents for taking great care of the small ones while we were gone!!  I LOVE vacationing with our kidlets and miss them every moment we are gone when it's just the two of us.  But I'm glad to know they are in good hands and I love reconnecting with the hubs on a one on one basis.  The real reason we were in NOLA was because Big J had a conference but we were able to do some fun things together on Thursday and Friday and he mostly did conference stuff Saturday while I moved around town.  Here's our vacation in pictures:

I talked the man into a SWAMP TOUR!!  I think secretly he really wanted to go because he finds those swamp shows interesting but I still had to talk him into it.  Well, and I found one that didn't have an outrageous price tag so that helped.  We loved our tour!

We saw a number of birds on the tour--the most numerous being the Great Blue Heron.  Also saw a bald eagle, a kingfisher, egrets, some Anhinga's, and various other small birds.

Can you spot Mr. Allie Gator?  While we were watching him he moved into the marshy water and seemed to make a move for the egret but the egret was keeping a watchful eye on 'ole Allie.  Our guide guessed this was about a 12 foot gator.  

This one looks big until you see the soda can.  He's probably only 3-4 years old.  The guide said gators grow about a foot a year for the first several years of life but then only an inch or so a year.  Crazy!  

Remnants from naughty Katrina

Swamp People

This gator never had a chance

Next to Cafe du Monde.  Yes, we visited.  Once a day.  Beignets....MmmmmMmm!!  Also had the hubs try Pecan Pralines for the first time.  He was a fan.  Me not as much because I prefer pecan pie and turtles and pecan log.  Pecans are among my favorite foods, can you tell?  They rank pretty close to avocado.  

This mask almost came home with me.  I hope I don't kick myself later for not getting it.  If so, I may just have to go back.

While Big J was at his conference I visited Mardi Gras World!  It was so fun to learn how they make the parade floats and discover the vast amount of work that goes into the 11 days or so of Mardi Gras parades.  The artistry is incredible.  

Sneek peek at what's to come for 2013 Mardi Gras

So crazy cool how they make Styrofoam come to life

This beautiful butterfly is made of discarded Mardi Gras beads placed one at a time

Even crazier is this 42 foot mural that is going to be covered with beads to make up the World Record bead mural.  The artist, Stephan Wanger shown here, just started last week so he's got a ways to go.

So, I helped him.  He wants for many people to be involved in his quest for the world record mural so he invites anyone on the tour to help him glue on beads.  Of course I had to take part so I could tell my kids I was part of a world record.  When this is finished it will be an amazing piece of art and have millions of beads that thousands of people helped put on.  Cool!

Seriously there were so many cool parade float pieces but I chose to put this one on because it was one of my favorites--> fun and colorful.

I LOVED walking the streets of the French Quarter.  And I just adore these balcony's.  There is so much rich architecture in New Orleans.  Also on Saturday I went to the 1831 Hermann-Grima house and though they weren't doing tours I was able to see the stables, courtyard and first floor of the exquisite home.  

 A fun part of the conference--Big J accepting his award for being chosen for the Tucker/Cohen Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation put up in the fields of political Science or Political History, which is given out annually by the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies.  This is a pretty great honor and he is thrilled they like his work--making it all a bit more worth the time, work, dedication and sacrifice he put into grad school with three children.  He is pretty amazing, right?!

So, all in all I think we experienced a great deal of New Orleans culture in our 2.5 days.  We visited friends from Princeton who live there now and saw the Garden District on the way out to their place.  We had excellent food and walked along the great Mississippi River and all over the French Quarter.  I loved walking around Jackson Square with the many talented artists displaying their artwork for sale.  There were so many styles and I loved many of them.  I'm afraid if we ever lived there I'd be a regular and spend entirely too much money on artwork.  We traveled through swamps and hat shops and Mardi Gras floats and the French Market and basically just had a great time.  I'm so glad we were able to go but I'm also so glad to be home.  I enjoy travelling with the kids more but it is nice to give more focus to my most important relationship for a few days.

Just For Fun

Just thought I'd share these catapults I made this year.  They were so super Easy!  And they gave a chance for my first use at a miter saw.  The first cut was a little scary--it is a powerful machine!!  I read online how to use it since I've not been around the few times so far Big J has used it and that helped a ton.  

Then my creative juices flowed as I decided how to make them look Halloweeny.  The kids have had fun with them and little J's class thought they were pretty rad as they catapulted pumpkin seeds onto different valued plates as one of their activities.  I hope we make a tradition out of having a yearly family contest of seed catapulting.

Halloween 2012!!

Boo at Thanksgiving Point Farm!  We went to this younger-kid-friendly spooky farm and had lotsa fun riding horses.  

And we won fun prizes!

We went on a hayride and listened to storytime

 We played fun games like croquet and eyeball toss and did an obstacle course.  The day was even more fun with a cousin & grandma and a fun aunt & uncle to share it with!

We also went to Cornbelly's this year--B's orthodontist was having their customer appreciation.  They had some fun things there but it really seems more a place for bigger kids.

We went to the pumpkin patch again and did the hay mazes, conquered the hay pyramid, played in the corn pit, went on a hayride, checked out the animals (the favorite being the humongous pig) and of course picked out pumpkins.

Little A gets airborne while throwing corn confetti into the sky

The kids all wanted BIG pumpkins this year.

Time to carve Jack-o-Lanterns

Eeewwwww!  Orange slime!

The cutest little ladybug I've ever seen!

Sweet!!  Chocolate cake with sprinkles!

Ninja-fied at the school parade of costumes

Little J's class.  This year I put together class parties for the two younger kids--makes for a long, fun day!  I love J's teacher--perhaps because she's also a southern gal but also because she is just awesome.

And of course Trick or Treating!!  

This year we tried something new with our candy.  I've never liked the kids getting tons of candy for Halloween but it's so fun to trick or treat so I was torn.  I saw signs last year for candy buy-back but didn't ever get around to checking out how it works.  It's so easy!!  This year the kids are trying to earn up money for a trip to Disneyland so we are looking for opportunities to bring in cash.  When I suggested the idea of selling the trick or treat candy to the kids I was a bit apprehensive of their response.  They were hilarious.  "Oh, Yes!  Let's do that!  We want to go to Disneyland way more than have lots of candy!!"  Score!  I'm only a little nervous about what I can motivate them with next year now....since another trip to Disneyland won't be in the cards.  We'll have to come up with something else fun they can do with the money.  After all, we take trips all the time.  So, they chose to save out about 10 pieces of candy each--we didn't specify--and sold the rest at $1 a pound.  They made $7!  The sweets go to military overseas and if you want to participate just google Halloween candy buyback and type in your zip code to find the closest buyback location; most places will specify how late you can turn in candy.  The one we went to I think you could do until Nov. 5.  I highly recommend it!!

All in all a fun Halloween!!