Happy 4th Birthday Maisey!

You are quite your own individual, but that's what I like about you. I mean, who else would wear white leggings with a short pink shirt, and Christmas socks pulled up over your leggings, in August? However, you think you are quite the fashionista! And, you still think some of your clothes are hanky!

You love to type. You only know how to spell a few words on your own, so you often drag your preschool pillow to the computer and type all of your friends' names, along with the poem that is on the pillowcase. 

You also like to text Daddy in the morning if he leaves before you wake up. The latest text from you to him reads: DadhOw.are YOU. Daddy loves to get these texts at work and you love it when he texts you back! It makes you feel pretty special.

You are really into sleepovers right now. You love having sleepovers at Grammy's house and you can't wait to have a sleepover with Madi at our house in a few weeks. We have already had to have the discussion about how we only have sleepovers with girls. Oy!

Here is your 4 year old Birthday Interview (word for word):

 

* What are some things you like to do? Well, let me see here. . . playing my new Silverlicious game, and reading my Silverlicious book. Oh, and watching The Little Mermaid show and playing the Wii at Grammy's.

 

* What things do you like to do around the house? Oh, well I like playing dress-up and I like reading all of Gage's books in his room, so and I like to do yoga on my green yoga mat.

 

* What are some of your favorite foods? FOODS, well, grapes, and green grapes, mac n' cheese, grilled cheese but only with cheddar cheese, raisins and hotdogs, pizza, pepperoni and watermelon (that's what she calls pineapple)

 

* What do you like to wear? Um, dresses, my Disneyland shirt, skirts, and um, k let me think, my Tinkerbell outfit, and my white leggings.

 

* What’s your favorite color? Yellow and pink with white polka dots like my floaty

 

* Where are some of your favorite places to go? Well, Pump it Up, uhhh, Northwest Kids Club, Wal-Mart, that's my favorite place to get toys, Idaho, Colorado, the condo by The Little Mermaid and stuff, Old McDonald's, Panda, Red Robin, and Petco and that's it.

 

* What things make you happy? Happy? Well, when a person does silly things to me it makes me happy. And when you rock me in the rocking chair and watch TV. And when Peyton comes to our house all the time.

 

* What makes you sad? When Gagey hits me. When other people hit me. When I was younger I used to not like characters so they used to make me sad that time, but now I like them.

 

* What do you do when you are sad? I just um, go somewhere else.

 

* What do you do when you are mad? Well, like when Gagey hits me I just walk away. And it makes me stomp my feet.

 

* Who are your best friends? Peyton, Sadie, and her friend Riley, Porter, Madi, Jack, and Alex. 

 

* What are your favorite movies or TV shows? Brain Surge, Wipeout, Tangled, Sid the Science Kid, Max and Ruby, and Dora, Disney Princesses, and don't forget Tinkerbell, and the Disney Christmas parade.

 

* What are your favorite books? The number and the letter books, my Friend magazine, Pinkalicious, Purplicious, Goldilicious, and Silverlicious.

 

* What are your favorite songs? Um, I don't know mom. My preschool songs, and well, I Lived in Heaven, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the ABC's because I totally rock it, and that's is.

*What is the best thing about having a birthday? When you get to be the older sister and you get bigger than your little brother. And playing games at my party. 

Happy Birthday my beautiful 4 year old!

The Big Boy Bed

For the last several weeks, Gage has become obsessed with any bed but his crib! He finds a bed, climbs up, snuggles in with the covers, then pretends to snore. So we started trying him on his big boy bed. It would last about 30 seconds before he would come running out and yell "Ta-Da!!" We'd play his little game with him for a few minutes, threaten his crib if he got up again, then ultimately put him in there.

That was, until we had a babysitter last night.

I had one of my YW over who had never babysat for us before. I showed her around the house, got out jammies and a diaper for Gage, showed her his beloved blankies, and ran out the door.

When we got home, the house was silent, both kids were sleeping. I took her home and was asking how the night went. I asked her if Gage cried when she put him to bed. She said he did for a few minutes then went to sleep. I told her how he really wants to sleep in his big boy bed but he won't stay in there so he gets mad when we put him to bed in his crib. 

The babysitter gasped and said, "I put him to bed in the big bed! I didn't know he didn't sleep in there. After I brushed his teeth I told him it was time for bed and he just ran and climbed under the covers of his big bed. He made it seem like that was what he does." And then she apologized over and over and over again.

I just laughed! 

We've been trying for like 3 weeks to get him to stay in his bed and he never would. The sitter said he never got out once! When we went to check on him he was still all tucked in his covers!

I guess all it took was a babysitter to do the trick, because he slept all night in his bed. 

 I snuck in this morning and took this picture!

So, when nap time came around today, I asked him if he was going to be a big boy and sleep in his big boy bed again. He shouted "YEP!" and ran to his bed!

And he's been sleeping for 2.5 hours and counting!!! 

Didn't even get up once!

Maybe we'll hire this babysitter again when we start potty training! :)

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On to another big boy bed story:

Shaun's fam is coming into town tonight, so I was washing the bedding in his room for them. I started unbuttoning the duvet cover and Gage discovered a new hide out! He thought it was pretty funny.

Random Happenings

 We have been having some fun outside time this summer. We have not had a single day in the 90's this summer, which is fine by me! We've only used our air conditioner maybe two days. It's so nice to have sunny, but cool weather.

 

 The kids were begging to play with the sprinkler but it was almost time for dinner so I didn't want to get their suits on. I just let them play and they loved it. Ironically, the next day I put them in their suits to play out there and got out the fun kid flower sprinkler and they wanted nothing to do with it.

Gagey learned how to go down the slide head first!

I can't believe all 3 kids looked at me and smiled! 

 Gage is sitting in the corner because he hit his sister. He looks real remorseful, huh?

I went and picked blueberries with my friend last week! I got close to 20 lbs worth of them and spent a couple hours out there. When I got home, I opened the door and they all spilled out.

It was such a bummer!

(sorry for the poor pic. quality, blackberry has no flash!)

We picked them all up, washed them off, and had blueberry pancakes the next night for dinner!

They were delicious!

Birthdaty Celebrations

Maisey's real birthday isn't for two more days, but we will be camping with no Red Robin in the proximity, so we celebrated her birthday with mine last weekend. And since Scott has the same birthday as her, we decided to throw his celebrations in the mix!

At her party the day before, Maisey got a make-up kit from one friend and a dress-up kit from another friend. She got herself ready for dinner that night by using both kits! She also HAD to bring her camping barbie with her to dinner.

Maisey and Scott with their ice cream sundaes!

My ice cream! YUM! 

Unfortunately, it got taken over by Gage who was really sad and confused on why he didn't get his own.

On Sunday, we had a nice BBQ at my mom's and opened some gifts.

My mom made me this cute apron to match the colors in my kitchen!

Maisey got lots of fun things including the new Silverlicious book, a princess game for her leapster,

new shoes for school,

and princess skateboard, which she has been BEGGING for, 

and a 2-pack NERF gun set, which she has also been begging for.
Do you think she hangs out with boys too much?

Gagey enjoyed that last gift as well.

Her favorite gift of the day had to be her new Barbie cruise ship from her Grammy. Somehow we didn't get a picture of it though.

My mom made my favorite chocolate cake for dessert. It tastes so good when you don't have to make it yourself!

6th Anniversary Getaway

Our 6th anniversary is this weekend, but because of our ward camp out that starts tomorrow, we decided to celebrate last weekend.

We follow the traditional anniversary gift list to inspire gift ideas each year. It's kind of a fun tradition! For the 6th anniversary the gift is sugar or candy related.

I went the cheesy route and made a cute candy-gram for Shaun!

And he went right for my heart by getting me See's!!! It's only taken him 6 years to get all of my favorites down! It was the perfect box. He's so awesome! (And somehow, there are still a few pieces left. It never lasts me a few days, let alone a whole week!)

We gave gifts to each other Thursday night then after Maisey's party on Friday, we headed out of town, ok, just barely out of town. It's only a couple exits up from our house, but it was a wonderful weekend! It also happened to be my birthday weekend, so all I wanted to do was shop!

I picked out these way cute shoes for my birthday!

We stopped at H&M! Best store ever! We also made a few other stops along the way and came home with a new chair, glasses for our kitchen, jeans, sweaters, hoodies, shirts, shoes, cleats (Shaun!), and kid's clothes! It is so much easier to shop with out one kid throwing cars across stores and then crying when you can't find them and the other one whining because I won't buy her some ugly interesting shirt or whatever it is she is begging for that day. Instead I just had one nice, patient husband who was happy to hand over the cash when he was asked! Like I said, a wonderful weekend!

After shopping and dinner, which was sub-par :(, we headed to our hotel! The Grand Hotel at Bridgeport! And it was awesome. We booked the King Jacuzzi Suite, but when we got there they upgraded us to the Deluxe King Jacuzzi Suite, complete with a fireplace.

It was a perfect place!!! 

We slept in on Saturday, ate a hot breakfast at the hotel, made a small stop at H&M again, then headed to Malibu Raceway! Shaun had never been before, and I hadn't been since I was 16! We had a great time and want to go back! Shaun's fastest time beat my fastest time by 4 seconds. He tells me I can't tease him for being a slow driver anymore!

After Malibu, we headed to downtown Portland for the Portland Saturday Market and some

Voodoo Doughnuts!!!

The doughnuts were way good but not worth the hour long line that we waited in. At least while we were waiting, my starring addiction got it's feed. There were plenty of interesting people to stare look at. Shaun had to keep reminding me to look away! Haha!

We left Portland to head home, but stopped at Costco first. Again, it was amazing how peaceful and enjoyable a trip to Costco can be with out the kids! 

Once we got home, the chaos began with a trip to Red Robin for dinner. After Red Robin, my mom and I went to the state Jr. Miss program that one of our friends was competing in. That was a fun way to spend my birthday evening.

The weekend was seriously incredible! I would do it all again in a heart beat! Anyone want to babysit next weekend?

Maisey's Pinkalicious Party

A few months ago, Maisey decided that she wanted a Barbie party. I dove right into planning it and we had decided to do a Barbie-Que. I had our guest list made, the location set, the menu picked out, it was going to be grand. And then I had an "Ah-Ha!" moment. I remembered my motto for 2011: Keep things simple! That Barbie party was going to be anything but simple. So Maisey and I sat down and talked about some other options. She wanted a Special Agent Oso party. I said no. We agreed upon the Pinkalicious party, and you can tell from the pictures below that it did not disappoint! 

We decided to keep the guest list limited to kids her age. Parties get too big and too out of control when we try and invite everyone! We had the perfect number of kids there! We decided to have the party in our backyard. We set up the food area on the deck.

 Maisey requested plain pink cupcakes and homemade strawberry lemonade (like Red Robin's)

 We set the table before the party started. In each of the pink caddies in the middle of the table were pink m&m's, pink jelly bellies, pink marshmallows, and pink animal cookies. Each place setting had a knife and little cup of pink frosting so each guest could decorate their own cupcake. We also had pink sprinkles and cherries to put on top!

This was the gift table

We started the party off by reading the Pinkalicious book! If you've never read it or heard of it, go here for a summary!

 Then we played Pinkalicious Bingo!

Maisey was smiling ALL morning long! 

That's what 4 year old birthday parties should be all about!

After Bingo, we played pin the cherry on the cupcake and all the kids had a great time!

 Then we sang Happy Birthday. . .

 . . .Let her blow out her candles. . .

 . . .And the kids got decorating!

Look at that concentration! 

 After cupcakes, all of the party guests posed for a group picture

then headed back to the grass to watch Maisey open her gifts. She got some really fun things that she couldn't wait to play with!

 We sent the kids home with cute treat bags full of green treats, just in case they ate too many pink things at the party.
(I forgot to take pics of the treat bags, pre-handing them out! This was Gage's which has been well loved by his little paws.)

Oh, and did I mention that this little sneak ate ALL of the cookies out of one of the caddies, before we even got to decorating the cupcakes?

The party was a HUGE success. And the nicest thing about it was I didn't stress one bit the morning of. Shaun took the day off of work so he was able to help with the set-up and my mom also came up early. Everything was so simple, but still so fun for the kids. I'm so glad we pulled an audible and decided on the Pinkalicious theme. All afternoon I just kept saying to Shaun, "I can't believe how easy and fun that party was!"

Maisey requested everyone in our family wear pink to the party. Well, her daddy didn't have anything pink except for his tie so Maisey asked him to wear it!
Don't my boys look so cute in pink?

Happy Birthday my Pinkalicious Maisey!

I'm glad you enjoyed your party!

Zoo Trip

Even though we had just returned from our camping trip and I was still trying to get everything put away and clean from that, we headed to the zoo on Monday with the cousins. It was a perfect day, not too hot! The kids were really good as well. 

 The kids thought it was so neat that the baby elephant was swimming.

Aunt Jeanne gave each of the kids some money to spend in the gift shop. Maisey and Madi each picked purses with stuffed animals inside. And Gage picked a semi-truck with a car trailer and three animal print cars! Even in a store full of animal things, Gage spotted the truck and cars! Not surprised!