It's a Jolly Holiday With Mary

Happy Birthday Mary! We've got a 6 year old in the house. Mary's birthday extended on into eternity it seemed but the celebrations are finally done. Sunday was the big day and we celebrated as a family.

The chosen birthday meal?--chicken, seashell pasta, and green beans.

Lots of fun presents including princess makeup, Hannah Montana sheets, Magic Tree House books; also a CD player from Nanny and Papa, a Tinkerbell doll and Tinkerbell music box from Grandma and Grandpa and a waterdoodle book and a jewelry making kit from her sets of cousins.

She's been wanting make-up FOREVER

A big fan of Magic Tree House--kids pretend to be Jack and Annie a lot at this house.

Fast forward to Tuesday when her dad picked her up after school and took her out to lunch--Mary's pick? Friendlies--she knows that ice cream is included, so I think it was the obvious choice.

The party with friends was yseterday. She chose a jungle animal theme. I was pretty happy with how the cupcakes turned out.

We thought face painting would be fun. I practiced the day before and got some cool butterflies figured out.

Come partytime, most kids opted for animals on their cheeks.

Some party pics below:

The day ended with a bang, or should I say a SPLATTTTTTT! Oops!

Happy birthday, Mary. It was a lot of fun getting to celebrate with you! I'm one lucky mom.

I Smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E....

Whitney's found herself here quite a bit recently:



She cracks me up every time b/c she heads to the corner so willingly when she is sent and just stands so still pressing her nose to the corner. Whit has been such a stinker lately that she is in trouble a lot and I find myself almost laughing each time because she's so darn cute just standing there.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love Ya, Tomorrow....

11 days down and 1 to go. That's right....Matt will be back tomorrow. He's been in the Dominican Republic these past 11 days for work and we've been livin' it up (or surviving at least) here in glorious Connecticut.

There are Pros and Cons to Matt being away, though the Cons definitely outway the Pros. Here are some highlights:


Pro#1 Iwas able to pursuade Megan to come visit me all the way from NYC. And bless her heart, the 2 1/2 hour bus ride took 4+ hours to get here due to traffic and 5 hours to get home thanks to her bus breaking down and then having to take the train, etc, etc. I hope we were worth the insanity! (we did make a yummy fruit pizza though so I'm sure that in itself was worth it)

Con #1 Being a solo parent from 5:30pm-8:00pm everyday....the longest 2 1/2 hours ever!
AND having no relief at 5:30am--Annie's new desired wake up time.

Pro #2 I gave myself an extremely ridiculous to do list but as a result was able to accomplish quite a bit including: moving the garden boxes to a new part of the yard and then planting all my fun veggies (note: they look better now than they did at any time last year. I'm praying for some success this year); buying mulch and mulching out in the front yard. I've even split some overly huge plants and stuck them in the pathetic mulch area in the backyard;' sewing random loose buttons and messed up seams on pajamas that have been making a large stack on my sewing machine for a few weeks.

Con #2 I gave myself an extremely ridiculous to do list so as a result still have a ton of things that I never got to but hoped to.

Pro #3 The laundry pile shrunk as did my need/desire to cook anything wonderful.

Con #3 Eating grilled cheese, quesedillas, and pasta for 2 weeks really got old after about day 2. It's nice to have Matt around to appreciate my food.

Pro #4 Nice reminders of people who love me and have checked in frequently. You know how much I love a phone call or email!

Con #4 Seriously this is ridiculous. I normally drink MAYBE 1 soda a month and this is from probably 8 days. I guess I have some hidden stress or something when Matt is away.

The Con list could go on and on because, overall, my life is better in a million ways when Matt's around. Tomorrow will be great!

TICKS!!!

Mary was in the bath tonight and I noticed something black in her armpit. From first glance I thought it was a scab since her skin has been so broken out lately but on closer examination (AKA lifting up her arm) discovered a TICK! Nastification!

A friend forwarded an email a few weeks ago about how to remove ticks and fortunately I saved the email. I put a glob of liquid soap on a cottonball and smothered the tick with it for like 15 seconds, and sure enough, the tick came out fully on the cottonball. The "Halleluia Chorus" could be heard down the street. To add further amazement to the incident, Mary didn't even cry. Two miracles happening at once--my oh my!

Thought I'd post a tick picture, but looking at google images I am just too grossed out!

Mother, Dear, I Love You So

Happy Mother's Day!
You know how some years a day like Mother's Day can seem so right on and feel just how you hope it will feel. This year was more like one of those years where you get so many reminders of what motherhood truly is....

Need I say more?

(really though, I love being a mom and wouldn't trade it for the world, kids sitting on my head and all....here are some fun pictures to prove why it's so great)

Biscuits in the Oven, Gonna Watch 'Em Rise

I heard this song for weeks at home, as Mary geared up for her class's music concert. She was thrilled about the mural her class made in art class and her mural designs.

"Mom, today I made 2 deer for the mural. For one of them I made him have a big bow on his antlers."
"Mom today I made some ducks for the mural. They are swimming in the pond because I knew if I made legs on them I would probably cut them off when I was cutting the ducks out."

The concert was last Tuesday and my excited Mary was nearing the end of a head cold, and probably could have fallen asleep by 6:30 that night if I'd have let her. Thanks to itchy skin and her face breaking out she got benedryl right before we left. All those combined gave us a very mellowed out, staring into space Mary during her debut of "Biscuits in the Oven, Gonna Watch 'Em Rise."

She probably didn't look like a shining star; heck, to some she probably looked like a child who couldn't focus and was sort of not with the program. We knew the real truth and thought she did great. We sure are proud of our Mary girl. It's been a great kindergarten year.

Rocket Man

This past week I had my last turn teaching pre-school for the year. The theme was astronauts and outerspace and the kids had a great time decorating their spaceship and wearing astronaut helments. (trust me, their faces don't capture the fun that it was).

And a perfect day to be outside too. We were all in heaven, or on the moon at least.