I am behind in the posts that I need to do--we had Rori's birthday party, her actual birthday, and our fabulous vacation. However, I need to edit pictures for those, and well, I finally booted up our computer for the first time since vacation, and haven't had time to play with the pictures. However, I have a bit of a public service announcement. A PSA.

I have a teeny tiny bladder. My friends can attest to this. The guy at work whose office is right next to the bathroom, can attest to this.  I blame the giant babies that sat on my bladder for nine months. It's well known that I will not be able to make it through a movie at the theater without either squirming and leaping up at the credits, or more likely, missing part of the movie for a potty run. Then I get back to my seat and annoy Bill by asking what I have missed. We have contemplated getting me one of those suits that race car drivers wear--but I have decided that would be gross. Enter runpee.com! My friend Leslie sent me a link to this app a while ago. I tested it out last night when we went to see Spiderman. I downloaded it to my iPod (I am the second to last person on the planet to get a smart phone--if my sister beats me to it, I know I will officially be the last person on the planet). I wasn't sure if it would work at the theater because there is no wifi, but I figured I would give it a go. What do you know, it worked! It gave me 3 different potty options--and told me how long I had. Then when I got back to my seat, I could read the quick synopsis of what happened. You start the timer when the movie starts and it gives you the cues right before you should leave for the bathroom. As a bonus, it tells you if there are any scenes after the credits! Totally helpful--we will never miss scenes like the Avengers eating shwarma at a restaurant together again!

Anyway, just had to share my new favorite app (and it's free)! You now know me a little better...

Coolest party we've ever planned!

Last Saturday Liam got to have his very own birthday party at our house. Bill and I had planned this before school got out because he had a few friends from school he wanted to invite. Yet, somehow, it still crept up on us. Liam had decided he wanted an Angry Birds and Super Mario party. So, Bill and I scoured the internet to steal other people's ideas. It's what we do best.

Bill stayed up until midnight on Friday decorating the balls for the Angry Birds game. We had this game planned for a month, however, Bill and I are the same and neither one of us likes to plan ahead. Love us as we are, people. They turned out awesome. The kids were very impressed, and Bill became the coolest dad ever!

We also played "Pin the Mustache on Mario." The mustaches were cut out at noon on Saturday. The party was at 1:00. Do you sense a pattern? We would make excellent wedding planners... This game was also a hit--if not just because it was inside where we could cool off from the 879 degree weather. I am not exaggerating. It was really funny watching the kids with their blindfolds on! They were completely disoriented. I loved it :)

The last game we played before cupcakes and presents, was "Shoot the Bad Mario Guy." I am not sure if that is the technical name. It too was a complete hit! Some of the kids played Angry Birds again and some played the Mario game, so nobody had to wait too long.

The kids had nerf-like guns (we didn't spring for the name brand--don't be like us, get the name brand) to shoot the bad guy when Bill, or one of his helpers held up two signs--one with a good guy and one with a bad guy.

Bill's minions

Then we broke for cupcakes. I made the Angry Birds cupcakes that I had made a few weeks earlier for his actual birthday. They were a big hit and several kids had two. You know that gives me a thrill because I love to feed people. It's my calling.

It looks like the yellow bird pooped over the side. What can I say?

Please notice the angry birds hanging from the ceiling--I didn't get a good picture of them, but they were to replace the helium balloons we were going to get. Apparently there is a nationwide shortage of helium and the party store isn't doing balloons. I'm not making that up. It's true. 

Bill and I were so thrilled to be able to pull this party off--even with our penchant for avoiding the details until the last minute. We did have a lot of help from Grandma Casey, and if Grandma Hoo Hoo hadn't been there, there would have been zero pictures. So thank you Grandmas! Can't wait to do it all again in a few days for Rori!

All the kids!

Happy Fifth Birthday, Liam James!

Happy Birthday, to my special boy, Liam James! This has been a big year for you! You went to pre-school at your future elementary school, five days a week. I worried about how you would handle that because you are such a homebody. You love to be home and will pass up on going to other people's houses if it means that someone from your family won't be there. However, I felt that it was the right thing for you. Fortunately you thrived! You loved school and were sad when you couldn't go. It made me very happy to know that you were in the right place.

So brave on your first day of school! 

You play very well with others. You love to play with your brother, and you will even play girl things with Rori, in exchange for her playing boy things with you. You are a very good listener, and you always amaze me at how smart you are. You understand when we tell you that you can't do something, and you don't fight or argue about it. You are sensitive, and really want to be a good boy (which you are!). You have grown so much in your independence, cleaning up after yourself, getting dressed, and helping me in the kitchen.

You were the "first pig" in your class play  The Three Little Pigs--and you were so proud!

You have started asking me to cut your hair! You promise me that it will grow back, I smile and say I know. But what I really know is that once it's gone, it will be gone forever. We won't be able to go back to the wild blond boy. So I am going to wait as long as I can, but don't worry, I won't let you be the weird kid in school with crazy hair.  I love you so much and you make me so proud to be your mama. I can't believe that it's been 5 years since I held you in my arms for the first time. I love you, my Liam James!

Look at that hair! How can you want me to cut it?!

Happy Anniversary my love!

Eleven years ago I married my True Love. He is my best friend. He is the one that got me over my fear of heights by taking me parasailing on our honeymoon. I taught him the joys of lounging by the pool or the beach. He is the man that spent hours on the computer researching happy endings of pregnancies with the same problems as ours with Faith. He's the man that held me after we lost her, and the man that was giddy with joy and never put Rori down after her birth. He's the man that gave me my two sons that I never imagined, but love so much it takes my breath away. He is the man that rubs my feet every night and suffers through Lifetime movies. He gives gifts freely and generously. He loves his birthday as much as small children do. He opens his presents with extreme gusto. He is the man that has watched movies with me, that I have seen over and over to the point where I can quote the lines, and doesn't get annoyed with me. He is the man that wakes up, happy to see me, even if I am not so pleasant. So, Bill, I will always be the Buttercup to your Westley. And I know that death will not be the end of us. As Westley says, Death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for awhile. (I had to try to figure out how to get a line from the Princess Bride into this post--this is the best I can do, as it's 9:00 at night.)

Clearly we need to get some pictures of us together, and/or some wedding photos scanned in. Until then--here you go!

Year End Gifts

I made the kids year end gifts for their teachers last weekend because they have one more day next Monday, but our weekend is way too full for me to get it done. Shockingly, I planned ahead for once instead of staying up til 10pm finishing them. Instead, I worked on them until 8pm tonight. Apparently I still need to work on my planning skills.

I am pretty pleased how they turned out. I did a version of my Valentine's buckets that I have made in the past. This time I made them easier on myself. I eliminated the frosted butter cookie and dipped store bought marshmallows instead of homemade ones. However, Murphy and his stupid law had to show up to keep things from running completely smoothly, and allowing me to get an inflated ego. So thank you for that, Murphy.

The first thing I made were dipped oreo cookies that looked like an apple. I found them on Pinterest and they were super cute and seemed very easy. They were the bane of my existence on Sunday. Unfortunately I tried 3 different types of sticks, but the cookies kept breaking and then I kept cursing them. I googled them and found a site that gave me a trick to get the sticks in without breaking them. Then I wrestled with the "leaves." I found some green Now & Later's that apparently my kids were saving for "later" from Halloween. I could have really used a third hand to get them on the "apple", but I managed to succeed with two.

Aren't they pretty cute?

The second thing I made was the ganache for the truffle pops. Sigh. How can two ingredients create something so sinfully delicious? I made it the same way I have always made it, but after the ganache had chilled it was much too soft to roll. I wasn't sure if it was because it was so hot outside or if something went wrong. I decided to see what happened if I melted it back down and added more chocolate to thicken it. Thank goodness it worked or else I would've had a breakdown.

The last major bummer was today. I dipped the marshmallows yesterday after I dipped the truffles. Apparently when I reheated the chocolate it got out of temper, so when I got home today i discovered they were all swirly. Ugh. I didn't feel like dealing with chocolate melting again, so I decided to come up with a new kind of marshmallow. I flavored some almond bark with peppermint oil and then dipped them in crushed candy canes. Halfway through I decided to crush some dark chocolate chips too, so a couple of the teachers will get those--they are slightly luckier :)

I stuck them in some floral foam in the buckets and tucked a small giftcard to Dunkin Donuts in, and called it a day. I am kind of annoyed that the pictures didn't turn out great, but apparently we live in a cave with no light. That, and it's 8:00 at night, so there really isn't any light anywhere :) But trust me, they were really cute--it's a good thing I have Murphy to keep me from being cocky.

We Chose Joy

Our family was very much looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend. We had fun plans for each day of the weekend. Unfortunately, Friday night, Brendan came down with a fever. He also was crying that his mouth hurt. We hoped that he would go to bed and wake up feeling better. He wasn't any better. We took him to the doctor and found out he had hand, foot, mouth disease (not to be confused with hoof and mouth :) ). Unfortunately that meant that we were quarantined for the weekend. I was especially devastated because some friends of ours from Croatia were going to be at a barbecue and we were going to celebrate Suzi's birthday. I haven't hardly seen them since they got back to the states and they are leaving again in a month. I was really crushed.

I told the kids that we were going to have to stay home and cancel our weekend plans. Their initial reaction was to cry about it. But then I decided that this was an excellent opportunity for us all to learn something. We could choose to wallow in our change in plans, or we could embrace it and have a good weekend. I told the kids that we couldn't change Brendan's sickness, but we COULD decide how we were going to react to it. We could choose joy in the midst of our disappointment. We all agreed to do just that. And honestly, we had a wonderful weekend.

Saturday, the big kids played with the neighbor girls in the back yard with the slip n slide while Bill snuggled Brendan. Yesterday, I decided that Rori and I needed some special momma/daughter time. We went to a fancy outdoor mall that Rori had never been to. We went to Crazy 8, which I had never heard of, but apparently they are owned by Gymboree with the same quality, but more affordable. Rori was in HEAVEN looking at the clothes. I decided to buy her a few things since they were the same price as some of the tops I had just bought from Target the day before (those are going back). Then we went to Anna Shea's for chocolates and ice cream. She loved that they had couches and fireplace to eat at! Then we stopped at a few more stores and picked up some small trinkets :) I was smiling the whole time, watching her. She would try a hat or a purse on and pose in it, and then swish over to the mirror to check herself out. It was ridiculously adorable. When we got home, we discovered that Brendan was 100 times better so the neighbor girls came over again and they all enjoyed the sunshine, pool, sprinkler, and slip n slide. I got to work on some of the parts of my year end teacher gifts, which I was trying to figure out when I was going to be able to get to. Last night, Bill and I got to have an impromptu date night. Bill's mom came over to watch the kids so we could go to the movies.

 

Today was filled with more family time and smiles. I think what made the weekend so great was that we were all together. I felt like Bill and I got to enjoy quality time with each other. Even though he's home at a reasonable hour every day, sometimes I feel like we get caught up in taking care of the kids that we don't get to talk as much as we'd like. I also got to have great  one on ones with each of my kids--which is hard to come by as well. So, while we didn't get to choose the hand we were dealt, we did get to choose how we reacted to it. I am so incredibly proud of my family for their attitudes.

The Zoo

I have been meaning to post this for a while, so it's kind of old news, but my blog, my rules right? I have been really busy and when I say really busy, I mean, falling asleep on the couch at 9 pm and when I say 9pm, I mean 8:30...

Anyway, I had the opportunity to be a parent helper for Rori's field trip to the zoo. I enjoy getting the opportunity to do these kinds of things because I always remember my mom helping in my classes. I had visions of Rori and I holding hands walking around the zoo, enjoying the beautiful weather. However, the day was not nearly as smooth as it went in my head. I should have taken one of my airplane Xanax before we went. We were each assigned 4 kids and were told to go off on our own and just meet back by the bus when it was time to leave. I also got to carry all of their lunches. My shoulder was killing me by lunch time! Thank goodness they didn't all have large bottles of water. There were some things that the teachers asked us to try to see because they've been learning about them in class. We were given maps. I am horrible with maps. The only place I can get around is the city of Chicago. That's because it is laid out super easily. Unfortunately, I am not that familiar with the zoo. I had to ask for directions twice. I felt like Joey on Friends when he's in England and needs to "get into the map" in order to read it. It's seriously a disability! The kids I got were good kids, but there were 3 girls and one boy. The boy didn't want to hold hands with a girl throughout the zoo. I can't really blame him. The zoo wasn't horribly crowded but whenever there were crowds of people I would start to panic. And then count heads. The whole day was spent saying, "Justice, come back here." "Jocelyn, stay with the group." "Heaven, hurry up." etc., over and over. I was sick of my own voice by the end of the day. I was thankful when it was time to find the bus. Which I was unable to do. Thankfully I saw another group from the class and followed them to the bus. Fortunately I did not lose anyone's small child, and I think the kids genuinely liked me, but alas, that was one of the nights I was in bed by 8:30.

A week or so later the school had a volunteer parent appreciation breakfast. I wasn't going to go because it was on a day that I worked, but Rori's class was going to sing to us. When I found that out, I wouldn't miss it! It was really nice. The teachers thanked us all and said what wonderful, involved parents we were. I left feeling pretty good. An hour later, my mom called me at work. I had forgotten to give Rori her lunch and snack and she had called from school. Ah, the irony...

I also wanted to post the picture of the last teacher appreciation gift I gave--mostly so that next year when I try to remember what it was that I made, I can come back and look :) I am so resourceful. The kids each picked out flowers and helped me plant them into the little pots. I printed out the signs and just plopped them in. Easy Peasy.