The Big Three (and a cake)

And Logan turned the big THREE.
Here's a little early birthday present for Logan and Nola...



THANKS Evi!

And thank you Dollar Store for all the birthday supplies I needed!


A few yellow gift bags and a Sharpie and voila! Goodie bags for a construction themed party (and with only four kids to cater to this only took about 30 min)





And onto the cake... Construction is the theme... I bought tractors and chocolate cake mix, brownie mix and a few other candies to make a construction scene on a cake...

First there was the Circus Peanuts.. the most disgusting candy ever but as orange as a construction cone! I cut and molded them into cones... sticky, sticky, sticky!


And a pan of brownies to make into boulders... first I scooped out spoon fulls of baked brownie:


Rolled them into balls and dusted them in powdered sugar...


And we have brownie rocks! so so so so so yummmm! (in my opinion, the best part of the cake)


I baked a chocolate cake, iced it with green icing and made a road from black licorice. I put it on the bottom side of a sheet pan (cookie sheet) and iced that too.


Then I dug out a hole or two from the cake and let the chocolate cake pile up like dirt, surrounded then with hazard cones, stuck the construction vehicles on with icing and added boulders and additional cones.... TaDa! A construction cake!







Logan loved it!

Happy Birthday Little Baby Boo.

And then he opened his present from his sister, a Thor helmet and hammer...

Happy Birthday Thor! He is kinda big and blond like an Azgardian.

Pwe-Kool Rools!

First day of pre-school... oh the memories... seeing as it was almost a week ago and I'm finally putting up a post and pictures...

Well, here she is, the star of the day:


Sporting her new Barbie backpack, complete with pink, pink and more pink, including pink sequins and pink sparkles. Every preschooler needs a backpack larger than their torso to carry all those things back and forth (so far we've had one piece of colored construction paper and one six inch square drawing... so worth the money!)


And let's see how tall you are compared to your little brother who is so sad/jealous/angry/confused as to why he doesn't get to go to school too.


And Ladies & Gentlemen, a miracle - ME! In an actual photo, with my actual kids!


And here we are, Mama & Nola... growing up and going to school...


By the way, she loves school. Loves it loves it loves it.

Pre-Schooler To-Be

Yesterday was Nola's preschool playdate where we went up to the school to meet some other kids. Before we left she was so excited, and Logan was confused as to why he wasn't going to Kool as well... I explained to him that he had to be an older kid, to which he explained to me that he was really big already...which he is (he would have towered over most the kids there). I told him all the kids there would be four and he might not be old enough quite yet... then he says to me, "But I will Karate the bad kids...." Well, okay, good plan, still not going this year.

So we get there and Nola goes into Statue-Mode. She stands and breathes, that's it. The teaches kept trying to get her to participate and interact with the other kids, but she wasn't having it. Just stood near me and kept quiet. Eventually I got her to color a picture for Allyson, her cousin/idol. It worked. She sat at a table with three other little girls and colored. Then they called for the parents to come to another room. And she DIDN'T freak out! I was shocked and proud. I thought for sure she'd melt down into a puddle of tears and grabby hands.... but she just sat and colored. I watched her from the other room across the hall and she did good.

Twenty minutes later we came back in to get the kids and she jumped up from the rug (story time). I thought she might run to me but she quickly realized that other people were watching her and she just did a little jump into the air with a big smile and came over to hold my hand... So cute! We left the room, got our Popsicle, and drove to go pick up Logan. In the car and afterwards she told me that it was really cool. She told me that one kid got a spanking because he was a little boy and he hit another little girl. This was obviously made up. Also a little girl was crying when the grown ups left and a teacher gave her water and she spilled it and cried more and the teacher was really nice and made her feel better. And that she even said hi to a couple of kids, only girls, not boys... Then at bedtime last night she said she even said hi to a boy!

Logan got into the conversation at this point and reminded me that he wanted to go to 'pwe-kool' too! Nola proceeded to explain to him that he was still little and only she could go, he wasn't four and he wasn't even three! and that he just couldn't go! He got a little upset and whined about it until I came over to tuck him in. Then he looks up at me with his sweet angle baby face and says, "But Mama, I still know Karate...." I said, "I know you do Baby, now go to sleep..."

She wouldn't give me a real smile, even though I begged... but here she is, long legged big girl stuff!


Another "pouty-and-I-won't-smile-for-you" face.