I have two big kids....no more babies in this house

On Friday, Aidan hopped on the swing, got it started and kept on pumping to keep the swing going for as long as he wanted.  Gosh he's growing up so fast.  I suppose tomorrow he'll be jumping off.  He's so proud of himself and it's a really great thing!

Isabella also decided to take a big kid step on the swings as she decided to swing on the big kid swing.  She was happy as can be.  Of course she tried being like big brother and kicking her legs but it just didn't work out the same for her. 

We had a great weekend of swinging on the swings!

"I want a rocket ship cake and planets hanging from the ceiling"

Ask and you shall receive...within reason.  When Aidan asked for a birthday party with a rocket ship cake and planets hanging from the ceiling I got right to work looking at a variety of rocket ship cakes.  I also purchased some colorful Chinese lanterns to turn into the planets.  I decided to get creative with the invitations and snacks.  Found some out of this world ice cube trays and knew we were set!

The planets were a blast to put together! For the sun I tried using watercolors on a white lantern and it just wasn't working, time to use plan B.  I had some yellow tissue paper and had the kids help tear it into pieces.  I got out my spray glue and got to work spraying and sticking.  It became quite the sticky situation for a while but it turned out awesome!  Way cooler than if I'd just watercolored it.  Jupiter was next, using more tissue paper strips to glue on the stripes and the eye of Jupiter's storm.  I thought the perfect thing for Saturn's rings was tin foil and it was perfect.  I think next time I would glue it on instead of just wrapping it.  It looked great all wrinkled up and wrapped but it did require two rings that way.  However, after my sun experience with the spray glue, I wasn't quite up to the challenge of spray gluing again.  Last, came planet Earth.  I simply printed off a map of the world, put it on some green tissue and cut it out.  I definitely needed to use a larger size but time was running out.  I hung them from the ceiling with some fishing line and a clear tack and there we had our planets....definitely not to scale.

Getting creative with the refreshments was a blast!  I had planned on having a chocolate pudding dessert and calling it Mars Mud but changed my mind last minute and made dirt cake instead.  Since it is white, I chose to call it "Moon Mud".  We had red kool-aid for "Rocket Fuel", circle pretzels for "Saturn's Rings" and puff corn for "Astronaut Asteroids".  I was just going to call them asteroids but thought we needed a little something extra.  We used puff corn because our youngest can't eat popcorn so it was safe for her and it turned out, completely safe for an allergy guest.  We also had a fruit and veggie tray with no fun names this time around.

The rocket ship cake was so fun to make!  I used a football shaped pan for the rocket and a mini soccer ball pan for the moon.  I used a variety of tips to decorate and Aidan requested to be the astronaut on the cake.  I completely forgot to add the stabilizing fins that I wanted to put on and also ran out of time to add my fondant stars to the sky.....I knew I should've cut them out the night before!  Overall, I love how it turned out.  It was so fun to create this cake for him.

Since he was turning four, I knew I needed some activities, but not too much to overwhelm the kids.  I had planned on making some blow rockets and practiced making them with Aidan but it was something that we ran out of time to get everything together and it was okay.  I had planned on using a blowup mattress for our "Anti-gravity training area" but we ran into some friends the day before the party and they offered up their bounce house....it turned out perfect!  Aidan got some stomp rockets for his birthday and we used those in the "Rocket launch area".  The kids also spent some time playing trains in our front room and overall, just had a great time playing together. 

 I absolutely love making my kids' dreams come true when I can and their birthday parties are so fun to plan and create.  I can't wait to find out what he asks for next year, and I can't wait until Isabella starts asking for her wishes played out in a birthday party!

Happy Birthday to my favorite four year old boy, Aidan!  Love you, buddy!

Aidan is riding a bike!

This week has been crazy warm and we've had a lot of fun playing outside.  Aidan is taking more risks every day on his balance bike.  He loves cruising down the hill in front of our house, the hill in our front yard and taking it off the front step.  Today he declared that he wanted to "ride a balance bike with pedals".  I told him we needed to wait for Dad to get home so he didn't miss out.  He was happy with that idea.  So we spent the day riding the balance bike.

When Dad got home we ate dinner and got out the toolbox.  Aidan loved helping with this part.

Add in a quick 20 minute lesson and he was off and riding!

He was nervous at first but did really well.  He still isn't sure about breaking by pedalling backwards but he slows himself down and then puts his feet down.  This is quite the adventure and it's so exciting that at 3 years, 10 months he is riding a two wheeler all by himself!  Go, Aidan, go!

My Virtual Fridge

While moving we don't have a refridgerator to hang things and I just LOVE his newest art work!

February 8th I ran out to take care of some things and left Mark with the kids and a project that needed to be done for school the next day.  I left a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it, a pair of scissors and watercolors.  I came home to a beautiful watercolor heart that Aidan cut out by himself while Mark held the paper for him.

I also came home to Aidan's first drawings.  He has always been a scribbler, but never drawn pictures.  In his words, "That's me driving my car when I'm older, and that's a little bitty tiny car. There's the road, and a little road and a bridge and a train."  So he drew the car and added all the details, including headlights and hair, lol! This entire picture was HIS idea. Dad was home alone with the kids, and the boy decided to draw a picture for the first time in his life. Treasured FOREVER!

"And this is my tall family. That's me when I'm 6 feet long and bigger than Dada."

Aidan has been obsessed with height for a really long time. Every day he tells us how tall he is and sometimes he mixes up tall and long. From left to right it's Dada, Aidan, Daisy, Me, and Isabella. And he wrote his name top to bottom, lol. Oh, and those are heads with eyes and hair, legs and arms....we are apparently a family without bodies. :) First family drawing.

A few days later he decided he wanted to paint a rainbow.

The weekend before Valentine's Day we were out to dinner and Aidan was writing words on the menu.  He created some beautiful letters that I was shocked he knew how to write.  On Valentine's Day he decided he wanted to "make all of the letters".  I gave him a crayon and a piece of paper and we sat together at the table.  He didn't use any visuals to make his very first alphabet.

After the first attempt at K, he asked how to make a K so I showed him how to do it on another piece of paper and he got right back to making his letters.  He wasn't happy with his first attempt at M and so he made the second one.  My little perfectionist!

On to the next page.  At dinner he made the most beautiful r I've ever seen from a three year old.  Today on paper, not so much.  He made the u underneath the t and then went back to the far left of the page to continue on.

Not too bad for being three years old!!!  I LOVE this first alphabet of his and will treasure it forever!

I have the best kid ever!

Aidan truly is an amazing little boy.  I took him ice skating again today for the third time.  Last time we got there an hour into open skate and so the ice was pretty chewed up.  He did fantastic, using a little red skate helper and was very confident.  Very quickly I was able to take the red helper from him and challenge him to skate different distances on his own.  By the end of open skate he went from the blue line all the way off the ice on his own.  Today we got there at the very beginning of open skate so the ice was clean and slick.  He was nervous but kept at it.  We worked together and went slowly with challenging him to not need the skate helper.  He did really well.  About 45 minutes in to open skate we took a little break for a pretzel and hot chocolate.  When we went back out, all of the skate helpers were being used so I had him take my hand.  Again, very quickly he went from needing my hand to just chilling and skating all on his own.  He ended up skating on his own around the rink 3 times.

Lots of fun, but not the amazing part.  While we were hanging out eating Aidan looked at me and said, "I'm proud of you helping me ice skate."  He's so genuinely kind and I really enjoy that about him.  He will frequently ask Mark, "how was work today?"  If you take a shower he'll ask, "how was your shower?"  Since I got sick with the flu Aidan has been asking, "how are you feeling today Mom-mom?"  It's really neat to see him growing up and being just a truly genuine, kind hearted little boy.  I hope he stays this way well into his teenage years.  One can always hope!

Isabella, Isabella

19 months old.  Wow, what a difference a month makes!  Isabella is really becoming quite verbal.  Her language is still very primative but she's spending a greater amount of time "talking" now.  She loves to try to sing the ABCs and even throws some real letters in there at the correct times.  She also loves Row, Row, Row Your Boat, I'm being swallowed by a Boa Constrictor (a library song), and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. 

Her vocabulary now consists of: Mama, Ainy (Aidan), die (dog), neenee (baby), uhoh, uh (when she's thinking), wow, bye, bear-bear, silly (silky), dee (thanks), shz (shoes), bubba (bubby), foo (foot), bu (butt), boo (poop), pa (potty), hae (head or hair or hands), eeee (eat), tay (train), chu (chuggington), ta (Thomas), shir (shirt), eye, ea (ear), ca (car), cha (chair), tee (tree), throw, Elmo, yeah, no, why, pho (phone), fi & ni (five and nine when we're counting and yes, she puts them in the correct spot!)....I may have to come back and update as I remember throughout the day.  She really has a lot of sounds that she uses very specifically for words, they're just not quite words that the rest of the world would understand.

She also has a few things she will sing, but not say.  Like "go" she says perfectly when she sings the "go go go go" from Cat in the Hat and "ride" in "ride ride ride...the dinosaur train" from Dinosaur Train.