Marcus's 5th birthday party

Organized chaos. That's pretty much what this party was about. We decided to have Marcus's birthday party early because everyone seems to be pretty busy in July (although now he swears up and down that he's 5 years old already). The theme: Power Rangers with some Transformers mixed in. The guests: 14 children with a mix of ages from 6mos to 10 years old-although the majority were between 3-5. The location: we had the party at the YMCA and did some swimming before dinner, presents and cake. I'm glad we had the party, although I totally stressed out about the details before hand. I had to remind myself that 5 year olds aren't too picky when it comes to party particulars.

June2008

Clicking on the cake will reveal all the wonderful fun that the children had. Marcus asked for a white cake and white frosting. He also wanted Transformers to decorate the top of it. Here's the birthday song:

One more cute thing-the girl standing next to Marcus in the black dress is one of his little friends from preschool and her mom babysat my kids while I was in school. Anyway, this little girl dressed up special for Marcus's party and even put on some perfume! We asked Marcus if she was his girlfriend-well, yes, she's not his girlfriend, but his girl friend.

Going to Grammy's

Here are the warriors, loaded up in Grammy Linda's car. They will be staying with her this week and we will pick them up on Thursday. They tolerated the trip well, only having to stop once. They'll have fun playing with their cousins and getting lots of attention from both their grammies (and grandpa too!). It's pretty quiet in the house right now. But, I have a funny feeling that at a certain house in Illinois, it's not so quiet....

Preparing for a party

We're having Marcus's birthday party on Friday. Even though his actual b-day isn't for another week and a half, there's just no good weekend to have it on once July hits. I asked Marcus what kind of decorations he wanted for his birthday. He said, "stars, circles, triangles, rectangles...". Unfortunately, when we went to the party store, the only shapes we found we stars. That's okay because stars go pretty well with Power Ranger decorations. I let each of the boys get a little something at the store too. Marcus and Cale each got a lizard-surprisingly the same one. Then, Ewan bypassed all the toys for Buzz Lightyear napkins . He carried around that package of napkins the rest of the day. What can I say, the boy loves Toy Story. Off to make the requested cake for the party-white cake and white icing with a number 5 candle on top.

JULY 17

I had planned to keep this date a secret, but, people started asking and I started sharing....and I'm just going to share with everyone that on JULY 17 @ 1:30pm I take my NCLEX exam. This is the nursing boards exam, and when I pass, I will have my RN. It's a humongously important deal because I can't do a lot nursing care related until I pass. If you feel like praying for me to pass-this is a good cause. Many people say it's the most difficult test that they've ever taken and pretty much everyone says that they've walked out of the test feeling like they failed (Ican't wait). So-I thought I'd pass along this nugget of information, and now, if you'll excuse me, it's off to get ready for another night of work.

Free Labor

It's nice to have some free labor, I mean, extra hands that are eager to help. We mulched today and the boys got to help. I under-guessed the amount of mulch that we needed. Those bags always seem to hold more than they actually do.


The boys had to put on their winter gloves to have something on their hands-just like Daddy!

Ewan carried my "wee white woman" (aka gnome) back and forth as he moved the mulch to the perfect location.

Time to rest our feet and empty our shoes of all the mulch!

Oh yes-I did remember how Cale got his bloody nose. During bath time, he tried to jump into our bathtub like it was a swimming pool and hit his nose on the side of the tub. (I did feel sorry for him, but we had already told him not to jump in and that the tub was not a pool. Currently, the boys are grounded from Mommy and Daddy's bathtub and have to use the one in their bathroom. Not as conducive to arm-strokes and flutter-kicks, or so I've been told.)

The trouble with noses

For the second time in, like, 5 days, we had a boy with a bloody nose. First it was Cale-honestly, I can't remember what caused his bloody nose. Could have been a fall or he could have been hit with something-so much for my mommy memory. Then, tonight, it was Marcus's turn. He fell down the stairs (after he was supposed to be in bed, mind you) and must have just landed on his poor nose. It bled a fair amount and was all over his shirt. The blood kind of freaked Marcus out a little bit, and Cale cried too-mostly because we made him get back in bed. Marcus was fine. We got him calmed down, cleaned up, and settled into bed where he promptly fell asleep. So that's that and I hope it's not a warm up for injuries to come...but I guess with boys, it's to be expected....

Singing Ewan

Ewan LOVES the Wheels on the Bus song. We were singing it together and he was doing great! I could understand a ton of the words, he did some motions-what a star! So, I run and get my camera to get a video of him, and this is what I get....

Still cute to watch...do you like my solo on the second verse? Are you impressed by Ewan's oral hygiene?

Cale loves his big-boy bike! (finally)

We got Cale a two wheeler bike with training wheels in April. Well, it took a while, but he finally warmed up to the idea of riding it instead of his tricycle. I'm so-o glad. It was super-frustrating to watch him pedal as fast as he could and not keep up with Marcus-who cruises along quite speedily on his bike. It was also super-frustrating to listen to Cale cry/whine about it. So, for now, everyone is happier and Cale is feeling very proud on his big bike.

And, yes, we do occasionally let the boys ride the bikes in the house. :-)

Funny things being said around here

After ignoring many thumps and bangs coming from Marcus and Cale's room during "rest time", I finally caved in and went upstairs to see what was going on. Marcus was sitting on his bed repeatedly saying "I only hit it gently, Cale hit it really hard", and Cale was hiding his head in his pillow. Apparently, they had been taking turns trying to hit the balls attached to the end of the ceiling fan chains. Well, one of the balls popped off and I found it on the floor when I came into their room.


I love it when Cale tells me about how much he likes different animals. Today it was about the cows that we passed on the way to church. The formula is the same, you can just substitute out the animal name.
"I like those cows. They are my friends."
"I won't kick them"
"I won't punch them"
"They will like me"
We're all about great treatment of animals here!


The other conversation in the car today was on the way home from church. The boys were talking about looking for their beachball which got blown away in some straight winds we experienced on Friday evening:

Marcus: We have to find the beachball.
Me: I think the wind blew it away.
Marcus: We have to go to the circle house (not too sure where this is)
Me: You know, we might not be able to find the ball, the wind might have blown it pretty far away.
Marcus: The wind blew it two solar systems away. We have to go to two solar systems to get it. We have to get the ball before it freezes.

bits and pieces of information

Well-I finished my second shift as a graduated nurse (GN) this morning. It's been a long few days and my great babysitter volunteered to stay a few extra hours so that I could get in a little nap when I got home. That nap really upped my funtioning level. Anyway-it was great to be working, even though I couldn't do a whole lot (thanks to new policies coming down from the state level about the role of GNs in the hospital). I'm kind of relieved to see that I could handle staying up for long hours and not be falling asleep on my feet. My plan for today is just to rest @ home. I had a goal to walk to the library w/the boys, but that plan's been scrapped b/c of the rain. I think the boys had a busy night too. Andy took them to an end-of-year cookout for the baseball team at his high school. From what I could gleam from Marcus it sounded like they had fun.
"Did you have fun at the baseball party?"
"Yeah"
"Did you play with other kids?"
"Yeah"
Yes-a virtual fountain of information.