Dane Turns 5!

My sweet baby boy turned five on Saturday. Five! Can you believe it?

We spent a lot of time gearing up for Dane's first friend party--an Angry Birds Party! 

As the big day approached, Dane kept checking with me, "Do you have Angry Birds decorations? Do you have an Angry Birds cake? Will we have Angry Birds games?" He definitely didn't want to leave anything to chance.

Well, I believe the party was a success. We had decorations:

Food:

Presents:

Ninja Turtle gear from his school friend Jack.

Cool magnetic dart board from Grandma Frost.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas DVD, which he's been wanting since Christmas.

Unfortunately, almost all of our pictures were somehow deleted off the camera. I have no idea how it happened. But amazingly, my friend left her fancy DSLR at the house, so I stole some photos off her camera. And took some of my own photos. Heehee!

We had some fun party favors, and the pictures disappeared, but we had Angry Birds eggs (brightly colored sixlets), mini Angry Birds kites, Angry Birds graham crackers, Angry Birds bandaids, and homemade yarn pom pom Angry Birds and pigs with little plastic cups so they could have their own Angry Birds games.

So, on to the games. We had a lot of fun games. 

First, the kids made their own pig face on a plate. Then, they assumed their new pig identities and suddenly found themselves chased by a huge, red Angry Bird!

Joel chased the kids around for a while with the giant rubber ball, and my mom laughed that he seemed to be having even more fun than the kids. 

June got a turn as the Angry Bird, too.

The we played Angry Birds bowling, inspired by this tutorial. 

Things I learned: 

1) Don't skimp on the paint. I was trying to conserve paint and added water to the bottles, and they just didn't cover very well. 

2) 3- to 5-year-olds are not so big that empty soda bottles are too easy to knock down with a rubber ball. I added like 1/2 cup of pinto beans to the bottles for extra weight, and they had a pretty hard time knocking them down, even from just a few feet away. 

And we played Pop the Pigs!

I stole a pallet from behind Ace Hardware (which is a funny story in itself) and painted an Angry Birds scene on poster board attached to the pallet. And I made Angry Birds bean bags using old t-shirts and freezer paper screen printing. Joel made clippy hooks out of baling wire from which to hang the pigs, and we strategically placed thumbtacks behind where the pigs would hang to make for easy popping.

Then the kids attacked!

This is a cool shot where you can see the pig popping and the "points" (candy!) falling:

 
Here you can see Dane releasing the three blue birds:

A pig carcass:

Candy!

After the kids went home, my family (who were a great help wrangling the kids), all got a turn with the pigs:

Then we feasted on the richest, most deliciou cake I've ever made:

And drank in June's adorableness:

We went to dinner so Dane could have his beloved miso soup with rice (which I had made him for lunch, too). Then, his happy day ended as he prayed, "and bless me that I had a great Angry Birds party." 

I think he had a good day.

So, all in all, I was happy with how it all went and I learned some good things. We invited six kids and ended up with eight, and I think it was a great number. I also learned that having a party on his actual birthday made it so we couldn't do any of the regular, special things we usually do on his birthday, like special breakfast and stuff; we had to spend all day getting ready. So I'll remember that for next time.

I can't believe Dane is five. He is a sweet, good-natured, observant kid who make me laugh all the time. We have our share of frustrations and struggles, but at the end of the day, I love to snuggle him look forward to seeing him in the morning. He is creative and affectionate, and he notices and remembers amazing details. When I took him to his five year doctor's appointment, he took his new plush Angry Bird with him and insisted that the doctor bandage the beak (which was sore from smashing so many buildings). And when the nurse came in to give him his immunizations, he asked her if he could pray, and then said a quiet little prayer that he wouldn't be so scared. 

I love him so much. Happy Birthday, Dane. Don't grow up too fast, okay?

Parenting Double Whammy

Prepare yourselves to feel really sorry for me. I experienced two big parenting milestones two days in a row:

Dane's first day of school and June's first birthday.

I don't even know what to do with myself. As I signed Dane up for pre-K (which isn't officially school yet, but since kindergarten is full day now, I put him in pre-K, and it felt exactly like how kindergarten used to be, you know? Every day for half a day? Yeah. The effect is the same.), bought his school supplies, got him excited, reminded him to close the stall door when he goes to the bathroom, etc., I really just felt excited for him. Then, the day before school, it dawned on me: he's going to school! He won't just be mine anymore! Someone else will be in charge of him! Every day! 

I was sure I wasn't going to be one of those moms who cries when she drops her kid off at school. 

I was wrong. 

He was sure happy to go to school. Now, I try not to engage in mommy bragging much--it's sort of against my upbringing. But these are the facts: Dane misses the September 1st cutoff by three weeks, which makes him pretty old for his grade. He is also a fairly precocious kid, and he is spelling out words, reading early reader books on his own, and doing math. I'm sure the benefits of putting him in pre-K will be much more social than academic, which is fine with me. But I already feel some stress about the possibilities of acceleration and what not. Having a kid in school is stressful.

Anyway. 

Here he is coveting the other kid's airplane puzzle as he was waiting for the schoolday to begin.

When I excitedly went to pick him up, I found him wearing different clothes--the clothes from his emergency extra clothes bag. He claimed to have wet his pants, but his teacher was pretty sure he just wanted to change. Later, he told me it was kind of awkward to have to wear his extra clothes. Hopefully he got it out of his system. 

He made a friend named Noah, though he sometimes gets confused and calls him Moses. 

And June's birthday:

Can you believe she is a year old already? I sure can't. In fact, I'm pretty sure I expressly forbade her from getting bigger. But she is a willful child. 

I planned a little party for her, just with family. I must say, the food was delicious. We had Cafe Rio pork tacos for lunch, followed by a lovely array of cupcakes. 

June's smash cake was Pioneer Woman's best ever chocolate cake with "the best frosting I've ever had."

The cupcakes with pink frosting were the same as the smash cake, and the cupcakes with yellow frosting were these lemon poppyseed cakes with raspberry curd. I used a different, more delicious frosting that would be utterly cruel not to share:

2 c heaving whipping cream, whipped

1 can sweetened condensed milk

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Once cream is whipped, stir in remaining ingredients and prepare for amazement. It makes a ton of frosting. Like, I have about 6 more cups of it in my fridge right now. 

Rika made the happy little suns and clouds in her Cricut for me. 

Anyhow, I can't believe how big she is. I figured for the first birthday, she wouldn't really care about presents, but, again, I was wrong. She got into tearing the wrapping paper and looking excitedly for what was inside. 

Jiichan and Baachan got her this adorable shopping cart to aid in her biped adventures:

And Rika gave her a plush Grover (a.k.a. Jopie; I had a similar doll when I was little and called him Jopie), which she lovingly packaged in a casket with his arms crossed. 

I have a weird family.

June is so smart and beautiful and big. She loves books. Like, brings them to you constantly and gets upset if you don't read them to her over and over. It makes me so happy that she loves books, even when it's a bit trying to read the same book over and over again. 

Tonight, after dinner, she was walking around with her shopping cart, then left and grabbed things to put in her cart. My one-year-old is grocery shopping.

She is sleeping so much better (though a double ear infection complicated that a bit), and she is picky about what she eats. She loves chocolate. She dances by waggling her head back and forth whenever she hears a catchy tune. She plays peekaboo and "I'm bloind!" She's taken up to five steps and has twelve teeth. She is sweet and snuggly when she wants to be and is a squirmy jellyfish when she doesn't. 

I love her so much. In many ways I can't remember life without her. Dane likes to smell her hair and say, "I'm smelling the cuteness!" Yeah. She has a lot of cuteness emanating off of her. 

Happy Birthday, sweet baby. Thanks for being born to us.

Incidentally, Joel and I went to the cattle baron's ball last night. It was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, and you had to be a cowboy. 

We had fun and good food, and Joel got to experience seeing his coworkers inebriated. That was less fun. 

And in case you're wondering, I made Joel's belt buckle out of a picture frame. It was pretty awesome and made all the drunk poser cowboys jealous. 

June: 11 Months, plus some Sadness

What a beautiful baby. And I mean baby loosely. Just in the past couple of weeks, she's become so much less of a baby. She's not walking or talking yet, but I can't help but feel like she's so grown up. She just has a spunky little personality, she's assertive, she laughs easily. I've been trying to discourage her shrieks by not responding, and she's figuring out that if she does something cute instead (like laughing and dancing), she'll get what she wants. 

Look at that big girl standing up!

She plays peek-a-boo (or inai inai ba) in a variety of ways: with her hands or with a blankie.

Where's Junie?

Where's Junie?

There's Junie!

She's such a sweet, happy girl. She's sleeping so much better than I could have imagined a couple of months ago, though the poor baby has four teeth coming in--including three molars. Isn't she too young to be getting molars? She just decided to skip the canines, I guess. 

I made this little outfit for her for the Fourth of July but didn't get pictures. It's made out of a clearance tank top from Walmart and some other repurposed stuff. I get a little extra satisfaction when I make stuff using little or no money.

Sweet baby.

On a somber note, those of you who are on Facebook may have seen my status update regarding the little boy in Sandy, Ethan, who died in a terrible accident. I visit taught the mother for about a year, and I served with the grandmother in the Relief Society presidency for over a year. It is the kind of tragedy that breaks your heart no matter what, but knowing and caring about all the family members has added greater depth to the sadness that I feel. The tragic events have been consuming my thoughts and made me more fervent in my prayers that the people I love be kept safe. Sadly, we have no guarantees in this life that we will be spared from heartache and tragedies.

Ethan and his mom:


And then we wake up this morning to the news of another tragedy, a mass shooting in a Colorado movie theater. It is an emotionally difficult week.

So let's be a little extra grateful for our families today. Hug your babies a little tighter. I don't usually get too serious on this blog, let alone speak of spiritual things, but this is a scripture in which I've often found comfort:

"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with ^asurety ^bhopefor a better world" (Ether 12:4)

All Sorts

Okay, let's see, let's see...I feel like it's so hard to find a chunk of time to blog, but the problem with waiting a long time is things get all stacked up...I write posts in my head all the time, but I'm not going to be able to do all of them justice. Because they were brilliant. And hilarious. For sure.

Visitation
Evan, Holly, Kyle, and Aiden came to visit us at the end of May, and we stayed up WAY too late talking every night. I'm sure they were exhausted by the end of the trip, but we had a great time, especially because Chris and Teresa were in town at the same time. Also, I have zero pictures from their visit. None! Holly, you will have to send me some. Oh wait, I think there's some on facebook:

That's the best I could do, and it doesn't even have Holly or the boys. And I look like I'm sniffing Dane. I was actually trying to make a mustache for myself out of his hair.

Then, a couple of weeks later, George and Melanee came to visit, bringing Sam, Kevin, and baby Mack!

Dane and June at the OKC Bombing Memorial

We ate the best fried chicken in the world in Okarche, OK. It's been feature on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and it did not disappoint. We ate a lot, and George and Melanee got to try fried okra for the first time.

That, and tons of other delicious, Oklahoma-specific food. There's a reason we're the 2nd fattest state in the country. A delicious, deep-fried reason.

The kids had a blast, and they were sad to have to part and be separated by several states. We were sad, too. 

June, roughly 10 months
I can't figure out how to group pictures on this new blogger, so sorry to make you scroll. But June is getting all grown up, and I can't stand it. It also makes me laugh. She can't walk or talk, but she just doesn't seem like a little baby anymore. She screeches pretty frequently, she has quite an arm, and is a great little model for the random sewing projects I manage to try:

 

Independence Day

We went to the Edmond Kite Festival, where our kite was the highest in the sky.

Blackberry Festival

 Okay, so maybe you remember the Blackberry Festival from last year.  Dane sure did. He'd randomly talk about it all the time, wishing and hoping he could ride the little roller coaster. We were amazed at his memory of it. So I was looking forward to making all his dreams come true at the roller coaster again. Check out his utter glee:

His face never changed during the entire ride. He explained that he was a little scared to be on it all by himself, plus he'd wanted to ride in the back and the carny made him ride in the front. It was kind of hilarious how irritated he looked. So the complete lack of roller coaster excitement was disappointing. But the real reason we went was for the amazing blackberry soda and fresh berries. 

They were sold out of berries by the time we got there. And no one had ever heard of the homemade blackberry soda we bought last year. I was starting to get a little creeped out that the best part of the blackberry festival, the event which--let's face it--is probably the most exciting weekend in McLoud, OK, was absent from the collective memory of McLoud. How could something so delicious be forgotten, unacknowledged? I decided the blackberry festival was a total bust and resolved never to return. But then we found blackberry funnel cake:

I figured it would be your typical funnel cake with blackberry jam on it or something, but they actually put the berries in the batter. And then drizzle it with a blackberry glaze. 

It was so good. It might just be enough to take us back next year.

Moderate Makeover: Chair Edition

We bought chairs for our dining table back when we got married, and I liked them specifically because I could reupholster them. But I never did it. And over the course of the last eight years, they have become progressively more stained and yucky. After the fourth of July, we had a major raspberry juice disaster on the chair, and I decided it was finally time for a change.

Before: 

After:

Mika helped me pick out this fun, Asiany Poppy print, and I really like it. And it was on clearance! Seven bucks! She even provided me with the staple gun. So our dining room got a bright little upgrade. Heehee!

There's some more random stuff I need to post on here, but that's good for now.
Oh, and my random tidbit that I've been forgetting to do:

Sometimes, after we've watched a movie or something and I'm feeling really tired, I make Joel carry me to the bedroom so I don't actually have to walk. I thought this was a perfectly reasonable, normal thing to do, but when I mentioned it to my friends at church, they were incredulous and couldn't stop laughing at my laziness and being amazed that Joel would actually do it. I learned to be extra grateful for my husband who is willing to carry his lazy wife around occasionally. I'm not as lightweight as I used to be, and Joel's not as fit, and I sometimes get a pretty good bonked head in the doorway, but I don't think we're stopping anytime soon.