party time

May is a month full of celebrations for our family.
2 kids born 2 years and 1 day apart means lots of birthday celebrations!

We started it out this year with a Curious George themed party.
It seemed very appropriate as Hannah loves watching Curious George and Peter is, well, a monkey at heart.

Daddy dressed up as The Man in the Yellow Hat for the occasion.

And we had Curious George masks for all the kiddos.



But I actually think more fun was had by the adults

as their inner monkey came out!

There were bubbles galore.

And plenty of willing hands to pump out more!

I made a ball pit out of a kiddie pool and 150 small plastic balls that was a hit with the younger crowd.

 

 

  Cake is, of course, an important part of any party.

 

 

 

And, the chocolate crazy cake

was savored by all.  

(especially the boys)

It was great to have dear friends from college, from church, 

 

from school 

and of course family to celebrate with!

It's amazing to me how many people surround Matt & I, Hannah & Peter as we journey on this road of parenthood and growing up.  I am blessed to have so many to call friends and family.

Thanks for all your love!

Oh, and I'm pretty sure Peter will be inseparable from his digger truck for a long time to come.

thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

marshmallowing

Hannah comes up with a lot of ideas for what we can do in our backyard.

Last week, she announced that we should get a small giraffe because we have lots of leaves and giraffes like to eat leaves.

Tonight, she asked if we could go "marshmallowing".

It took me a moment, but I realized that she wanted to roast marshmallows in Daddy's new fire pit.  (Last Sunday as she went to bed, there were 20 college students in our backyard roasting marshmallows and she was looking forward to her turn.)

Tonight, was great because it was overcast and there was a cool breeze that even required sweatshirts to be outside.

So Daddy made a nice big fire. ("powerful" in Hannah's words)

We got out Mommy's favorite S'mores sticks.

Roasted some marshmallows.



Sandwiched them between graham crackers and chocolate.

And enjoyed them!!

 

 It was a pretty awesome backyard adventure.

 

Hannah congratulated herself on having a good idea,
before going to bed!

family day

Today was Family Day at Hannah's preschool.

A celebration for both moms and dads (and of course little siblings who tag along).

The kids lined up to sing 4 songs.

Hannah was enthusiastic about Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

And then decided she'd rather watch everyone else for the other songs.

Peter observed from daddy's shoulders (not sure what to make of it).

When the time came for the indoor picnic (crazy wind outside) - both kids loved the ice cream, muffins and mommy's cupcakes!
(Although Hannah chose to sit with her friend Sailee instead of mommy & daddy, pretty sure this is just the beginning.)

Then outside to burn off all the energy.

This merry-go-round contraption is currently Hannah's favorite activity at school.

She's intense about it!

Peter decided he needed a turn on it.

 

Lining up to go inside for closing circle and the goodbye song.
(They all pretend to be a train on their way in.)

Our fun family day continued into the evening as we headed out to celebrate Grandma and cousin Sydney's birthdays!

I'm pretty proud I got a picture of Grandma blowing out her candle.

What better way to end the day than a big piece of chocolate cake?

 

grunt work

My kids love to have jobs.

I love it when their "jobs" are actually helpful.

Sunday night we were outside and I noticed that there were about one hundred green plums in our yard (from Matt pruning our neighbors' tree).  They all have to be picked up so that our dog does not eat them and so they do not go into the soil and sprout 30 or 40 little plum trees.

I was getting tired just thinking of bending down and picking all these up on a hot night.

And then I thought - my kids would be great at this!

So I put them to work!


They were enthusiastic,

effective,

and joyous little workers

 

Of course, breaks must be taken to jump out of cars and go down slides.

The best part of all, is that Hannah (on her own initiative) went back outside tonight and collected even more.



Ah, I love little hands!

cupcakes

Tonight I made cupcakes for Hannah's class.

My first adventure into being a classroom mom.
(Although, at her school every mom is a class mom, since it's a co-op.)

Kind of thinking there are a lot more nights like this ahead of me. 



There are definitely a lot more nights of cupcake making awaiting me in the next week -

as both of these cuties turn a year older!

 

 

swim lesson

Today was Hannah's first ever swim lesson.

She has been counting the days for the past week (literally, 6 days, then 5 days, 4 days and so on).

She and Peter counted the minutes until she could get in the pool.



And then it was her turn!

She put her goggles on,
found the pink sign for her group,
gave me a big smile
and got in the water.

I was pretty proud of her!

We had a long conversation this morning about how she wasn't going to be able to take her water wings to swim lessons and she was going to need to be brave.

And she was!

Every time she completed a little kicking sequence or blowing bubbles - she looked at Peter and I through the glass (we were hanging out in the viewing area), took off her goggles and gave a us a big smile!

This was my watching buddy.

I was shocked because he sat still for 30 minutes, ate snacks and watched Hannah in the water!

I was just sure I was going to be chasing him down the whole time.

He was so focused on Hannah!

After one long kicking, floating sequence, Hannah got out of the water and yelled to Peter through the glass "Peter, I did it!"

A happy girl with her post lesson treat!

She can't wait until next week!

And he's off!