SUPER PARTY!

I've had multiple people ask me when I was going to put up pics from Liam's Super Why party. Well, here they are! Not that exciting, but he loved it! Anyone else planning a Super Why party let me know I've all you need and more! To start off, since there is nothing out there commercially for Super Why I had to do it all on my own.

To do the perfect Super Why party you: 1-only invite a few guests (why? You'll see. Here are our Super Readers!)


2- Use your 50% coupon at JoAnns to buy your cape fabric.
3- Start about a month ahead unless you can really sew! I made each boy a Super Why cape that had the Super Why book logo on the back, Then I did a Superman Logo on the other so they could be a different super hero if needs be! Then I made masks and I got those Extra Large pencils, covered them in construction paper, cut out a red ? and super glued it and viola! You now have a Why writer.

For the Girls, They were Princess Pea. They got pink capes. One side with a princess crown and the other Supergirl. I also got them wands and a princess tiara.

The capes took a long time to make, but I just worked on them here and there for the month so it didn't seem so bad. The worst part was hand sewing the Velcro on. The needle would get all sticky from the adhesive and make it hard to pull so get the non-adhesive kind. My finger still has a hole in it! Next for the games:

I was able to take in a coloring page to a print shop and had them enlarge it like 3oox's, so it was about 3 feet tall. I had to hand color Super Why, but he turned out really cute!

I also had them photo copy just the eyes at the same magnification in green cardstock then cut out individual masks.

Then we played pin the mask on Super Why! The kids thought this was really funny!

We also did musical chairs to Alpha Pigs ABC song. Sam was the winner due to a very sweet Connor who let her be the champion.
Here is the video so cute, they loved singing along with the song!

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And the Champion!










Then it was present time. All the kids were so excited to show Liam what they had gotten him. He has some great friends! He's had so much fun with all his new things, and so has Owen much to Liam's annoyance!





Then I told the kids I couldn't remember what came next at a birthday party. And that we had to transform into the Super Readers. This is when we brought out the capes...






While we opened present's Nate put our "Super Letters" outside and then we had the kids find them and bring them to Nate.

Once they were all found, we put them into our Super Duper Computer and got our Super Birthday Answer.



Which was:














I do things a little backwards, I've never really like cake cause I'm not a big fan of Icing so I've always had ice cream cake for my birthdays, well since I didn't want to make the cake, the wonderful mother daughter duo at Dairy queen helped make the perfect Super Why ice cream cake and I did Mini cupcakes with the other Characters stuck into them.
























Owen was a HUGE fan!
















And after everyone went home, this is what happened at our house!



Thanks to all who helped me and for all his cute little friends, they are what made the party so much fun!

Here, Owen Owen.

I CAVED! What can I say? I remember a few years ago going to busy places and seeing those parent's who had "tethered" their kid to their wrist. I thought. "Seriously you can't watch your kid without having him attached to a leash?"

Well, my apology's!

I am now ONE OF THOSE parent's!

Liam wasn't like Owen. If I turned around too suddenly when he was a toddler, I would knock him over due to him being attached at my hip, so it was never a worry that he'd wander more than an inch from my side.

Owen however is a WHOLE DIFFERENT story! If I turn my back for longer than two seconds he is gone! Poof! vanished into thin air. Or I am running after him to save him from immediate death. He believes he's invincible, or that his Mom is Super Woman and can catch him with one finger while pushing the grocery cart, balancing that carton of eggs and keeping Liam from opening some toy he's found in the checkout, all at the same time.

Well With Spring comes the preview opening of Hershey Park. Any Mother who has a child like Owen starts to sweat at the thought of taking him to a HUGE public place with rides, candy, water, kids, toys, strollers, and his new fascination of having to walk EVERYWHERE now that he can walk.

So to make it easier on both of us I bought said "tether." But to make me feel better, and every other parent I will call it his buddy backpack. It's shaped like a monkey and the tail is the leash, but when the child outgrows the Houdini stage, you can remove the leash and it become a stylish backpack with a little pocket that you could fit, well not more than a pack of mini raisins in.
But really it's not inhumane! It's good parenting. And a bonus, Liam and his friends think they have their very own dog that they get to cart around HP. WIN! WIN!

We didn't get a picture, but Liam has been asking now for a year if he could go on a real coaster. Unfortunately they are for Reese's and above height only! We even tried putting his tallest shoes on last year but he still didn't make the cut.

But not this year, his head barely touches the dividing line, so we did a parent swap (You can both stand in line together, then one parent takes Liam while the other tries to keep Owen from jumping onto the tracks, then you switch.)

Nate took Liam for the first ride and I was a little worried. Liam isn't the bravest of kids, in fact he cries over just about anything, but I guess he's a thrill seeker. He LOVED it! as soon as they pulled back into the station he starts screaming, "Now you ride with me Mama, we go again!" And to be honest it was a good ride! When we got off a mom behind me says to her 8 year old, "I remember when we took you on this ride for the first time, but you weren't near as happy as his is, in fact, you were crying and told us you hated us and that you'd never ride another roller coaster again." I laughed then patted Liam on the head. That's my boy! The next words out of his mouth were now can I go on that one? The great Bear that is one of the ones where your feet dangle and you go upside down a million times. "I want to go upside down!"

Sorry buddy! You have to be a Jolly Rancher for that one. But one day!

See an enjoyable time had by all!

Spring has sprung...

Well sort of.

If there is anything that Hershey does really well, it's the egg hunts. There are about a million of them here! They are all supplied by the Hershey company. (Imagine that!) But hey I'll gladly take mini cadbury eggs, caramel eggs, and Hershey kisses for free anytime!

However this particular hunt, was FREEZING! It was seriously so cold. I had never been happier that my boys were in the first two "heats" so we could collect our goods and be on our way!

This was Owen's first hint and he actually really enjoyed it.

Liam however was all over it and collected those eggs like uncle Sam collects your taxes!

Long Overdue!

All I can say is that I must have a few things better to do than blogging going on recently, since I haven't posted in a bit. I am busily getting ready for Liam's SUPER WHY party for his Birthday. (Yes that's right, Super Why! Another PBS kids show that he really likes. It actually has some educational content so I feel OK that this is his current like.)

I decided to make the kids all capes for their take home "prize" they have been really time consuming but turned out AWESOME in my opinion. I'm not totally done yet, but will post some pics when I am.

I found this great tutorial to help me with them at Puking Pastilles See my kid isn't the only one who want's to be Super Why! Thanks Georgia for this great idea!

We celebrated St. Pattys day with Green eggs and Ham, Green shirts NO pinches! And even slept in Green Jammies that night just to be safe!

Then I got to "Use" my Valentines day gift from Nate: An overnight trip up to New York to meet up with Nate's Mom and do New York with no kids!

It was great! It started out a little scary. I took Nate's car so he'd have the car seats and when I dropped my boys off at my friends house (Whom by the way also made it possible for me to go by watching my boys for the whole day, even though she was pregnant sick and tired. THANKS KRISTEN!)

And another Thanks to Eden for watching my boys the following day as well as her three! I have some serious pay backs in the future, but it was worth it!

When I went to get back in the car it wouldn't start and I had to make a detour to Auto Zone and then found out that I needed to stop by a mechanics cause we'd waited so long to replace the battery that acid warped the nut on the bolt to the point that they couldn't get it off.

I drove to said mechanics, he ended up cutting of the cables and putting a new one on and the best part was he felt sorry for me and did it all for free! THANKS MR. MECHANIC you made my day!

Then I was off and drove to Newark, hopped on the NJ transit and met a happy MIL at Penn station. Unfortunately the weather was horrible! It was raining for part of this day and freezing cold, but that didn't stop us!

We walked around for a bit to central park and times square then got ready for the play we saw that night: In the Heights. It rocked! And we had awesome seats. Thanks Marie for my first Broadway experience it was a blast!

The next morning it was snowing. That's right snowing, but only for a bit. We took a mild cab to china town, bartered for a new Dolce and Gabanna look alike purse and Tiffany's jewelry, then walked the "Marie Mile" (More like 3, but was needed!) Looked through a few SOHO shops on the way then packed up and hopped back on the NJ transit, to the car and back to Hershey.
We then got to spend a few days with Nana doing some fun things like going to Lancaster to make pretzels, Kitchen kettle Village for some fudge, An Amish Buggy ride, Liam took the reigns. A visit to Chocolate world for a traditional cow ride visit, And a visit to the local Fire station for PG. Whew. And that was just writing it all.

A pirate says...

I was getting Liam ready for school today and Owen walked out
wearing this.

Liam LOVES to dress up and I think Owen is picking up on that. I'm telling you this kid has an old soul and I love every bit of it. He keeps me laughing, crying and screaming No NO NO (which is one of his new favorite words.)

I have a bunch to post about but will have to get to that later this week. So enjoy this for now!

Cinnamon Sticks GUEST GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

Cinnamon Sticks GUEST GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

All about Owen

The time just keeps passing me by, and my Little Owen is now starting to say BIG words and walk. His favorite words are: UP, UH OH, Gog (dog) wuf, wuf, moo, and eyes. It is so fun to watch him learn new words and use them correctly.

He has also decided that he no longer needs our help to eat. He can do it by himself! He loves when I give him a spoon and a brush and a bowl full of mush, well the spoon and mush part anyways.

Here are a few clips of these milestones.

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Doesn't that look delicious!

Boys will be boys...

Some people thought I was crazy when I told them i wanted another boy after Liam. (Not because Liam was bad, but because they thought I'd want a girl.)
But I wanted Liam to have a brother so they could be best friends. Especially while we live so far away from family!
I caught the boys playing on the stairs the other day. Owen wants to do whatever Liam does, but finds Liam so funny. And this is why I thought it'd be so fun to have two boys!

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Liam was NEVER a climber and still isn't he is the cautious obedient child of the family. Owen on the other hand is NOT! He climbs on EVERYTHING! That kid will take on any challenge and a few that he has conquered are the dryer and the dishwasher as of late. Liam wanted in on the dryer action when he was SURE I wouldn't shut the door or turn it on!









They also enjoyed putting empty boxes of diet coke on their feet. Liam did this first and then Owen had to try too, but needed Moms help. Liam took our picture. NOT BAD huh!

No excuses

There are no reasons as to why my blog has been left dormant for far too long yet again. Mostly because little sticky fingers (aka: Owen) has to type while I type and so it would look more like this: to9kimay wkoie went56354 354...You get the point. So I have put it off. However today is a different story. It's about 23 degrees, but it feels like 10. No I am not exaggerating. Go check out weather.com The wind is blowing and it is freezing so we (well mainly I) decided that we were going to make it a stay in the house, wear your cozy's all day and put a post up on the blog kind of day. (Ok so I didn't finish this post and it's no longer freezing, IT"S GLORIOUSLY Warm and sunny so I need to finish so we can get outside and enjoy it!)

For a recap, we had Valentines day. Liam had his class party the day before and I was able to help thanks to my friend Kristen who watched Destruct-O for me!
It was fun to see the kids give each other Valentines and see what the typical day for Liam is like. Here are a few pic that I took.





That night we drove to D.C. to stay with our friends the Jones, who BTW are some of the nicest people I know and went WAY out of their way to help us. They let us stay the night at their house, got US dinner, then drove us to the airport at 4 am. Then took our car home so we didn't have to pay for parking, then dropped it off in short term the day we arrived so we didn't have to haul the luggage and the kids on the metro. (SEE what I mean about them being Nice! One day I will repay them! Thanks again Melissa and Brady.)

Then Valentines day was spent flying from D.C. to Dallas to SLC and it took a total of 9 hours. The kids weren't very happy when we woke them up at 3:30 to go. Owen especially he needs his sleep so he's ready to destroy as soon as he wakes up!
I can't complain though, the kids did fairly well.

We then spent the next week visiting family and friends in UT. It was so good to be back home. Although at this point I am wishing home was in a tropical paradise that is always 80 degrees with a light breeze, not the frozen tundra of my Dad's house where he still has 3 feet of snow on the grass from snow blowing and a Northern exposure. The rest of the valley didn't have much but it fluttered a few of the days we were there.

We didn't do any skiing since A: we no longer have any snow gear after living in N.O. and B: it costs like $60 a person to go for one day and C: Nate and Liam were still getting over Pneumonia and Owen RSV and skiing isn't as fun by yourself. But hopefully next winter we will hit the slopes and let the boys have a go at it!

We did go to all our favorite places to eat. Especially the Mexican restaurants. You wouldn't guess it, but Utah has really good Mexican food and PA's is terrible! So we made sure to get our feel of it in the few days we were there.

It was a really fun trip and I'm so glad we got to go!




We did a late birthday party for Owen since none of the family was able to see the big guy turn one and devour his cake. The cousins got a kick out of it.


Say hello to my little friend. Ok BIG friend. This is my Nephew Graham BAM who is very serious about food as you can tell. He is 5 months old here and weighed the same as Owen does currently. He has the best disposition. And my favorite part about him is all you have to do to make him happy is take of his pants.




My boys warmed up quickly to the family and loved hanging out with Papa and Corinne before they went to bed.

Me, my SIL, and Cousin all had baby boys within a few months of each other. I can't imagine the trouble these boys are going to get into a few years from now.



We were able to catch them all awake and happy at the same time so took some shots of the male posterity we have going on.
























(The Studs: Owen 13 months, Graham 5 months and Ethan 3 months)


We also let Liam pull Owen and Graham in the wagon. I'm not sure who had more fun?



And that is basically our trip to UT in a nut shell.

Jesus wants me happy!

So Liam may have had one of his more outrageous tantrums today while we were in Kmart. I had to grab a few things and of course that meant a meander through the toy section. He found a toy on clearance for $2 that one of his other friends has and asked if he could get it as a "surprise." (How do you say no to that?) So I say sure if you are my big helper while we are here.

Things are going great he's staying by me, not touching everything he walks by, then he sees something else he has to have (this is not on clearance, so there is no way.)I tell he already chose a "surprise" and that maybe he can get the other one another day???

To which he screams at me, hits me and says YES he can. (Wait, what? who is this devil child?) I tell him NO again and then let him know that he is no longer being a good helper and will no longer be getting either toy.

Now he is screaming "sorry Mama, I'm so sorry Mama. Don't me mad. I'm not a naughty boy. I'm a good helper." I tell him thank you for saying sorry, but you still aren't getting that toy today. That is the consequence for acting so naughty.

He then proceeds to sob and say, " But Jesus wants me to have that toy, he wants me to be happy!" (Insert my horribly covered up snicker and all the other ladies standing in line behind us at the check out.) I tell him yes Jesus wants him to be happy, but he also wants you to obey your Mommy and not cry or hit her when you don't get your way.

He thinks about this for a minute and still comes to the conclusion that Jesus wants him to get this toy and that I am the only thing standing in the way of his happiness.

I almost caved because I was laughing so hard, and who comes up with an answer like that?
But needless to say, I stood my ground and he didn't get his toy, but I got a good laugh.