Monday, June 17, 2013

Spider-Man Strikes Again!

Last weekend we celebrated Georgia's 5th birthday.  As I said in my last post, her birthday isn't until the 28th, but since we will be gone, we celebrated early.  When we talked about what kind of cake and theme she wanted for her birthday this year, I got the same response as I have the past two years,

"Sthpider-Man."

STILL?  Yup, still.  Since we haven't had a big birthday party for her in a while and we were this year, I decided to really Spider-Man it up.  Cake, cupcakes, decorations, invitation, paper goods, the works.  The guests contributed by buying every Spider-Man toy in a 50 mile radius.  Anybody who has a boy come over here to play and thinks he's going to a house full of girl toys would be happily mistaken.

Thank you to everyone for the toys.  She loved them!


Since it was a big party, I had so much to do the night before.  I was making and decorating cupcakes when Sonya asked to help.  I'll be honest.  I have a hard time giving up control over some things and decorating the cake and cupcakes is one of them.  Then I looked around at everything I had left to get done and realized that if I was ever going to get to bed before 1am, I would have to give in.  So I did.  And  you know what-Sonya did a fabulous job.  I forget I have a little artist on my hands, and she did just as good if not better a job than I would have.  She saved me at least an hour of sleep!


Sonya helps out
Proud of her creation

Webbed cupcakes
Here's the guy who kept me up until Midnight.
So yes, we Spider-Maned it up for my Georgia.  The important part is she had a great time and LOVED all the Spiderman everywhere.  I thought perhaps this would be it.  She would see all the decorations and toys she received and think, "Okay-too much.  Maybe I'm done with this Spiderman thing. Back to princesses!"  Nope.  Last week we went to Toys R Us so she could spend her $3 coupon she got from them for her birthday and here is what she pick out:



Yeah-we're not done by a long shot.  Which is fine with me, because we have too many princess things anyway.  Thanks for being our "boy" Georgia.  Happy (early) Birthday!
Face painting also by Sonya

 On a completely different note-I will be taking a break from writing for a of couple weeks.  You might remember me mentioning a cruise?  We leave tomorrow and everyone in my house couldn't be more excited.  I promise to come back with more cruise stories than you will know what to do with.  Bon Voyage!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Having Three Kids Is Finally Paying Off

Yesterday we had Georgia's birthday party, which I will tell you more about next post.  Let's just say it was a very Spidey birthday.  Even though she won't officially turn 5 until the end of this month,  we are going to be gone on a Disney Cruise then.  We decided to have her big 5 year old birthday party before we left.  Oh you didn't know we were going on a Disney Cruise?  Yes we are and we all can't wait! Well the girls and I can't.  Andy goes back and forth between being happy for vacation and having anxiety that the huge ship we will be sailing on will meet some kind of untimely demise.  To which I say-who cares!  At least I won't be cooking and cleaning beforehand.  Not only are we going on an amazing seven day cruise, but we are not paying for it.  My parents celebrate their 40th anniversary later this month and they have been saving for this cruise since before any of us had kids.  This is their gift to themselves and to us.  Yes, they ARE super awesome and you should be very jealous.  I will tell you all about it when we get back, but I digress.  This post wasn't supposed to be about making you jealous.  Well maybe it was, because what I will tell you is just as awesome.

Anyway-birthday party-right.  So we have to clean  the house before the party, of course.  I am Type A must have everything perfect for guests kind of person.  For years I did everything myself for these parties, with the help of my husband, while we propped the girls in the living room to stay out of the way with a DVD or some other form of television babysitting.  NO MORE!  They are ALL old enough now to help out.  Sonya has been helping more the past couple years, but now along with the other two they can do more.  So yesterday morning I made a list for them which included:

Clean the bathrooms
vacuum the living room
make your beds
switch over the laundry

HOLY CRAP!  I am my mother!  I remember my parents leaving us these lists on Saturday mornings while they went out to run errands.  We were older than my girls are now, when they would leave us, but I remember always having these lists and here I am passing them on to my kids.  I HATED it.  I used to complain that my parents only had us so they had someone to do their chores.  I didn't realize , of course, that we were the ones creating more mess to be cleaned up.  I get that now (Sorry mom)  and dammit, there is no reason for me to be doing everything when I have three Cinderellas helpful children running around.  So they did their list, and guess what? They didn't even hate it, and I didn't get any complaining.  Of course the idea of pizza and cake at the party probably fueled them but you  know, whatever works.   Don't worry I'm sure the complaints will come in time.  But wow was it great this time!  I got more done so much faster.  I wasn't as stressed and down to the wire as I usually am before a party.  I was able to delegate work that got done and even got done well.  Who knew!

vacuuming the living room

while Georgia did the kitchen

Lana insisted she do so vacuuming too...  OK!!


So yes, not only can you be jealous of me that I get to go on a free awesome vacation, but you can be jealous that I now have three free housekeepers living with me.  Don't worry though, I'm sure next time getting them to help won't go as well, and I will have to resort to bribing them with ponies again.  Good thing we will be able to afford it though since we aren't paying for this cruise.  (Thank you to my parents who are super fantastically awesome!  I can NOT wait until next week!!)  

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Monkeying Around

Okay, maybe your kids were doing this at two years old, but I'm pretty impressed that mine are doing it by themselves at 6 and not even 5.  I think Sonya was about 6 when she first went across by herself.  Georgia is definitely the youngest though.  You might have a slight heart attack, as I did, when you watch her though, but I promise it all turns out okay.