Little Champ

Surgery #6 (7? Not even sure honestly) is over and done! Praying with everything I've got that this was the final one, because the recovery process is SO. NOT. FUN.

                                          All packed and ready to go.

                                         Pretty dang excited about the Seamans' impressive keep busy gift.

                                         The bracelets are on.

                                                   YAY. We are happy to be here again. Really ;)

                                                    I love my brave boy.

                                         Wow really? A Lightning McQueen desk, a DVD player AND play doh? Sheesh. When I was in the same Kaiser having a baby, all I got was.....a baby.

                                          The sleepy juice hit him like a bolt of lightning and does it make me a terrible parent to say it was rather hilarious?

                                          Hanging out in pre-op and feelin' fine!

 

I was working on grant applications that morning, and we put a stamp on him so that he would be sure to be sent back to mommy after surgery <3 

                                          My brave little buddy post-surgery

This kid's a champ.

Why You're Likely a Better Parent Than Me

Gather 'round boys and girls, and I'll tell you a story about how I may have set my children up for a lifetime of social ostracization for the low, low price of $3.00. And moms & dads reading this - congrats - you are officially a better parent than me. Frank is also relishing in the fact that he is too - or at least a quicker thinking one.

I pride myself in being one of the few and awesome that actually DO the things they pin on Pinterest. For the most part, it's gone okay. Charlotte had a fun lemonade & sunshine birthday party, Sam had a pretty exceptional glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt this past spring.....and a hit in our home has been the shaving cream painting. We did this earlier this year - see how cute? Right-brained preschooler heaven!

So today, we were having A DAY. And if you have little ones at home with cabin fever, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So I busted out the muffin tin, and started to spray shaving cream into the different holes, with my trusty food coloring supply by my side.

Official instructions: dye shaving cream with liquid food coloring, stir, and let kids go to town. It washes off and it's brilliantly fun.

What happened today: turns out I only had enough shaving cream left for one compartment. It's summer now, and I'm wearing shorts and dresses a lot - its all about supply and demand, people.

Oh, no biggie, I thought to myself - we are always getting lotions as gifts from people - that will work just like shaving cream!

This is when Frank first walked by my set up in the kitchen and gave me that concerned look he gives when I pick up stray dogs or start a craft at midnight for a baby shower the following day.

"Isn't lotion toxic? What if Charlotte eats it?"

I brushed off his concern -  "Oh, even if she does, one taste and she wont do it anymore!"

At that, he left me to my carefree lotion & food coloring bliss.

Here's the problem with Frank. He has this one HUGE flaw - he expects me to be able to make smart decisions all on my own. I really wish he'd stop that.

ANYWAY - lotion mixed into food coloring - brilliant, vibrant colors and two elated kiddos in the bathtub.

If you are a member of Frank's intellect pool (or really that of a goldfish..) you can see where this is going, and why you may not see my kids in public for awhile.

It started out adorable and just fine:

                                                    Aw she looks like a cute little bathtub warrior :)

                                         I let them paint me too! Fun fun!

Then while they were painting away, I went to wash my face off, because really, I am 31 years old.

That's when the panic set in:

 Because, hello, shaving cream has soap in it. Lotion has idunnowhat designed to ABSORB into the skin.

                     It's not coming off. Like, at all.

                     It was like pink, purple, and blue self-tanner.....

                    And I just dyed this precious being into a rainbow.

                         Live it up kid, your hand is gonna be hot pink and indigo for awhile.

                               After much frantic scrubbing, this is what C's leg looked like.

                             She kept trying long after I gave up. Poor purple kid. Her brother didn't look much better. She just got more picture cred because I'm too tired to censor out his manhood from the photos after all of that futile rainbow obliterating exfoliation.

So, my kids have colorful skin to match their colorful personalities. Sorry, Warta Minis. Mommy was wrong. From now on she promises to follow directions.

Update: Kids went swimming. The chlorine just ripped the rainbow right off of them. Which is awesome - never been so thrilled to see my kids natural paleness - but what is IN chlorine exactly? Sort of a different kind of alarming....

 

And He's Four.

"The days are long but the years are short" - how true is that as we recover from Sam's birthday? He had a fantastic day - went swimming with preschool friends and ate watermelon and mac & cheese. We brought miniature cupcakes for them and they sang happy birthday to him and got green frosting all over their faces. It's the little things that are just so perfect and fun.

The afternoon got exciting when we found a little dog dodging in and out of traffic. We thought it belonged to a farm house up the road, but we couldn't find the owners after all and got an unexpected house guest for the night. The kids LOVED the dog, but we love having dogs not live with us :) It was super fun to have her overnight though, and on Sam's birthday too!

Then my parents came up and the day flew by with presents, yet MORE cake (thanks, mom!) and homemade ziti which both kids devoured. That Italian blood may be thinner in them, but it still runs deep :)

Traditional decorating the heck out of the dining room.

Presents on the table.

Doggy for the day!

A new Curious George book

From her :)

Lincoln Logs! I love throwback presents!

He gets this reaction for every gift. You could give him a bag of cotton balls and he would exclaim "Just what I always wanted!" Love this kid and his sweet heart.

Wished-on candles go to Nonna.

To Age 4 and beyond!

                                          

They both LOVE Nonna's homemade Italian ziti. 

Now the balloons are down, there is another pencil mark on the kids' doorway (he grew three inches this year!) and it's back to the mundane life of mid-summer. But birthdays sure are fun <3

On the Brink of Four

We celebrated S's birthday a few days early today with a jaunt to Chuck E. Cheese's, which is currently his favorite place in the world. One just opened near Nana & Grandpa's house, and it has CHANGED. HIS. LIFE. He can literally route any conversation topic back to Chuck E. Cheese right now, so after a couple weeks of torturous anticipation (for him, definitely not us!), off we went to eat overpriced pizza and lose money to the skiball machine.

The spinning cup of hot chocolate

My boys :)

We like Cars!

We really like Cars!

Remember a time when cards didn't sing? He won't.

"Mommy, Joe needs a fancy hat, too."

Yeah, yeah I know - don't quit my day job.

An old lady across from us stopped me to say how C is so pretty and to forgive her for staring. C stared back :)

World's greatest grandparents = living 2 miles away from Chuck E. Cheese's ;)

She actually loved this, but I enjoy how it looks like she got motion sickness :) She's actually our brave one!

Fancy hat Joe

We love Uncle U, Auntie Karen and Cousin La-La!