A Dream Come True

After I posted about Genna's dream, a couple of days later, she called me over to show me this.

She was soooooo happy!  Drew has been in a much better mood this week and is back to behaving himself in Mass again.  He is such a keeper!  Today he is 15 months old.  He is signing a lot more these days.  The funny thing he does is when he is trying really hard to communicate something he will use all his signs together or even make up signs.  My most favorite new thing he learned is trying to do the sign of the cross by touching his head.  He is also blowing kisses to Jesus in Mass.

Genna's Best Dream Ever

Genna had the "best dream ever" and she wanted to tell me about it.  Turns out it was that Drew hugged her.  How sad is that?!  Drew pushes her away, usually with a shriek, when she tries to hug him.  To be fair, he does it to everyone except his daddy.  He hugs/cuddles Hannah sometimes because she plays with him and doesn't ever force it on him.  She is patient and gets the hugs more often.  I am trying to teach Genna and Isaac this. 

I found a way to trick Drew into kissing Genna on the cheek.  I blow a zurbit on her cheek and tell him to do the same.  He thinks this is a fun game and will comply.

Advent Comes Softly

Believe it or not, Advent decorations and activities did begin on time in our house despite the late appearance here on the blog. Granted the decorating has been an ongoing process.  We are finishing up school this week, and so next week I should be able to catch up a little at least. 

This year we are reading Jotham's Journey, which is an ongoing story, read daily, to build anticipation for Jesus' birth.  We are also doing the online Holy Heroes Advent Adventure which is free, by the way.  They send you emails everyday with a link to the activities and mini videos to show your kids.  One of the videos is the Jesse Tree ornament story.  This has been great because for the past few years Advent evenings have grown too long.  It is impossible to get the kids in bed by 7:30/8pm if the Advent stuff takes an hour, and you can forget about baths.  :)  This has been much more manageable for me.  The other evening activity they do this year are the Advent calendars and boxes.  The calendars are the store bought kind with the chocolate inside.  The boxes were a gift from Aunt Cindy and Uncle Frank last Christmas.  I filled them with random things, from candy to stickers, and even a few very small toys.  The boxes are super tiny, so it was hard to even find candy small enough for some of the boxes.

Here are the three Advent boxes for Hannah, Genna, and Isaac.  I'll be on the look out after Christmas for one on clearance for Drew next year.  This year, he couldn't care less.  He just likes to open and close the doors.

Brian got the lights up yesterday while the kids were at soccer practice.  We came home after dark and the kids were so excited to see our house all lit up.  Best daddy ever!  Today Brian came home early so we could get our tree before dark since our weekends are so full. 

Brian loves to pick out and cut his own tree, so we went back to Butler's Orchard like the last two years.  He is usually very decisive and picks a tree quickly.  I veto occasionally, but mostly don't care too much which one we pick.  This year we were much later in the season, and the field was a lot more picked over.  We walked around for a long time in 40 degree weather while the sun started setting.  I pushed for some tall thin trees, but he vetoed them and he finally settled on a very full, round tree.  He realized later that is was insanely heavy and the trunk was very thick compared to our normal trees.  I had to help him get it on the top of the car, not that I was much help.  Then it wouldn't fit into our tree base that we have had for so many years.  He ran to Walmart to get a bigger one, but...funny thing...the tree is too heavy and tips easily.  That sounds like the kind of tree we need with Drewzilla around, right?  No worries.  Tomorrow the gates will be up keeping the littles (namely Drew) away until Brian comes home with a more sturdy base.

In the car warming up while Brian tied the tree on the van, we sang their German song for the Christmas program.

St. Nicholas Day

 We do a big Saint Nicholas Day thing in our family.  This year Brian was able to go into work a tad later than usual and spend the early morning with us.  This may be the first time he has been home for it.  We had a great morning together.

The girls' stockings and a few extras- We got Hannah some slippers and Genna some new PJs.  Both of them got fuzzy blankets since they love to do school with blankets wrapped around them on cold days.  They also both got German mugs that I bought years ago when we lived in Germany, but was waiting until they were old enough to be responsible and not break them.

The boys' stockings and extras- The boys got a skutt bike (a 2 wheeled bike with no pedals, you use your balance to keep you up and your legs to "run" with) to share since Isaac will really only need this for a short while until he starts riding a regular bike, and Drew is not quite ready for it, but it shouldn't be long since he is such a go-getter.  Isaac also got a new helmet, so Drew can have his old one, and a transformer and Star Wars gun that dad picked out.  Drew got a light up bouncy ball and other balls.

In the girls' stockings, Brian sneaked in something extra...earrings! And a matching pair showed up in my stocking as well.

She wears the slippers all the time!

Little brother is stealing Isaac's stuff already.

Ice Cream Party: Part 2

Well, here it is finally!  The actual party.  We started out with an ice cream word search which bombed.  My thoughts were that I needed to keep the kids from taking off to play while waiting for everyone to arrive.  Apparently nobody likes word searches.  The birthday girl, herself, said this was the "low" of the party when I asked.  However, it did keep the kids in the party room which was the purpose.  I served the snack cups and cheese balls at this time.

Next we moved on to pin the cherry on the ice cream cone.  I forgot to get pictures of this, but I cut out and taped an ice cream cone to the wall and had a red puff ball for the cherry.  I blindfolded the girls and stuck tape to the puff ball (i.e. pom pom)  This was a fun activity, but it was so hard for that many kids to wait in line.  

Next we did the ice cream sundae bar where they got to make their own ice cream cone sundaes.  The toppings were a huge hit!  While some girls were eating, we started on the photo booth.  The girls loved this just like I thought they would.  Some of them kept going back to the end of the line for another funny pose.  Hannah made me super proud quietly and voluntarily going last for almost everything.  She also took care of the youngest girl and made sure to include her in everything.  Going last is not naturally easy for her, so I was especially proud for this reason. 

After that came THE hit of the party.  The hunt for the cherry at the bottom of a bowl covered in whip cream...with no hands.  I read about this on the internet somewhere and my first thought was, "In the house?"  I am not a huge fan of messes, but then I thought about it and remembered my Aunt Cindy and how her daughters always raved about the parties she threw.  The reason they were such hits was the crazy and messy games involving pies in the face and eating things without hands.  I decided that if this party was going to be memorable for Hannah I had to do it.  I don't have carpet to worry about.  What's the hold up?  It was so great and I think the parents enjoyed watching as much as the kids enjoyed digging their faces into the whip cream.

 You may have noticed that Genna cheated a bit at the end, so she was disqualified.  :)  She said that she had to pick up the bowl because it wouldn't stay still.  That's my Genna for you, never quite getting that that was the point of the game.

The faces were the best!  The real winner is in the brown here!

One dad even licked his daughter clean!  Hilarious!

Then Hannah opened her gifts.

Cake time came last since their tummies all needed to rest a bit.  In the end, it turned out few could brave a piece of cake.  That's okay, making it and looking at it was the fun for me, so it was still worth the effort.  The cake is my favorite part of every party, even though I really don't like to eat it myself.

This one's going to be hard to top!

Ice Cream Party: Part 1

As you may know, I love themes and really love birthday cakes too.  Hannah wanted a birthday party all about ice cream, and so that is just what I gave her.  This post will be all about the set up and the details of the party and a brief tutorial on the cake.  Next post will be about the actual party and all the fun.

I set up a photo booth for the kids to be silly and get their pictures taken.  I am printing them out and putting one in each Thank You card that Hannah writes.   I made this by painting and glittering styrofoam balls.  Then I cut paper and hot glued it onto the balls in a cone shape.  (The mini cone idea came from here.)  I used masking tape to get the ribbons and mini cones to stick to a disposable table cloth which I draped over our bookshelf.  The sash is made just like this one here that I found via Pinterest.  I just used the theme colors lime green, dark purple, and hot pink instead of a rainbow on.

The cake with real cones, but no ice cream in sight.  I found this picture of an ice cream cake for sale in California online, but I figured this wouldn't be too hard to do with real cake, and it wasn't.

Here is the mini tutorial (I say min because you have to have some cake baking and decorating knowledge to get this, I think.) on how I made the cake with my standard below average photographs.  I do not claim to be a photographer!

I used three 9" round pans to make the three layers.  I had to double the recipe for a bridal white cake and let the kids used half of one batch to make Hello Kitty muffins since I only needed one and a half recipes of cake.  (I made the cake layers on Friday and froze them until Sunday after Mass.  I made the double batch of butter-cream icing on Saturday and colored parts of it lime green and parts of it pink.  I stored it in the fridge.)  Then I put icing in between all the layers and trimmed them a bit to make it even.  Next was the white crumb layer.  After the crumb layer was on, I cut the cones in half with a freshly sharpened knife.  Best I was able to do was get half of every cone from crumbling.  Then you just stick them into the icing all the way around.

Aerial view- I used ten cone halves here.  Then I stuffed the cones with mini marshmallows so the icing wouldn't sag into the empty cones.  Using my largest round tip I piped the pink icing starting from the outside in a spiral shape to make it look like ice cream out of one of those machines.  Then I did the same thing with the green icing.

Next came the halved cone on top to give the spilled ice cream cone look.  I stuffed it with marshmallows too and put both colors of icing on it.  I made dots for the eight candles and did dots on the bottom for some trim.  I used every last drop of icing that I made.  Brian was running a couple of errands while I was finishing this up and I was this close to calling and asking for a tub of store bought icing so I didn't have to make a whole other batch of icing just to finish up, but I ended up just barely making it.

The way I do these cakes is similar to how I approach a sewing project.  I get a vision of how I can make something happen and then I just wing it.  The marshmallows were a last minute addition, but most of this cake went as planned out in my mind.  I always get nervous mid-cake and think it isn't going to pull together and I have definitely had my bombs, but this turned out just the way I hoped.

Here are the ice cream word-searches with the tissue paper ice cream cone that was to be both table decoration and photo booth prop.  The favors which were just ice cream poppers in a plastic gift baggie were hung up across the window.  This was so I wouldn't forget to hand them out.  It worked like a charm, the kids reminded me! 

Adorable idea here, I used Dixie cups with a ribbon tied around (which Hannah helped make possible) filled with veggies and cheese cubes.  I figured they would need something healthy with the sweets overload.  It made it easy and fast to serve the girls too.

Here's the whole food table.  I used the other half of the sash I made for the photo booth for this window.  I also hung pink and purple streamers a little differently this time.  I saw a lady who used fabric strips like this and I thought it was super cute, but I didn't have the time of money for that, so I improvised, but go check out the super cute fabric version here.

I saw this cuter version of this centerpiece and just threw it together as best I could.

Ice Cream Bar with Toppings

 Brian teased me a little about my food labels.  Called me Martha Stewart, as if it was an insult.  Come on!  Husband, don't you know that just makes me worse.  I have a real problem here...and it's name is PCD.  That's right, Pinterest Cumpulsive Disorder.  I knew this would happen if I took that step and set up that account.  I fully blame my cousin for this and take no responsibility for my own illness.

I dipped the waffle cones in melted chocolate and then sprinkles because what kid doesn't love sprinkles?

The adult spread was simple, a veggie tray, cheese log and crackers, and chocolate and cheese on the same tray because they are my very best friends and I wanted them to be close.

Oh my!  I guess recapping I realize how Pinterest has truly ruined me forever.  I split up a lot of stuff to do throughout the week before in the evenings.  Then I spent all of Saturday and all of Sunday (minus Mass) doing nothing but party stuff and a tad for Advent prep which is for another post.  But I got to say that the prep work was nothing compared to managing the party itself.  I am more of a behind the scenes person.  Running the show for a bunch of elementary girls is not my cup of tea.

Hannah, one day when you read this and you are all grown up, I hope you will realize that I think you deserved every bit of this party simply because I love you and you are special.  It was a lot of work, but you are worth every bit of it.

The Cutest Stinker I Know

Drew is such an individual!

Drew is a big daddy's boy still, and I know somebody who LOVES that.  Come to think of it, I know two somebodies.  It's kind of nice not to be the one with the baby hanging on my leg crying for me to pick him up, at least when dad's home anyway.

 Sorry, I have been so bad again with the blog.  This time I've got lots to update on, but no time to do it.  Today though was a big day for Drew and I and I wanted to take a moment and take note of it.  This morning he wanted a banana and milk more than to nurse so maybe he just weaned himself.  I was thinking of making the final break after the new year, but I guess if he is ready now then we'll just go with it.  He was only nursing first thing in the morning anyway.

He appears to be a lover of Aggie football too.  Another plus for daddy.

 Another notable thing for Drew is his molars seem to be on their way which has given way to the crankies and some trouble falling asleep.  Genna was my only other baby whose sleep was affected by molars coming in.  I was planning to post soon about Drew's improvement in his mass behavior, but the recent crankies have set us back a little again.  He was listening and staying by me quietly all last week, but this week has been taken out a few times for parts due to screams of protest.  The crankies also totally embarrassed me at the post office the other day when they reared their ugly head in an excessively long line.  I handle this much better than I did when it was baby Hannah throwing a tantrum in public.  I used to be convinced I was an awful mother, now I know it happens to everyone with every kid at least once.  However, a different paranoid thought crossed my mind these days when my baby turns into the noisiest spaghetti I've ever seen on the floor of the post office.  Everyone in line must be thinking, "If her kids act like that, "why does she keep having more?"  I hope that's not true, but in this day and age, where human life is often given so little value, I can see it being the case.  I was so glad to get out of the post office because not only was Drew being a toot, but it was so hot in there since we are having a heat wave in December for some reason and silly me had us all dressed for an actual winter.  All in all, I am not sure that that book of stamps to pay the homeowner's association bill was worth all that.

So as not to end on a bad note for my cutie pie...

Nothin' but sweet, clean chubs!

...because I sure do love him and all the spunk and danger he brings to our family.  We wouldn't bet the same without him, probably be raising a bunch of wusses.  Just today Drew helped me teach Isaac to defend himself (in a loving way, of course) against an armed (with a stick) and dangerous baby on the loose.  Better to learn this at home with his baby brother than out in the real world with Brutus the Bully, right?