Happy 3rd Birthday, RUS!!

We celebrated RUS's 3rd birthday with a weekend in the Poconos with Grammie and Grampie. Here are the kids waking up in the morning, ready to open presents. Can you just see the excitement radiating off their faces?

GUESS WHAT! It's BOB THE BUILDER!!!!!!!!!!

And he got a castle that has a dragon's head that comes down and shoots wheels out of its mouth. Oh my gosh. The kids both love this thing! There's also an ogre (you can see it right behind the castle in the picture below) that talks to the castle--I can't remember what the ogre says--probably just arrgh, and the castle talks back, saying, "We're under attack!" and stuff like that.

After lunch, we had cupcakes!

and here's RUS wearing a fire hat he got on his card from GiGi and PopPop, telling us how old he is with both of his hands

 And my very favorite picture of the birthday boy!! He was so excited to have a birthday, I love it.

Happy 34th Birthday, J!

J turned 34 this month. We had two celebrations, one with J's parents on Friday and another with my parents when they came in town for the weekend. Here we are getting ready to have J blow out the candles on the awesome chocolate peanut butter cake J's dad made for him.

And here we are with my parents enjoying cupcakes my parents brought from the West Side Market as well as cupcakes J and R picked out at SAS (a local fancy cupcake place we really like).

Unfortunately SAS is "refining" their vegan cupcake recipe so they're not selling vegan cupcakes for the time being, so J is blowing out a candle on a non-vegan cupcake that, obviously, he couldn't eat. Boo. He still enjoyed opening presents--I got him a Harry Potter lego set and a vegan crockpot cookbook and he got a new belt from his parents and some really nice clothes from my parents.

I just have to brag about the invitations I made for RUS's birthday party

R and I had so much fun making these cards with stamps I ordered from Stampin' Up as we planned RUS's robot-themed birthday party. I just wanted to brag about them a little bit here, a little late, I know. Oh well!

RUS's Botday Party

 The set up! We ordered subs from an amazing local sub place, baked cake, and had pretzels, candy corn, and (later) sliced apples. Apple cider to drink.

 Close up of the cake.

(in case you're wondering, "10" is 2 in binary. Thank J for that one.

We had some crafts for the kids. Here, we wrapped up various boxes and containers and attached velcro so kids could make their own robots . . . 

and then decorate them!

 We also cut arm holes in paper bags and let the kids color and stamp on them so they could dress up like robots.

 Here's the gang decorating. This was the activity R was most excited about!

 RUS went to town with the pretzels. He refused to take this one out of his mouth, so I have about 10 pictures of him with a pretzel sticking out just like that.

 Always important to get some book-reading done during parties.

 Now, it's time for CAKE!

And here's my birthday boy!! He LOVED his cake! R had to help me blow out the candles, though, since RUS really only wants to blow through his nose (this is how he cools down his oatmeal in the mornings, too) and it wasn't particularly effective at getting the candles blown out.

Happy 2nd Birthday, RUS!!!

RUS has been having a great run for his 2nd birthday! His daycare class had donuts at school on his birthday, and apparently, he was so excited about it that he woke up early from nap, started singing "Happy Birthday to ME!" really loudly, and woke up the rest of the kids. I bet the teachers loved that.

Then today Grammie and Grampie came over and RUS opened his family presents. It was like Christmas--seriously! Here are some photos and video of the extravaganza tonight.

Tomorrow's his party--we're having Grammie and Grampie as well as some family friends and daycare friends over, and we're all pretty excited although the prep has been quite a bit of work.

Tomorrow is RUS's Birthday

Over the last few weeks we've been talking with RUS about his birthday. He's in denial that he's going to be 2.

If you tell him his birthday is coming up, he says, "NOOOOOOO!"

If you say, "Are you going to be TWO on your birthday?" he very firmly and adamantly tells you, "ONE!"

If you persist in telling him he's going to be two and try to get him excited about it, he will tell you, "NO! ONE, MOMMY, ONE!"

On another note, when his daycare teachers asked him what he was going to bring for his birthday, he said, "POTPIE!"

Hmm. Probably not potpie. But he didn't stop talking about potpie so J made him potpie tonight as his birthday meal (since I won't be home tomorrow until after he's already in bed). He ate more dinner than I've seen him eat in a long, long time. He likes potpie.

I hope he won't be too disappointed when his class gets donuts instead of potpie tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Li'l T!!

Li'l T is THREE today!!!! Happy birthday, big guy!!!! Here are a few birthday wishes!

R's 4th Birthday Party!

R had a lovely 4th birthday party. She got a new fancy party dress from Grandma and Grandpa and J and I got the yard and porch all decked out for the party, with the alligator blow-up pool and slides, sprinkler pool, sprinkler, and tiny pink baby pool.
R very specifically requested Princess cupcakes and Spiderman cupcakes, because we had invited all of her day care classmates and, well, some of them are boys. And "boys don't like princesses. Boys like Spiderman." So this is what I came up with:
When her friends started arriving, she was so excited!!!!
Here's RUS fresh from his nap. I'm not sure he's quite awake yet in this picture.
It's so great to have my parents come in town for R's birthday parties. She absolutely eats up all the attention, of course, and I love having my mom at events that I host.
This is the table of grandparents! The woman in the pink shirt is one of my closest friends here in Delaware, and she's R's "honorary" grandma. She has a granddaughter of her own, whose name also starts with "R." It's such a good letter, isn't it?
Grandmas!!!
This year, as last year, one of the big hits was the craft table. J found these really easy craft kits--airplanes, monsters, and crowns & wands--on clearance at Target so we snapped up a whole bunch of them and just dumped them all out on the table for the kids. They LOVED it. Here's R decorating her crown while taking a break from the water fun.
We served pizza and then I brought the cupcakes out for everyone to eat. The princess ones were a huge hit.
Here's R with her cupcake after blowing out the candles.
And then her friends crowded around to watch her open presents. I know a lot of people don't like opening presents at kids' parties but I really think her friends enjoyed it. I wouldn't have minded if we waited until after the party to open them but R was antsy to open them and all the other kids (who weren't still playing in the water & sand) seemed really interested in it.

Introducing Mary Rose

One of the biggest hits of R's birthday was this gift from Grandma and Grandpa (although there were a lot of big hits, to be honest with you--more pictures and updates will be coming up!)

Anyway, here's R opening up the big box--what's in it?
It's a doll!!!! "She looks like me!" R just stared at her lovingly for about five minutes. It was so cute.
Grandma and Grandpa had also found a dress for R that came with a dress for the doll. I cannot even tell you how happy this made R. She was so in love. Here she is posing with the doll, who has been named Mary Rose. I'm sure everyone can see where that name came from. Note that R has even put in her own headband to match Mary Rose's, and they both have leggings on underneath their dresses.