Birthday week

Cate's birthday is coming up on Wednesday, so we kicked off birthday week with her party on Friday evening. We invited a few friends from her old school and a few from church to a party at a carousel in one of the Topeka parks. After the evening was done, I asked Cate what was her favorite thing about her party. She said, "Everything." Mission accomplished.
We decorated the room in pink and green.
This was the table with the party favors, a small candy buffet and Cate's princess birthday cake.
Our small, yet popular, candy buffet: pink and green M&Ms, pink and green jelly beans, Starbust packets wrapped in pink paper and pink and green lollipops. We had pink and green sacks for the kids to fill with candy and take home. I'm sure the parents were loving it :)
As the kids were coming in, we had them work on prince and princess crowns. Here is Cate making good use of the glue stick.
One key to kid party success: lots of balloons. Even little brothers like pink balloons.
The carousel rides were a hit with everyone. The ride lasts four and half minutes!
Blowing out the candles on the birthday cake.
Loving the chocolate cake and oreo cookie ice cream. The ice cream was delicious and I owe some credit to Stephen's mom for the idea. I mixed on gallon of vanilla ice cream, one container of Cool Whip and a whole package of oreo cookies, ground up in the food processor. It was so good....I made a second kind too :) Vanilla ice cream, cool whip and nutter butters. Yum.
After they were done making crowns, riding the carousel, eating dinner, eating cake and ice cream, opening presents, riding the carousel and getting candy treats (whew!), everyone went outside to burn off the last of their energy on the playground.

Backyard Paradise

We spent Sunday afternoon with Stephen's parents in Olathe. In addition to fixing lunch, they set up a little water park in the backyard for the kids, complete with a slip 'n slide, baby pool and sprinkler. I think a good time was had by all.

Bubble Man

Keaton is learning new words very quickly. He had nearly doubled his vocabulary in the past couple of weeks. Items in the current word count:
Mama (my personal favorite)
Dada
Doggie
Night Night
Hi
Bubble
Bye
That
Ball

I discovered last week that he could say bubbles and it's really cute. He says it more like "buboo" and puts a lot of emphasis on the second syllable. Stephen and Cate took a little trip to Kansas City together last weekend, so Keaton and I blew bubbles outside so I could listen to him say buboo about a hundred times. I loved it.

Chillin' at home, blowing some bubbles on the back porch.

Craziness

Stephen was gone on Wednesday evening, so I picked up the kids and we hung out at home. Usually, dinnertime at our house is a little hectic to say the least. Keaton devours any food in front of him in roughly three minutes, so by the time we've all sat down to eat, he's finished and asking for more. Once we've put more food on Keaton's high chair tray, Cate is usually ready for more food or beverage, whining because she doesn't like the food and/or beverage or yelling something at the top of her lungs. Mallory is always stationed about three inches from my foot, waiting for someone to drop some tasty morsel on the floor, and right in the perfect spot for causing a major accident when I trip over her. In the mean time, Stephen and I are trying to grab a couple bites of food and keep our sanity.

So on Wednesday evening, I was expecting all this craziness times two since I was on my own. But to my surprise.....the kids were angels. They were both happy when I picked them up, waited patiently while I fixed dinner and made polite babbling and/or conversation through the whole meal. We had baths for everyone and made it into bed on schedule.

I thought maybe we had turned a corner.

On Thursday evening, things started to look bad right about 5pm when I picked up Keaton. He was crying when I picked him up and cried pretty much the entire trip to Cate's school. Cate was reluctant to leave her preschool because she was in the middle of computer time when I got there. I had to drag her out of the building to get her into the car. At home, they both cried and generally made things difficult all through dinner. When we got upstairs around bath time, Cate went into the bathroom and refused to let any of us in. As she was pushing the door shut to keep all of us out, Keaton was toddling up and down the hall, trying his best to get a clear shot to the top of the stairs. He seems very interested in throwing himself down the stairs if we would just give him the opportunity.

Finally, Cate opened the door to the bathroom just a crack and Keaton pushed his way in. I scrambled down the hallway into the bathroom to see what they were doing and walked in just as Keaton was giving his stuffed Elmo a little dunk in the toilet.

Fun times.

VBS

Cate and Keaton spent last week in Olathe with Mimi and Pop Pop (Stephen's parents). They were joined by their cousin Quentin and I know the three of them enjoyed a myriad of activities ranging from blueberry picking to regular McDonald's lunches. In addition to all the daytime fun, Cate and Quentin went to vacation bible school on the weekday evenings.

Stephen and I went over for their program, which was cute, and concluded with cookies and Koolaid (I think the most popular part for the kids). Cate always gets really shy when we are watching her, particularly if we are close by. I had the best plan for getting some video of their program, but it was derailed when she stopped participating! For someone who loves being the center of attention, she has a tendency to get a little nervous in front of an audience.