Since I was busy running around like a chicken with her head cut off, I didn’t get too many pictures from the weekend, but here are the best of the few that I did take:

They are building a new house just a few lots down from ours.  Lots of dust around here lately, so Saturday afternoon I moved the porch furniture to the front lawn to spray it with the hose and give it a good wipe down.  It looked so inviting sitting there in front of The Bean that I just had to take a picture.  I’d like to tell you that I then proceeded to grab a glass of lemonade and a good book and sit for a nice long while, but alas, that did not happen.  Instead, my photo shoot was pleasantly interrupted by this little lady who wanted some attention…

I just love taking pictures of my girls.  Can you believe Lydia climbed up into the chair all by herself?  She totally surprised me with that one.  I know it’s such a cliche thing to say, but they really do grow up too fast.

Friday afternoon I was contemplating the best way to serve s’mores at Peter’s party, when the most brilliant plan occurred to me.  (Okay, so it’s not like I managed to invade Troy in a large wooden horse, but I think this idea is a pretty good one too.)  I’ve had this old 7up bottle crate from my grandmother’s basement sitting in my garage for a while now and it turns out it makes the perfect s’more tray.  Toss the marshmallows into clear cups, cut the top couple inches off the plastic graham cracker sleeve, throw them each into a square along with assorted chocolate bars and you’ve got yourself a cute, organized and easy to carry to the fire s’more buffet!

And last but certainly not least, I had to share this picture of Alethea helping Peter blow out his birthday candles.  It just melts my heart!

Happy belated Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!  Hope your day was great!

Time to head outside and enjoy the goodie bags from Alethea’s party…

Hope your day was perfect too!

Here’s how the cake table turned out:

A friend of mine made these beautiful cupcakes for the party.  They were amazingly delicious and made for a cute display on the tiered tray I borrowed from her, wrapped with ribbons and topped with a bee I cut out of one of the dessert plates.

Alethea made the coated pretzels herself using some pretzel rods dipped into yellow dyed almond bark.  She did such a good job that every last one of them was gone by the end of the party.

I put together a photo display on the console table behind the couch in the living room highlighting a few of my favorite Alethea moments from this past year.

Peter rolled his eyes when he saw me wrapping the silverware.  A little over the top?  Maybe, but I’m justifying it by imagining that it made it just a tad easier for everyone filling their plates.

I couldn’t resist getting Alethea this bumblebee pillowcase dress I found on Etsy.  It made me a little nervous when Alethea repeated declined any interest in wearing it prior to the party, but when the day arrived she willingly donned her dress.  Buzzzz!

The first order of party business was to eat lunch.  We kept it simple with hot dogs and brats on the grill with easy sides like chips and fruit.  The kids thought it was perfect party cuisine.

Alethea had a lot of fun opening presents.  She got some great clothes, lots of outdoor toys like chalk and bubbles, some stuff for playing dress up, a cute wooden microwave, as well as more clothes and a swing for her baby doll.

Her favorite present though was the trike from Mommy and Daddy.  After stuffing Lullaby and Dee into the basket, she promptly climbed aboard to pedal her way around the kitchen and down the hall.

Alethea probably would have been happy to spend the rest of the party on her trike, but she did get off long enough to blow out her birthday candles…

… and to devour her cupcake.

Alethea wasn’t the only one who liked the cupcakes; Lydia enjoyed hers as well.

At the end of the party, each child went home with a little goody bag filled with bee themed delights – stickers, bubbles, a party blower and a big yellow sucker (Alethea’s requirement).

All in all, I’d say it was a perfect 3rd Bee-day celebration.

Thanks for buzzing over!

My one and only baby,

Be my, be my baby,

Be my baby now, whoa-oh-oh-oh,

I’ll make you happy, baby, just wait and see

For every kiss you give me, I’ll give you three

Oh, since the day I saw you,

I have been waiting for you,

You know I will adore you…

’til eternity

Happy 3rd birthday, Alethea Margaret!!!

We love you so much!

Hugs and kisses,

Mommy & Daddy

]]> http://bobbleheadbaby.com/?feed=rss2&p=2275 2 http://bobbleheadbaby.com/?p=2263 http://bobbleheadbaby.com/?p=2263#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:14:27 +0000 Elise http://bobbleheadbaby.com/?p=2263 Someone in our house can now climb to the top of the basement slide ALL BY HERSELF and then goes down the slide ALL BY HERSELF.

Gives Mommy a little heart attack every time she does it.

However, we did recently have a pretty spectacular cheap parenting moment.

Everyone, I’d like to you meet…

Our new backyard playground!  (Deluxe Rainbow play system, this is not.)

When we moved in, this spot in our yard was supposed to be a rain garden.  However, the house having been vacant for nearly a year previous to our purchasing it, the rain garden had essentially become a weed garden.

This is a picture from 2010.  Lovely, isn’t it?

Anyway, a couple years ago we dug up all of the worthwhile vegetation and planted it elsewhere thinking we’d make this into a fire pit area.  The front yard landscaping ended up taking priority though, so we kinda let the fire pit idea go, which might not have been the most brilliant plan, because weedy area, minus the few good plants holding things back, equals SUPER weedy area.  So this year before the weeds could get out of hand again, Peter decided to put a tarp down over everything.  And since we needed something to hold the tarp in place, we figured we’d use what we already had on hand to make it a little play area, just for this year (hopefully).

And what did we have on hand?  Well, that brings us back to our cheap parenting moment.  We had a found-by-the-side-of-the-road Little Tykes play structure and an also-found-by-the-side-of-the-road turtle sandbox.  Uh, huh, that’s right.  Someone actually left this beauty out for the taking.

I’m not exactly sure how the whole cheap-parent point system works.  Anyone know if we qualify for some bonus points since our turtle doesn’t even have his eyes anymore?

Naturally, the girls think their new play area is the best thing ever.  Alethea is always begging to play in the backyard now.  And Lydia?  Well, she gets her ‘I’m big stuff’ face every time we help her climb up into the play structure.

I have to admit, seeing grins like that for the price of a tarp and a little manual labor, makes me think I should try the cheap parenting thing more often.  Makes me and my checking account feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

But where’s the fun in that?!

So, this year, with much excitement, I prepared for my girls’ first annual egg dyeing event.  Being the mess-a-phobe that I am, I was a little concerned about the project, but then I found a terrific tip on Pinterest – instead of using spoons to move the eggs in and out of the dye, put the egg into a wire whisk.  The whisk forms a little protective cage around the egg so that your toddler can swish and dip and take the egg in and out to their heart’s content!

Thanks to that little tip, Alethea absolutely loved egg dyeing, because she could do it all by herself.  She kept saying, “Another egg, please!”

As you can see, she took her task quite seriously…

I think we’ll probably use the wire whisk technique for years to come.  It’s virtually fool-proof, as long as your child understands that the goal is to keep the egg in the water.  If, however, your child for some reason thinks that it is more fun to dip the egg into purple dye and then madly wave the dye covered egg/whisk combo around in the air, the egg will still be unharmed, but be prepared to wash purple spots out of your husband’s favorite blue jeans.

Poor Lydia had her egg dyeing privileges revoked after just one egg and was downgraded to an empty plastic cup with eggless whisk.  Oh well, there’s always next year, Sweetheart!

In the end we had a dozen pretty eggs to complete my Easter centerpiece.  And yes, I did a bit of experimenting with the food coloring, but I think my favorite egg of the day was Alethea’s first yellow one that she worked on for a long time.

I guess maybe Grandma was right after all… the plain bright ones are the best!

Guess who was so excited about it all that she actually asked to have her picture taken with the box….

It’s Alethea, the birthday girl to bee, of course!

After we arrived, we got our rental car, picked up a pack ‘n’ play from Peter’s cousin’s house and then headed to my aunt’s house in Tacoma to get settled in.  We had dinner at a fun restaurant in Puyallup called the Powerhouse.  The building was constructed as a power substation for the Puget Sound Electric Railway in 1907.  Good food, cool atmosphere.  We recommend it.

Alethea didn’t eat much though, and we discovered why shortly after we arrived back at my aunt’s place.  “I need to throw  up,” she told me as I was getting the girls ready for bed.  And thus began the worst night of vacation ever that involved not one, but two sick little girls, multiple bedding changes and not much sleep.  Uggg…. “Tomorrow will be better,” I kept telling myself.

Sunday morning came and the girls were done being sick, so that was good.  The weather was overcast, but not pouring rain, also good, so we decided to try Point Defiance Park.  We originally thought we might visit the zoo there, but Alethea was fairly adamant that she didn’t want to go.  Keeping in mind the $30 in wasted admission fees that preceded our disastrous tour of the Nashville Zoo on our last vacation, we nixed the zoo plan and went for the free Owen Beach instead.

Owen Beach, Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA

The beach was nice.  Gorgeous scenery.  I’m sure with better weather we could have stayed all day, but it was in the low 40s and we hadn’t brought mittens for the girls, so once they got whiny, we decided to try to find lunch.  At first Alethea balked at the idea of another restaurant, but finally she conceded that if we could find a quiet place that served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she’d be okay.  A quick consultation with our GPS revealed that we were less than two miles from a place called the Antique Sandwich Co.  I pulled out my cell phone and with a brief call confirmed that they indeed served PB&J.   On the ride over, we wondered what parents on vacation used to do before Garmin and iPhone and crossed our fingers that the Antique Sandwich would be quiet enough for Alethea’s taste.

It was perfect!  Not only was it quiet, with PB&J on the menu, but it had a stage that was covered in toys!  The girls played happily while we waited for our food and then we dug in.  Alethea didn’t eat much again, but Lydia thought the gourmet peanut butter with all natural raspberry jam was pretty doggone good.

Antique Sandwich Co, Tacoma, WA

After lunch we headed back to my aunt’s house for some much needed naps.  That evening we ate at my aunt’s house and got to visit with my aunt and uncle, as well as my Grandma Frances who lives with them.  We were really glad to be able to see them and for my grandmother to get to spend some time with the girls.  Although I enjoyed visiting with my family, I sensed that Alethea wasn’t having a blast.  “Tomorrow will be better,” I told her, “We’ll do something really fun!”

Monday arrived rainy and cold.  That further cemented our initial plan, which was to visit the Children’s Museum in downtown Tacoma.  After talking it up to Alethea and telling her how much fun it was going to be and how there were going to be lots of things for her to play with, we drove downtown, found a place to park and walked over to the museum, through the front doors, only to discover that one feature of the museum we hadn’t known about was Member’s Only Mondays.  Groan!  After declining to purchase a $100 annual membership, we headed back out into the rain, to make the six block trek to the History Museum.  Alethea decided to punish us at that point by refusing to be carried, so we trudged slowly down the sidewalk, to arrive at the State History Museum’s locked doors marked “Closed Mondays”.  To make a long story short, Peter ended up carrying a screaming Alethea eight blocks through the rain back to the car, where we buckled in two screaming girls and drove to a playground where we mused over the fact that we’d spent a bunch of money on plane tickets to find ourselves on a wet playground in 40 degree weather while our friends back home basked in an un-Minnesota-like 70s and sun.  “Next year, we’re doing Florida,” we agreed.

The one bright spot on Monday happened that evening.  It really was wonderful watching my grandmother play with the girls.  She truly enjoyed them and I’m so glad they got to see her.

Alethea, Lydia and Great Grandma Frances

Monday was our last day in Tacoma.  “Let’s get an early start,” said Peter that evening. “I’ve checked on everything we want to do in downtown Seattle and it’s all open on Tuesdays, so if we get packed up fast enough we can visit the aquarium and then spend some time walking around Pike Place Market.”

“Sounds good,” I replied.  “Tomorrow has got to be better…”