Maysie is 3 - part two

Here is a bunch more pictures from Maysie's party... These first 2 were omitted from the last post... oops. Sorry!

Camden was running around everywhere, when he wasn't a Mr. Grumpy Pants. He loves being outside and he loves attention. He was able to get plenty of both.





This one of my nephew Brian just made me laugh. He is such a goof-ball!



Now were on to part two... :) The rest of the pictures are of Maysie opening presents and of her cake and stuff... She is so spoiled by everyone, and had quite a few gifts. Of course, when ever gifts are involved, their is a mass of kids right in the action so we had a hard time getting good pictures. :) This is Maysie opening a gift that turned out to be a Strawberry Shortcake lunch box thing that was full of all things awesome. It was totally fit for Maysie.

Look, more money mom... By the end of the night Maysie racked up another 6 dollars to add to her piggy bank. :)

This present was x-tra big and she ended up needing help just to get it out of the bag. With help from Ayshia and Kaylee, it turned out to be a princess pop up tent. - So Fun!

Ta Da!

And more presents!

This one is of a bunch of pre school workbooks and some # flash cards to help her with her pre school this next fall.

This is the gift from G-ma Noni (my mom).... I had to help her read the card, which of course was classic and fit her to a T. For those of you that know my mom, her trademark is always a homemade card. This year the card read, "Princess Maysie is turning 3 on June 19! She is the sweetest girl in the whole kingdom." Then you open it up and it says, "Happy Birthday, Maysie! From your Royal Gr-ma Noni" Ha ha. This got a good chuckle out of all the adults!

And now a gift from Mom and Dad a Camden...

drum roll please..................................Jammie's!

Maysie's main gift this year was a "big girls bike". She has been wanting one forever so she can ride and play with the neighbor boys, but we wanted to wait. We bought it a while ago and was saving it for when she was completely potty trained - yes, we're still trying to do that - but we are about 98% finished with that task and figured we might as well get full use out of it this summer. She was so excited and clapped for joy when she saw it. Rob was trying to be sneaky and put it right behind her seat without her knowing it.... This is a picture of her trying to navigate around her chair to get to it.

Yep, she was happy!

This picture was actually taken the next morning, but I wanted to add it here because it fit better. When she first got on it, she tried to pedal backwards, but of course she got the brakes instead. She insisted to Rob that it was broken and she needed a new one... I think she is so used to her tricycle. After we explained it to her that on a big girls bike you only pedal backwards to stop, she was satisfied with the bike and she began to really ride it. :) She took to riding her bike really fast and does really well on it. In fact she only fell off a couple of times because she was going in her words 'really REALLY fast' and would turn too sharp where she would tip. It didn't stop her much because after a minute, she would be right back up her bike trying again. Now all she wants to do is be outside so she can ride her bike. I have a feeling that that is all we will be doing this summer. :)

Did you get dizzy yet? :)

This year Maysie was very particular on her cake. She found the picture and told me exactly how it needed to be, my only delima was on figuring out how to add the Strawberry Shortcake princess to it since that was her main request. After much thought, I finally settled on a computer printout on some cardboard, and card stock and stuck it on there with the help of Chutes and Ladder game pieces. Earlier in the week, I took Maysie to the store and let her pick out her cake mixes.... this year she settled on the Strawberry kind (because it was pink - her favorite color) and Funfetti (because she thought it looked pretty. LOL :) On Thursday morning Maysie and I made all the different tiers of the cake so that they would have plenty of time to cool.... Maysie was so excited that her birthday was so close that she had a hard time waiting. About half way through the day, I checked on the cakes to see how well they were cooling and discovered little pieces taken out of all 3 cakes.... Yep, it was from some eager little fingers. But at least she shared with her brother because I found evidence of cake on his shirt too. :) Luckily I could just trim off the edges so I wouldn't have to start from scratch again. It only took me and Maysie about an hour and a half to decorate it. Maysie enjoyed eating the trimmed pieces and sampling the candy where she politely told me that it was Delicious! Ha ha. That was the first time I have ever heard her say that word. When it was all decorated, Maysie told me it was the bestest cake ever and just like she wanted. I was so glad I had the seal of approval from the birthday girl. :)

Maysie with her cake.

Happy Birthday to you....

Making a wish and ready to blow out the candles. (She actually had to blow them out twice because Rob was so caught up in the moment that he forgot to push the record button on the camcorder the 1st time.) She did however get all the candles out together in one blow. A big improvement since last year. :)

We had a wonderful night filled with great company with our family. Maysie was on cloud 9 the whole time and eating up all the attention. Everyone said that they had a really fun time which made me feel like all my hard work really paid off. I am so glad that this is all over, but Maysie is already asking about her birthday for next year.... I told her she had to wait until after my birthday at least before she could even consult me about it. LOL. It might be a long year for her to wait but I for one am glad that birthday's only come around once a year.

Maysie is 3! - part 1

Happy Birthday to my sweet, precious, huggable, lovable, curious, energetic, funny, sweet, cute, smart and adorable Maysie! I can't believe that another year has already passed us by and I can believe that it has been 3 years since this amazing child has came into our family. This year we chose to celebrate her birthday early because Rob had to work and with it falling on Father's Day and all we felt it would be better to use a different day. This year we let her have her very 1st real party. We still just stuck to family members but we did branch out alittle bit more than the norm and had some of her cousins that are around her age that isn't part of Rob's mom's family come too. We had an awesome turnout (17 kids or so) and pretty much everyone came that we invited. Since we had to have her party on a Friday, we had to have it late enough so the parents could come too... so it happened to be right around dinner time. We decided it would be alot easier to just feed everyone than to try and plan a 9 am birthday party on a Saturday, (I for one like to sleep in on Saturdays if at all possible) so we just had a simple dinner of hot dogs (and hamburgers) with watermelon and chips. It was totally a kids favorite meal - or maybe just mine. ;) Because it was such a busy - crazy day, and I have a ton of pictures of it, I decided to break up her party into 2 different posts to keep my own sanity. So I'll post some today and I'll try to get the other done tomorrow. Maysie is a huge Strawberry Shortcake fan and this is the theme she had chosen for her party. The only problem was is that it couldn't be just "any" Strawberry Shortcake, it had to be the princess version which is pretty much non-existent in party stores so I ended up getting alot of ideas off of eBay and doing things myself to save money. All in all, I am glad I could give her the party of her dreams, but I am so relieved that it is all over. So here is some pictures of the first part of the the party: beware there is alot, so if your computer crashes, I warned you! :)

Luckily for us, Grandpa Merlin was able to stop by for alittle while right as the party kicked off. Here is a picture of him and my cute niece Katherine where they are chillackin on the swing where they are waiting for the burgers and dogs to roast!

We had a huge turnout, which resulted in people everywhere! Luckily for us, the weather was in our favor contrary to the weatherman's predictions and we were able to hold the party outside. Here is a picture of my sister-in-law Janae (Rob's deceased little brother's wife) and her 2 little kiddo's Heather and Jerrod. They were making due with the lack of seating in our back yard and enjoying their dinner on the steps of our deck.

Here is the birthday girl herself, and my niece Jordynn enjoying their hot dogs and watermelon on the cute little kid size picnic table my sister Sandi gave to us. Thanks Sandi - LOVE it! :)

Maysie being a ham and posing for the camera!

Maysie and her cute chip face! :)

When all the kids got done eating, we started the games. First up was the potato sack race. I only had 5 pillow cases so we had to break the kids up into different groups, which actually worked out awesome because then we could keep the kids into the same age / height ratio's as much as possible to give everyone a fair shot. The older kids had alot of fun with this and were really competitive; the little kids on the other hand had a hard time jumping and holding their pillowcase up at the same time. :)


Here is Maysie ready to start her turn.

She just stood at the starting line hugging the pillow case tight around her and watched the other kids race. :) Luckily, Daddy came to the rescue and helped her jump to the finish line.

As you can tell, alot of the little kids needed the help, but they were really excited to participate! :) Here is a picture of a bunch of my nieces and Maysie of course!

Round # 2 for Maysie went about the same as the first time. Rob was preoccupied with Camden or maybe it was the video camera, so Grandma came to the rescue and helped her to the finish line.

Here is all the cheerleaders waiting behind the finish line. :)

This picture is out of order I think, but it was the only one I have for some reason of this game.... This is game # 3 that we played which is our variation of pin the tail on the donkey. We called it stick the jewel on the crown. :) This was a game I found on eBay but they wanted like $5.00 and then shipping for it... I said no way, so I found a cute poster board and then drew/colored on the picture of Strawberry Shortcake the princess version. My intentions is to put this in Maysie's bedroom afterwards to match her other Strawberry Shortcake poster she has, (although that is the original version and not the princess version). This was a pain to do, and time consuming, but it turned out ok and at least it is recognizable to everyone - which is most important - right! :) The kids were so funny with this game. The older kids would feel for the previous contestants stickers but for some reason they would still place it way off the majority of the time. My nieces Ambree and Julia were the closest, but everyone made a good effort and we all had a good laugh with the sticker placements! :)

Ok, here is game #2 that we played. We played musical chairs - but there was no way I had enough chairs for everyone so we used wash rags instead. (Don't worry, they were clean - and I was blessed with and over abundance of wash rags from my wedding). We had to play this game in the front yard because we realized that we didn't have any way to play music for it if we were in the back - so we just used the front yard and Rob played DJ while sittin' in our awesome car! :) You know, were cool like that! :) I'm sure all of our neighbors were laughing their heads off by watching a ton of kids running in circles in our front yard. I had to laugh though because when Rob started with the first song it happened to be some church music blaring though the speakers..... luckily I got him the correct CD that is appropriate for the occasion - Disney songs. :) There is nothing better than watching kids play musical chairs while rockin' out to the tunes from the Lion King and Tarzan. This was a huge hit with all the kids (I was surprised that the big kids even loved it) and my cute little 3 year old nephew Jerrod told my sister in law that this was the best party ever and we play the funnest games. It was so cute because when a little kid got out, then they would run up to me and tell me that they needed another rag so they could play. :) Ha ha.. Luckily everyone was having fun so we let them have it a few times.

Here is the final 2, my nephews Spencer and Charles battling it out for the title of Musical Rags Extraordinaire. They were running in circles so fast that it made me dizzy just to watch them. In the end Spencer came out on top.

Here is a fun picture of Camden and Willy goofing off. Camden loves it when Willy does this to hm. (I told you that this kid doesn't have much fear.)

We passed out little party favors as a "Thank-You for coming" thing. Here is my niece Heather showing us the favors: some star sunglasses, noise maker thing-a-ma jigs, and playdoh! We gave them the bag of goodies right before we did the pinata so they had something to put their candy in.

Here is Camden right as we were getting ready to do the pinata. He was either wanting to play too, or just wanting Rob. My guess is the latter of the two. This little guy didn't get a nap all day and he pretty much just wanted his dad and no one else the whole night. :)

We let Maysie try to break the pinata first, we have alot of pictures of this so I'll spare you them and just post the ones of Maysie. After Maysie's turn, then we let the other kids try starting from youngest to oldest. The kids 5 and under didn't have to get blindfolded but the older kids had to be blindfolded. We had to make it somewhat difficult, right. SO.... Rob was the one who would pull the string up and down making it hard for the kids to really hit it. We almost made it through all the kids before it broke though. I think there was only 2 or 3 kids left so it actually went pretty good. (By the way, the cupcake was the closest thing I could find to go with our Strawberry Shortcake theme at the party stores we went to.... I was originally thinking of a giant strawberry, but we could only get it online, but this cupcake was super cute for a pinata)

All the games seemed to be a huge hit for the kids and it made me feel good because it wasn't the easiest task trying to find games that could entertain kids of various age groups. Over all, I think that all my planning seemed to be a great hit and it all went well for what I originally thought was an almost impossible party theme. :)

Jumpin Fool

Camden is growing by leaps and bounds and is becoming such a little busy body lately. He is just starting to get to that point where he climbs on everything and of course he is so proud of his accomplishments. One of his new favorite things is to "jump" on the little trampoline. Technically it is more like some serious head banging that he does but he does add a little bit of a bounce to it - his feet just never seem to make it off the ground. I'm pretty sure it is because he is such a chunky little thing. :)

(Maysie is just getting ready to join Camden on the tramp. I think she was just jealous because I was taking pictures without her in them :) )

He loves to jump when Maysie is jumping because he actually gets bounced higher and his feet leave the mat. I hate it when this happens but the kids sure do love it. Both of them can always be found laughing - that is until one of them gets hurt which tends to be Camden since he is still the little guy even if he doesn't think he is. He loves to hold on to the bars and just hang on it. Some times he will do a pull up but he thinks it is so fun to hang on for dear life.

(Hanging like a monkey)

I am pretty certain that Camden will the my child with the 1st broken bone because he is a little dare devil. It never ceases to amaze me how often this kid can get either a black eye or a bump on his forehead. It seems like this last month he has totally transformed into the toddler look instead of the baby look, and he is growing so quickly. He is learning new things every day and loves to go and do and explore. (Totally a boy) He loves being outside and loves to ride on the tricycle with me pushing him of course. He thinks that his little scoot bike is for babies and doesn't like to sit on it but he will push it around some. He has become a huge fan of the stroller and loves going for walks to the park where he could spend the whole day there if I would let him. He loves the swings and putting the rocks on the big slide and always wants to stand a the end of the slide especially if someone is trying to come down. :) What a little stud he is.

You Did What!

2 days ago, Maysie found a stow-away Easter Egg mixed in with all of the piano books. To her advantage there was some nickles hidden inside. Anyways, she brought the egg to me and showed me her treasures and then we took the 2 nickles that was inside the egg and put them in her piggy bank. About 2 hours later, Maysie comes up to me and told me that she swallowed a "penny". I asked her where she got the penny and she told me that it was inside the Easter Bunny egg. Well, I know that the Easter Bunny only puts the same type of change inside each egg, so I knew that it was a nickle and not a penny. Well, Maysie thought it was SO cool, and I was scared out of my mind (why doesn't she ever do stuff like this when Rob is home - IDK). Well, there isn't much we can do except for wait and just let it pass through her system if it does go through her system.... Seriously.... no prescriptions, no other tips, nada. According to the Dr. it should take 1-4 days to come out.... ummm, I am not diggin through her waste to find MIA nickle. Yuck! As far as I can tell, its still in there. I was joking with Rob that we know that Maysie is worth at least 5 cents now and not a penny less! :) On a great note though... Maysie is now 98% potty trained and will actually poop in the toilet more then in her pants! Hooray!

And all this is AFTER she climbed on the counter and opened the cupboard ABOVE the stove to get her daily multi-vitamins, in which she somehow opened them (yes the bottle does have a child-proof cap) and succeed on eating almost 1/2 the bottle this last week. Needless to say the bottle was moved to the top shelf of the pantry. Now I am beginning to see why people put locks on all their cupboards. - FYI- We have tried the child lock things but they are pretty much adult proof too, so we only have them on the lower cupboards that have chemicals in them... I didn't think we would have to worry about the cupboards located above the counter since I can barely reach them standing up!

Oh The Weather Outside Is...

I know that the title of this entry can vary from day to day since this year our weather has been a complete roller coaster ride, but I can happily say this last week has been beautiful outside. My kids has had cabin fever and is totally loving the warm and clear days that has been making an appearance this week. We have pretty much been living outside and we all have gained some nice color to our skin.

Maysie is getting big and really for the first time is able to play with all the neighbor kids that are her age. We have 2 little neighbor boys that are only a few months older than Maysie and they have become good friends. I am pretty certain that if one child is outside it only takes 10 minutes max before the other 2 are out there too. For some reason the kids congregate at our house which makes me laugh because we don't have much to entertain them with at our house. We have a tiny little tykes slide that is almost too small for Camden and then Maysie has a few outside gear like a tricycle and a scooter. The other's have swing sets and trampolines at there house along with a plethora of riding gear but they still prefer our home. (Maybe it is because I let them play with the big super soakers :) Just a thought.)

Camden loves, I me LOVES the outdoors. If you tell him that we are going to go outside and we are in his room upstairs, then he will promptly get his shoes and cruse down the stairs and be waiting by the door by the time I am able to get my own shoes on. :) He is definitely all boy and loves to play in the dirt! He is also fascinated with the old squeaky tricycle that my father-in-law gave to us. He always trys to climb up on it and wants me to push him around the driveway with it. Surprisingly enough he has no interest with his own little scoot bike but I am guessing that it has something to do with the size, (My kids have this illusion that bigger must mean better) and he much prefers the big kids trike.

With Maysie and her neighborhood friends, I get the chance to have adult conversations with the other mom's alot. It is so nice and refreshing and it is definitely helping me to get to know our neighbors alot more. We have regular play dates at the park and we are truly become quite good friends. It is so nice to be able to get advice from those that have already been through the things with their older children that I am just now experiencing with my own journey of parenthood.

With all this nice weather it makes me want to get out there and plant a garden, but Rob and I have pretty much decided that we are going to rip out all of our garden boxes and put up a swing set there for the kids to play on. We are still in the process of figuring out what type of swing set we want and trying to find one that will fit in that space but we have a few options we can do. We just know that we want one that will last for a long time and that the kids won't outgrow soon. We love having a garden but I think it is more important to have an area for our kids to be able to play and our back yard just doesn't give us many options other than what we have come up with. I can't wait until it is all done and we can just enjoy it.

Which Is Better?

Rob and I are beginning to realize the fact that our car is almost to small for our family and is now starting the process of looking into another one. We have went to a few dealerships and have narrowed the search down to either a Toyota Sienna or a Honda Odyssey. One of these day's on Rob's days off we want to go and test drive them which will probably be the deal breaker but of course we don't want to take the kids when we do that because lets face it, messing with the car seats is a bear which proves to be more of a challenge since everyone is busy at work during the weekday's. I never thought that I was a mini-van type of person, lets face it, I like SUV's, alot, but I just can't justify the gas mileage nor the expense of owning one. A mini van can hold just as many people and we don't really need to tow anything around since we have our pickup so a mini van just makes sense to me. Although I will feel so much more matronly, instead of just a young mom, driving one of these things but oh, the convince of space would be so nice to have. So... fingers crossed, we can do this soon and we can proudly say we are the owners of some sort of a bigger vehicle even if it is a mini van! :)