Parker's Birthday Party - Version 2

Parker LOVES going to the Fire Station, so I thought it would be fun to throw together a playdate for his birthday.  We ended up with 17 kids and 10 adults, it was a little chaotic, but the kids had a great time!

All Parker's cousins were there, except for Dianne's kids, plus almost all Parker's friends from church.

The fireman costumes are always a hit, but it was a little confusing with five 3-4 year old boys running around in the same costume; when Parker & I were looking at these photos, in one of them Parker asked "is that me or is it Taegen?"  It's kind of hard to tell!

After the fire station, everyone came over for taco bar & cupcakes, then I sent them all home before the nap-time sugar rush hit.

For next year, I think we might go back to the old "one friend for each year of life" rule, but this was a pretty fun party.

Happy Birthday Parker!

This little guy is four already!

We celebrated Parker's 4th birthday with chocolate chip waffles and a trip to the Children's Museum in Everett.

Parker continues to be a crazy little guy.  He loves to sing and dance and be silly, as well as throw balls and play with his Mama.  I think he will always & forever be a Mama's boy, he's perfectly capable of playing by himself, but it's always more fun if he can play-by-myself-with-Mama, right?  Parker gave up naps last year and a year later, we're still struggling to get him to take a quiet time in the afternoon.  But I think this is mostly due to Mama's lack of discipline, rather than Parker's.  He has learned to love the books that come with CD's and will often sit through several stories in a row which gives me a little peace in the day.

Parker starts his 2nd year of PreSchool next week, he is SO EXCITED.  He also went to VBS for the first time this summer and is constantly asking when he can go back to "BBS".  Parker will be doing afternoon preschool again this year, but three days a week, giving his Mama 6 glorious hours of free time (assuming Cecily sleeps, of course).

Parker still loves fire trucks, pirates, and dinosaurs, although, cousin Wesley is introducing him to the wide world of superheros, so they are quickly becoming a favorite.  He just inherited Wesley's old "big training wheel bike", which he loves, although he doesn't make the slightest attempt to balance on the bike.  Someday he'll learn, right?

Parker is a super-loving big brother and he loves to play with Cecily.  Cecily loves to play with Parker too, until she wants whatever he has at which point she usually starts biting.

This summer Parker has loved playing in the wading pool and the slip & slide almost every day.

I can't believe our tiny baby boy is already four and will be heading off to Kindergarten in just one year!  Time is going so fast!

Family Camp

Our church went up to Whidbey Island again for Family Camp this summer.

We had a great trip and one of us even slept:

Dining Room Re-Do ~ Walls & China Hutch

 Installment #2 of the worlds-longest-dining-room-remodel has finally been completed.

Parker was signed up for sports camp at the Y last week, so I sent Cecily to Grandma's house Monday & Tuesday so I could have some time to work on the dining room & the china hutch.  I wasn't really even painting the room so much as creating a coordinating backdrop for the "new" china hutch, I didn't re-paint the white parts or the ceiling, and I think I might have painted over a little of the food stuck to the wall.  The plan was to paint the walls really quickly with the grey that was left-over from Cecily's bedroom.  Unfortunately, I'd grossly over-estimated how much paint we had left over, we actually had exactly this much:

But, after two trips to Home Depot, the walls were done:

I then spent the next two or three days re-doing the china hutch.  I toyed with the idea of using oil paint to make the finish stronger, I'm kind of wishing I'd gone with it, but hopefully the finish will still hold up to our daily battery. ...at least as long as I still like the color anyway.

I was planning to buy new finishes, but decided to try just spray-painting everything silver.  It looks pretty good, but the paint isn't too strong, so we'll see how it lasts.

The end result: 

I'm really happy with it.  Of course, this is the tidiest you'll ever see it since there is no food anywhere and all the china is still in boxes in the basement.  So, enjoy this look while it lasts, at some point we'll have to start using the room again!

Before (September):

Middle Before (January):

After:

Parker & Cecily's Birthday Party

To celebrate Parker & Cecily's birthdays, we invited over the family for hot dogs & cupcakes.

The slip & slide was a hit.  Parker & Beni spent over an hour running & sliding, jumping in the pool, and then doing it again.

Cecily thought it was HILARIOUS.

Although I think she stayed dry the entire time.

It's not a birthday without cupcakes!

As always, the cupcakes were a hit, although I think that next time I'll just make each of the kids a cup of frosting for all the actual cake that was eaten.

Cecily's Birthday

It's not a birthday without cake, so I tried out a new gluten-free cake recipe using quinoia instead of flour.  It was a total disaster, rivaling some of my first attempts in High School.  You can't tell from here, but the cake is actually only half a cake, I stacked the two broken pieces together in an attempt to make something remotely aesthetically appealing...I failed.  But it tasted good and the kids just ate the frosting anyway. 

Yes, she does own clothes, but if the temperature gets much above 65, she always want to be naked.