Once in a happy-blue moon the super-mom cape comes out...

I would just like to say that I pulled out the end of preschool with my super-mom cape ON. The fact that it only made a very few appearances this year seeing as how I juggled grad school and family for the first half of the year matters not. It came out when it mattered and that happened to be Summer Birthday Day at school. Jane Bradley's birthday is in July, so she was one of the lucky ones who were given the opportunity to have a mock-celebration of the real thing with her friends the last week of school. 

She wants to have a "happy blue" (her favorite, bright blue color) and zebra birthday party this summer, and her pretend school birthday needed to match. So after she went to bed the night before... I whipped up these bad boys (enter super-mom cape): 

The final version added pastel flowery sprinkles, but I let her put those on in the last minute before we left for school. 

Jane Bradley put on her happy blue dress and if you look closely, you will notice that she appropriately paired it with blue and zebra-striped flip flops so as to match her cupcakes.... Everyone who has known me for a while is smiling because, I know what you're thinking... Who knows where she gets this stuff ?

Part of having a birthday is holding the flag in at music time

There was more than one birthday so they shared the flag

I loved how this morning showed the polar opposite personalities that JB and B have. Beckham came with me to their music time, and the whole time he stood in front of all 50+ preschoolers and sang and clapped and danced. Then when they circled up, he took his self-designated spot in the center of the circle. JB would not have agreed to stand in the center of the circle and have a bunch of kids older than her that she didn't know stare at her if I promised her an entire Toys-R-Us. She preferred a much smaller group to the standing in front of a crowd. Beckham thought the celebration was for him, and JB would have hidden under my skirt at his age. It's so sweet to see how she's gained so much confidence in the last couple of years.

This picture doesn't even begin to do it justice...

He was waiting for the pledge of allegiance to be over before he began to
dance, sing, and entertain his audience.

 Jane Bradley's class invited Beckham back to their room to join them for a cupcake. He was all over it. 

And it was all over him :)

just a quick minute...

Sometimes it's just good to smile for a minute. Here are some pics that do it for me... 

I let B help with baking brownies for the first time the other day-He prefers to take on the licking of the spatula with his whole face... mustache & goatee style.

JB has had quite a harvest of cherry tomatoes from her garden. She is so proud! I love seeing her face when she runs out to discover what is ready to pick every couple of days.

Mother's day doesn't have many pics this year. Brad took the kiddos to choose a gift for me, and while he was in a store, surrounded by breakable objects and chasing Beckham while he attempted to run laps and give the sales lady a heart attack, Jane Bradley chose her gift. It was so sweet to open my new bracelet on Mother's Day and see her beaming face...

Beckham found a new place to sit in the driveway... 

Then he tried to eat the sidewalk chalk...

Then JB tried to clean his face off and his mouth out...

Which didn't help because he just tried again...

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!! I hope your weekend is as fun as stuffing yourself in a bucket full of sidewalk chalk :)

I get it now.

When JB was a baby, and I was running on negative amounts of sleep, and I was covered in gross things like milk, poop, and spit-up most of the time, I ran into sooo many different mothers who thought this would be the perfect time to remind me to cherish this time because it goes so fast. I was begging time to go a little faster - at least until she could sleep through the night or her projectile reflux would improve. I felt like parenting hit me like a mac truck. 

Well, as the milestones have begun, I now repeatedly tell Time that I would like to take that back, and I join the world-wide population of other mothers who would like it to slow down. It's moments like these that I wish I could bottle up and bring back any time I want. Pre-bedtime is something I don't want to ever forget... Here's what I mean...

There are things to remember in every day. Have some fun jumping around before bedtime :)

Close to the end...

 It's the end of the school year, and as usual, it brings a huge wave of end-of-the-year festivities, programs, and showings of all signs of accomplishment and completion. This year, we were invited to see Jane Bradley perform with all of her co-mini-ballerinas in a program at her school. 


Jane Bradley repeated 4 year-old preschool this year because her birthday is at the very end of the summer, which meant she was in the same ballet class for the second time. Last year, the ballet teacher was on stage with them, but this year she had a different ballet teacher, and she watched from backstage. We all smiled when the girls ran around stage a little confused... Until JB became the traffic director, and stood on stage and told them all where to stand and how to dance... (I have no idea where she gets this from :)...). Here are some of the photos:

Pre-performance photo

JB with her ballet teacher

 It is customary to bring something flowery to the performer following a recital. All of JB's guests followed this custom, and JB's loot made her look like she had just won the olympics...

And Beckham noticed... 

Here, Beckham, have a flower and stop fussing :)

Beach. Love.

We just got back from the beach, and every time we go, it gets better and the kids get easier. Knock on wood. Not that we need to because we already know that the next time we take a trip there we will be taking a newborn, and it will not be easier. But has been until this point. Not that we don't still have those frustrating-exhausted-kids-in-a-restaurant moments. We had a couple. But still, it's easier than it used to be. And the kids love, LOVE the beach and the pool and the sand - everything about it.  Here's the story...

* * * * *

Can I just say how much I love this girl? She accessorizes herself for the ride to the beach. Love.

 We were headed out the the beach, and these two were so silly... Dear Time, please can you just slow down? 

Both of the kids went through a period of being afraid of such a huge amount of sand as this. This time we gave B a shovel and told him that the seashells were treasure. He was all about going to dig for some treasure like the tough pirate that he is :)

This girl actually does treasure the seashells...

On day 2, my sister and my parents showed up with the twins and got the beach party started. We cooked a big family breakfast most mornings, and the kids had some fun cracking the eggs. (There was  plenty of supervision, and Jane Bradley cracked almost all of them).

Most days we went out on the boat at least once, which is my favorite part. We saw a dolphin on the way to Tacky Jacks...

And stopped off at some of the little islands in the bay to pick up about a hundred hermit crabs and let them go again...

Of course, Beckham's favorite part of the trip was playing in a restaurant playground because it had some old jet skis that were for kids. He would have been happy to spend every day in that little fenced off square. 

Here's a picture of me on the beach... 

Have some fun this weekend :)

Grow

We've been growing up (and out) alot lately... Since our family is growing by +1 in 7 weeks!!, we started to think about our current transportation situation. I begged Edmunds.com to show me a sporty suv that had everything I wanted inside, but sadly, it was a no-go. Sorry to all the non-soccer-mom-non-minivan-fans like me... it doesn't exist. The choice is simple... You can get the vehicle that has everything you could ever want for hauling little bittys around for 10K less than the comparable suv, but the catch is that it only comes in one package... a minivan. So.... I decided to get over myself and go for the kid-mobile...

Who knew that when I held up this package in Party City (almost a year ago!) for a funny picture because it was the most unlikely thing I could think of to ever happen... that it was foreshadowing the next 11 months?? Funny.

I'm not the only one around here that's growing up. This one passed a big milestone last week... See the hole in her bottom row?

Here's the evidence!!!

Brad brought out the little tooth pillow that he used for when he was a kid, and Jane Bradley put her tooth in, wrote the tooth fairy a note, and made her a little blue ring as a present... 

The next morning, Jane Bradley woke up and said, "Mom. Dad. You HAVE to see this..." We followed her to her room where she found the 3 golden dollars and the fairy dust under her pillow. Then she sprinkled some on her head and tried to jump off of her bed. She was excited, but a little confused as to why she couldn't fly... This growing is so sweet, but the speed that is happening is a little sad... Sometimes I want the fast train we're on to slow down just a little bit.

HOWever. This belly-growing train can hurry itself right on up :)

31 wks - JB took this pic with my phone