This and That

A few weeks ago, Ben was in dire need of a hair cut. So we headed to Kidsnips as usual, but this time I made Liv an appointment too. She was in dire need of a trim and I screwed it up too badly last time to try it again.

She was very squirmy and wanted down to explore, so it wasn't the easiest cut. But the woman did a pretty good job of evening it out without losing too much length. It looks much better. Here is her official certificate. This is the best picture they could get. She kept trying to grab the camera.

In other news, I bought a pack of these paper storage bins at Costco a few weeks ago to help organize all the kids' school stuff. I set one up for Liv for 0-2 years and one for Ben for 4-5. I have a few others that I'm going to use to organize all Ben's old paperwork by year. But these two are current, so they live on the office shelf.

Now, when I bring home anything worthy of saving from daycare, I can just date it and pop it into the bin. Super easy!

Master of Disaster

Ever since Ben received his electric train from Grammy and Grampy, he's been very into trains. More specifically, train crashes. He asks daily to watch train crash videos on youtube. It's weird, but I go with it. Train crashes often lead to truck and car crashes. The other day, he decided to reenact a crash.

He's an interesting kid!

Party Time

Yesterday we had a small family party for the kids' birthdays. Livvie has been sick since Wednesday and had her worst day Saturday. She was running a fever and a little lethargic. But it did mean lots of awesome cuddles.

 

I kept the decorations simple this year. Ben chose a super hero theme, so I hopped on Pinterest and found a few DIY ideas.

We only had four kids coming, so I just bought candy-covered apples from a chocolate store as the favor. I bought a printable on Etsy for a personalized thank you, and then printed it out on sticker paper. 

 

I pull out this Happy Birthday banner each year. I bought it for Ben's first birthday. I made the super hero banner by printing out comic book pages online and super hero emblems, then cutting the paper and stapling it to ribbon on top. Again, very easy and free!

I also made photo banners for each of the kids. One picture for each month. I was determined not to buy anything for this project, so I found scrap book paper and ribbon on hand and did my best. If I were shopping for this project, I'd have chosen cuter paper and such, but for free, it was a quick, cute project.

Just before the party started, Ben and Dad were relaxing on the couch. They looked so cute in their matching button-downs, I had to snap a photo or two.

And one with me and my Benny Boo!

Livvie woke up half an hour before the party, and miraculously was fever free and in a happy mood!

The kids had fun playing with their balloons. I got them each one small balloon bouquet.

Once the party started, I didn't have time to get a lot of photos, but here is one of Ben and cousin Carson enjoying the Portillos.

I couldn't find my camera when it came time for the cake, but I did locate it during Liv's battle with the smash cake. She took the term "smash" literally. It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. Needless to say, she needed a bath immediately after this escapade.

Ben opened his presents, and was super excited by the fireman rain boots, rain coat, and umbrella.

That is all the photos I got, but a good time was had by all!

Ben's Look

Ben and I invited Lesli and the kids to Airtastic and then to our house for lunch and cupcakes for a mini birthday celebration, since we aren't doing a party with friends/kids this year. When I told Ben to get dressed to go, he insisted on picking his own outfit.

He chose an orange and brown striped shirt, blue sweat pants (despite my suggestion that he wear the same pants in brown), gray socks pulled up to his knees, and his button-up sweater. It was a look. :-)

When I told him he looked so awesome, I wanted to get a photo, he happily obliged, knowing he looked so good.

This is his self-proclaimed "spit face":

His excited face:

Then he wanted to show off how tall his socks were:

He just needs some lederhosen.

Out and About

Saturday we made a quick trip to Costco, then to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.

The kids had a great time riding together in the cart. So cute!

At dinner, Livvie was happy to sit and shove goldfish and yogurt melts into her mouth while we waited for the food.

Once dinner arrived, she seriously ate more than Ben did. They "shared" a kids meal of boneless wings with no sauce and oranges. We had to get a refill on the oranges and Liv ate most of the chicken. Ben is in a "not interested in eating" phase.

Here is a video of Liv eating her chicken. She really liked dumping it out of the bowl, then putting it back in, stopping to shove a few pieces in her mouth along the way. I took this on my iphone, so the quality is not awesome.

Electric Train

Grampy has fond memories of his electric train from childhood, so for his birthday that's just what they got Ben. It arrived about a week ago, but we've been busy and our dining room table was covered with stuff to take to Goodwill, so we held off opening it up.

I finally cleared the junk of our table this week, so today we got out the train. Big hit. Big, big hit!

Of course, Miss Liv had to be in on the action.

Ben did NOT like it when Mike put one of his cars on the track for the train to hit.

He thought it was a little funnier when Dad put his goldfish crackers in the train and he delivered them to us to eat.

Thanks Grammy and Grampy!!!

The State of the Hair

Let me start by apologizing for the quality of these photos. Livvie does not like to sit still. These are the very best I could do, sadly.

Her hair is starting to thicken up and get longer again, finally recovering from my unfortunate trim job.

Straight out of the bath, her hair is very curly, as you can see in these photos. I think perhaps in the humid summer months, she will have some decent curl. We'll see...I hope. It feels like Winter will never end around here.

Despite the curls, her bangs insist on being straight. Interesting...