Some Carly firsts in 2012

Carly had some big girl firsts this last year that I wanted to document.

In August she started soccer.  At this age it's mostly magnet ball, but it was still really fun to watch.  Her team was the "Tiny Ninjas."

Throughout her season, she scored 4 or 5 goals, and had a lot of fun.  She wasn't as tentative as some of the kids out there, but could definitely stand to be more aggressive.  Her favorite part was going to get ice cream after the games.

August 28th- first day of school.  I can't believe my baby is big enough for kindergarten!

She had to pick out her own outfit, and her hair had to be in a ponytail.  Not opinionated at all.

Walking to school with a neighborhood friend.  

Yes, I was the creepy mom-a-razzi taking photos through the classroom window.

She is loving school and is sad when we have a holiday off.  In kindergarten they get a homework packet for the month and turn it in all at once at the end of the month.  This girl sits down and does the whole packet in 1 or 2 days at the beginning of the month and begs for more.  She is also loving learning how to read.  I knew she would!  We had tried introducing reading multiple times before school started.  Each time she would get mad at me and insist that she would learn once she went to school.  So stubborn!  I have no idea where she gets that from.

My kids amuse me

Yesterday I was playing one of those addictive puzzle games on my phone.  And I was failing the same level over and over again.  Wes was watching over my shoulder and said "It's okay Mommy! Failing means you are almost WINNING! Good job failing!"

Tonight for the bedtime story, my kids wanted to read Highlights and do a couple of those pictures where you find the hidden objects.  Carly was sitting there, concentrating so hard, and said under her breath "if I were me, where would I look for that paperclip?"

Conversation overheard between Carly and Wes:
Carly: Which planet is the largest?
Wes: Umm... Jupiter.
Carly: Okay, but which planet is the hottest?
Wes: Venus!

Today in the kitchen Wes was banging pot lids together.  Marshall told him to stop making racket.  Wes told him "But I'm practicing the cymbals!"

Who has been sneaking into my house and secretly teaching my kids?

2013

It's a new year, and I'm not much for resolutions.  But lots of my facebook friends are, which has led me to consider in the quiet of the evening, if there is some word, some value, I want to focus on this year.  A family theme.  A personal mission.

And being far from perfect, there are words flying through my head.  Ideas on how to better myself this year.  But days like today, a day when my tiny terrorists have cornered me in my room with a box of chocolates and the lifetime channel, I find it hard to be motivated to pick a happy adjective.

But they are now all asleep, and I have emerged from my foxhole to pick up the house and assess the damage.  I see the freshly waxed floor now covered with crushed chalk.  The broken Christmas ornaments and the back broken off my nutcracker for the 3rd time in a month, and the indications that some picky preschooler has gotten into my chocolates, and found some he didn't like.

But then I see the labels my 5-year-old has put on all the doors.  She is so excited to be sounding out words.  And I realize that I need to be more grateful.  I need to embrace what I have, even on aggravating days like today when it's the end of Marshall's 48 and I'm just ready to go to work tomorrow.

Translation: Mom and Dad's Room, Garage, Basement

And you know what?  This blog helps me to do that.  This blog is so chalk full of stories that my kids love to have me read to them, and I have missed a couple years worth now.  Stories that I can't remember anymore and I'm so sad I didn't document anywhere.  I mean, someday I will probably look back and laugh that Wes smashed chalk all over my kitchen less than a day after I waxed it.  So I'll take the pictures, and post them here.

And work on being a little more grateful this year.

Wonderland

So my Carly turned 5.

5!!!!

I can hardly believe it.

A month or so before her birthday, I asked her if she'd like a party (of course she did), and what kind of party she'd like.  She came back a few days later and informed me that she wanted an Alice party, because Alice in Wonderland is currently her favorite bedtime story.

For her party, my parents were able to come out and visit.  It was so nice to have them out to help.  We invited a bunch of Carly's friends and neighbors, and just about all of them came.  It was a lovely party.  Carly dressed up as Alice, of course.  I wore the Queen of Hearts crown, my mom was one of the Tweedles, Wes was the other, and my dad was the Mad Hatter.  Marshall even got into it and was the King of Hearts.

Wes, with Blaze.

The day of the party, it started raining, which made the umbrella vultures look quite fitting.

But it also meant that we couldn't play croquet on the lawn anymore, so these flamingo mallets had to come inside.  Quite sad after all the time and energy spent to paint them, and to make wickets out of 15 inch playing cards.

The other bad thing about the rain: the over crowding.  Since we could no longer use the yard, we were all shoved in to my kitchen.  It was tight, but I was assured no one minded.

We even had to break out the picnic table for extra seating, we had so many kids attend.

For drinks, we had pink lemonade.  Most of the kids really enjoyed pouring theirs from tea pots.

For lunch we served sandwiches and wraps, and watermelon.  Of course, we had "eat me" food picks.  And the watermelon was served balled from a watermelon tea pot.

For dessert, we had cupcakes.  Each cupcake had a white rose that had been painted half red.

For decorations, we hung placemat sized playing cards by the buffet, and garlands of playing cards from the sealing mixed in with paper lanterns and the like.

I also made some of the other birds from Alice in Wonderland.  The little hammer bird, 2 of the horn birds, and 6 of the pencil birds.  They were spread out on the tables and serving areas, but I didn't get any good pictures of them at the party.  Darn.  So you get to see them from the pictures I took while crafting.

I also framed a quote from Alice: "There'd be new birds; Lot of friendly "how-do-you-do" birds; Everyone would have a dozen blue birds; In that world of my own."

For party favors, I filled glass jars with pink lemonade mix, and put a "drink me" label on them, with mixing prep instructions.

For games, we had a pinata.  Funny story.  Carly and I worked on a pinata Cheshire Cat for days.  But ultimately the balloon we were using as our paper mache form collapsed, and the big round purple cat ended up looking like a wrinkled raisin.  So we used a store bought flower and added a face to make it look like one of the bully flowers from the movie.

But Carly was very specific about wanting her Cheshire Cat at the party, so my mom made this awesome cheshire cat out of cardboard and we used it for a game of "pin the tail."

When it came time to blow out the candles, she had to think real hard about her wish.

Wes approved of the cupcakes.

Calvin partied too.

Our big present to Carly (well, all the kids) this year was a playground.  Marshall spent the better part of 3 days turning this:

...into this:

Thank goodness my dad came and helped.  When we opened gifts, we opened the curtains to the backyard at the end, and Carly was super excited to see her playground.  We managed to build it and keep it secret from her the whole time.  Definitely a good surprise.

My parents' gift to the kids this year was this awesome teeter totter.  They are both in love with it.

It was a fun party for a special girl!!

Catching up: Carly

Well, I haven't blogged in forever.  And I'm tired of being nagged to get back on the blog-horse.  So here go the catch-up posts.  I'll start with Carly, since the next post I intended to do was her 4th birthday.

That's right, my little girl is 4 years old!  How does that happen?

Does anyone else remember her this size?

So for Carly's birthday, we were fortunate enough to have all of the extended family come visit.  Her birthday week started off with a dance recital!  We were super excited to have all the grandparents in town to see Carly up on the big stage.

We had been to a rehearsal, but I think that once it was the real deal with all those people in the audience, Carly really wanted to be sure that we saw her.  Well, you can see for yourself:


And that was the number she knew the best, so we were a little worried for the second number.
But it was a success! She at least stayed on the stage.


Next up was her big birthday party.  We had planned to go to the local water park, but it was a cold, cloudy day.  So instead we went to the indoor pool at the hotel where all the grandparents were staying.  Kiernan, my amazing sister-in-law, was here- which means Carly got one amazing party!!  Kiernan is an incredible party planner, and she really went all out with Carly's Tangle-theme party.

Breakfast was served poolside, and Kiernan made yummy braided pastries, and other coordinating pink and purple foods.

We all ate, and played in the pool.

Afterward, we continued the party back at our house with Kiernan's amazing Tangled cake.

And presents.  Lots of those.  Including her first bike!

Carly is an amazing kid.  She is so so smart.  She just blows me away with what she understands and remembers.

Her favorite game is the "riddle game," where she describes an item she is thinking about, and we have to guess using her 3 clues.  Such as "What is really big, gray, and has a long nose?"  Then we guess "Elephant?" and she celebrates and informs us its our turn.  We can play this hours on end, especially in the car.

She is also working on reading.  But don't tell her that.  For some reason, she sighs and gets all annoyed when I try to sit down with her and have her sound out words in a book.  But we often have her guess the spellings of random words throughout the day, since she knows all the letter sounds.  I find that she is easily frustrated and has little patience.  Apple doesn't fall from the tree, huh?

Carly is very artistic.  More than just about anything, she enjoys coloring.  She colors pages and pages every day.  Hours and hours.  We let her hang any pictures she wants on the walls, so our house is papered in her colorful artwork.
Just like her daddy, she is not a big fan of breakfast foods.  Every morning I ask her what she would like for breakfast, and every morning we go through the same list.  Hotdogs?  Nope.  Macaroni?  Nope.  Spaghetti?  No.  Burritos?  No.  Peanut butter sandwich?  ::::sigh:::: Okay...close enough.

Carly is also very confident, outgoing, and social.  She expects that every child she meets will be her friend.  She loves to engage in imaginary play, such as house (she's always the mommy), or puppies.  Sound familiar?

She is a bright, vivacious little girl, and I just can't wait to see what the next year brings!