Celebrations

November was a month with a few celebrations: Rachel's birthday, our anniversary, Thanksgiving. And Ryan was ready to celebrate.

The boy loves hats. And it just so happens that this pink hat is usually sitting around waiting for him to find it and put on.

For Rachel's birthday we went in to her school and read one of her favorite books (26 Princesses) and brought Gogurts and popcorn to share with her friends (no cupcakes per the school's wellness policy). Annie and Ryan were super happy to be able to be at school. Ryan even sat in a couple kids' laps while we were there. All the kindergartners love Ryan and Annie. Especially Ryan. He's like a pet to them. :) When school got out we out to lunch at McDonald's for a special birthday treat. For dinner Rachel chose spaghetti (just like Annie did), and afterwards she got to open her presents. Our little toothless girl was a little excited about the presents.

 

I love the look on both the girls' faces here:

They are in shock at the total awesomeness of that present. It was 2 dolls, Anna and Elsa, from Frozen. It also had a free admission to see the movie. Rachel was very gracious and didn't even think twice about Annie claiming one of the dolls as her own. Rachel got first choice, but I guess it was natural that Rachel got one and Annie got one. They have had a ball playing Frozen with the dolls.

Rachel was also every excited for a new dress.

Unfortunately I am a sucker and didn't notice the tag until it was too late. Hand wash only. That makes two dresses in a row that I have bought (one for Annie, and one for Rachel) that are hand wash only. Who does that? Give me a couple weeks and these dresses will be ruined, once I forget about or ignore the laundry care instructions. That'll teach me to check the label before I buy!

Rachel had a birthday party the Saturday after her actual birthday. I feel a little bad that all my creative birthday-throwing energies were used up when Rachel was 2 and 3 and didn't even notice how cool her parties were. This one was not pintrest-worthy by any count, and then Ryan got croup and was up ALL NIGHT the night before this, so it was really a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants kind of party. But who cares. The kids had cake and got some candy, so they were happy.

Rachel wanted a Strawberry Shortcake party, so to start things off, they watched a Strawberry Shortcake movie about the Strawberry Games.

From left to right: Rachel, Isabel, Alora, Ally, Eliza, Grace, Maryanne, Lydia, Evelyn and Annie on the ottoman.

Then we had our own version of the Strawberry Games. We did races, shooting nerf balls into a bucket, pin the strawberry on the vine, balloon volleyball, etc.  The kids had fun, though it was mild chaos and I remembered again why I don't do co-op preschools or anything that requires me to do organized activities with young children. :)

After the Strawberry Games it was cake time. We sang to Rachel, then everyone got to decorate their own cupcake.

 

Decorated cupcakes (ie, lots of sprinkles piled on top of a mound of icing):

Rachel had a fun time with her friends. And I am glad I decided that we only do friend birthday parties every other year. Maybe by the time the next one comes around my creative birthday juices will be flowing again.

We had planned on Grandma and Grandpa Knight and Aunt Marie and Uncle Justin and their kids coming over that afternoon for cake and dinner (especially since Marie and Rachel share a birthday), but I figured it would be a bad idea with Ryan and sick as he was. The party was during his nap time, so he was in his crib the whole time the kids were here, but that would not happen later in the afternoon when Peyton and McKenzie were running around having fun. Ryan would want in on the fun. So I sent Jacob, Annie, and Rachel in to Grandma and Grandpa's house and they had cake there. 

While they were gone I decided to put my plan for our anniversary into play. I had planned on having a fancy dinner on Sunday since that was our actual anniversary, but with everyone gone I thought it would be more fun to surprise them when they got home. So I got out the nice dishes, including goblets, some Martinelli's, and the only candles I could find in the house. 

Everyone was very happy to celebrate the beginning of our family 7 years ago. It made for a fun dinner. And no glass was broken in the process. :) Happy anniversary to my favorite hubby ever. I love you! 

We also got to have a real date the day after Thanksgiving and went to the Gaslight Theater's Christmas show. It was fun to do something besides just going to a movie or out to eat. 

Thanksgiving was the last celebration of the month. My mom did most of the food prep and it was delicious. I did make some gluten-free, dairy-free pies for everyone to enjoy and they were gooood. Apple, chocolate pudding, and pumpkin pies. I think we'll have an apple pie for my birthday. WAY better than cake. I came home noticeably fatter than when we had left that morning. That's how you know Thanksgiving was a success. Oh, and the company was great, too. Too bad we were all too wiped out by tryptophan to play any of the games we had brought. But we had fun before dinner playing some ladderball and bean bag toss (or corn hole, as the professionals apparently call it). Thanks, Mom, for a fabulous Thanksgiving!

The kiddos

Great news! We found gluten-free ice cream cones! Before:

 

After:

I think he liked the ice cream (soy cream, for the dairy-free boy). The cone was less crunchy than a regular cone, but still pretty good. The kids approved. Though I think it’s been long enough for Ryan since he had a cone that he may not have realized he could actually eat it. He did enjoy squishing it, however. Messy kid.

He is talking up a storm these days. He’ll copy anything you say and is mostly intelligible. Car rides are fun. “Car! Car! Car! Tac-tuh! (tractor) Tuck! Tuck! Car! Bus! I-cull! (motorcycle)” He must point out every vehicle he sees. He’ll say it over and over until you repeat the word so he knows you know what he’s talking about, then he’ll move on to the next thing. “Birdy! Plane! Cow! Neigh neigh! Moo!” He loves driving down Houghton right now. There’s construction, so there’s a million tractors, besides the spot where there’s usually a cow or two to be seen, and a couple horse stables a little further up. He’s going to be real disappointed when the construction is done and the tractors are all gone. 

He doesn’t seem to be growing or gaining weight at all, but we’ll see for sure in another month when he goes for a follow up appointment at the pediatric GI. But he’s happy. Except when he’s not. Then he’ll let you know! He has officially entered the tantrum phase. Mostly Annie sets him off when she takes something away from him or tells him no. But I get in on the tantrum fun, sometimes, too, telling him no or taking away something like a stick he’s hitting his sisters with, or a knife, or the like. I’m so mean.

Rachel lost her two front teeth within about 2 weeks of each other. Just in time to be able to sing “All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth."

But a week later (today) she lost yet another tooth (this one she pulled out all by herself), and now looks like a Jack-o-lantern.

The tooth fairy has been making lots of visits lately. 

Rachel turns 6 on Wednesday and is very much looking forward to a fun birthday. She is doing great with piano lessons and practices every day without me even having to remind her most days, and always has a good attitude about it. She is now doing enrichment at school, though we’re still figuring out how exactly that is going to work. Her reading level is 2.7, meaning what would be expected of a second grader in their 7th month. She gets to participate in the Accelerated Reader program at school, which I was originally told, when I asked about it, wasn’t available for the kids at school until 1st grade. When her teacher went to the enrichment specialist to figure out how to challenge Rachel more, however, she convinced her to add Rachel to the AR program. 

Annie is finally happy to be a big girl. (When she turned 3 she officially became a big girl, which meant getting dressed mostly on her own and going potty by herself.) The first couple weeks she would complain and say “But I’m not a big girl anymore!” when she would want help in the bathroom or couldn’t get her shirt off. Now she proudly owns it. She tries to make Ryan happy a lot, though half the time it is to stop him from crying after she yanked a toy out of his hands before Mom comes and gets her in trouble. She rides her big wheel bike to the bus stop almost every day to pick up Rachel. And she and Ryan are both tolerating our bike rides that I take with them in the bike stroller for longer than 15 minutes now. Last week on our bike ride I saw this little guy in the middle of the street:

He was right in front of a friend’s house, so I went to ask her if it was hers and she said yes, but it always escapes and she doesn’t know what to do with it. I thought of a friend down the street that has a bunch of tortoises, and went to see if they wanted another one. The didn’t. And this wasn’t a tortoise, anyway, it was a turtle. We took it back to our house because our bike ride was over. Annie had a ball holding it the whole time we were riding around. She tried to feed it a leaf, which it wanted nothing to do with. Finally, after I had showered, and we were heading to the store I told her we were going to take it back to its house and she did NOT want to part with her new friend. I told her that maybe one day we will get one. If we’re going to have a pet, a tortoise or a turtle seems like a good bet. We just have to secure our back yard so it can’t escape, then it is mostly self sufficient, as long as we provide some hiding places from the sun and kids. I told her maybe in the spring we’d think about it, since it’s time for them to hibernate now. Since then she has talked several times about how she wants a mommy turtle and two baby turtles. She even said once that that is what she was going to ask Santa for. I hope not.

One of Ryan’s new favorite things to do is to get all of one kind of food out of the pantry and make dominoes or a tower with them. Here he is with corn starch:

Rachel is Miss Creativity. She loves cutting and coloring and cutting and gluing. She does not as much love picking up scraps of paper. But she does it mostly without complaint.

Kid bonding time:

Also known as Mommy Shower Time. Ryan will now sit still in front of the TV for 20-30 minutes, but only if there is a Baby Einstein movie. Other movies just don’t hold his interest for more than 3-5 minutes, if that. And Annie and Rachel are well trained Pavlovian dogs. TV turns on, they come running. Even for a 30 minute show of shiny, spinning things, and pictures of baby faces with no dialogue or plot. At least I can shower in peace these days.

Mormon Heritage Festival

Last Saturday the Arizona Historical Society put together a Mormon Heritage Festival at Ft. Lowell Park that had booths and all sorts of stuff about the first Mormon settlers in Tucson (or Binghampton as they called it), as well as info about the Mormon Battalion that marched through Tucson. Jacob ended up having to go in to work that day, so the kids and I went had had some fun.

The kids in front of a mini statue of some Mormon Battalion members.

They had a scavenger hunt for the kids, where they had to go learn something at each booth or display, and when they got back to the entrance they got a mini U.S. flag and a piece of candy. We visited the Sibley Tent,

marched army drills, made cloth dolls, learned how to throw a lasso,

and rope a cow.

 

The cowboy and cowgirls even got some barrel racing in.

 

They panned for gold, learned how to card cotton, make a wool/felt ball, and a few more things, as well. The kids had a fun time until Annie fell at the last booth and skinned her knee. The injury didn’t bother her so much as me insisting that she needed a bandaid since the blood was running down her leg. The girl HATES bandaids. But we left with a balloon, some “gold" nuggets, and a piece of candy and flag for each kid, so everyone was happy, despite the bandaid.

Music and a Mile for Mark

When I was in the Stake YW presidency I worked with 3 awesome ladies. When we were called we didn't know each other at all, but it was a very inspired call for all of us. We grew close quickly and after we were all released we still have tried to keep in touch, getting together every few months. Sherry Tanner was the first counselor. Her husband had a brain tumor removed while we were serving together. This year another tumor had to be removed. Karen, who was the president, went to visit Sherry one day, then came home and gave me a call with an idea to help the Tanners. Charissa, who was our secretary also jumped in. We got together and recruited a few other helpers, too and put together a fundraiser to benefit the Tanner family as Mark (Sherry's husband) battles brain cancer. 

As Sherry's family has gone through this trial I've tried to think of ways to help besides just praying. I know prayer is important, but it feels good to do something tangible to help, too. So Karen's idea was very welcome. Her original idea was a 5K run. It morphed into Music and a Mile for Mark. There was a one mile run/walk, several bands, a silent auction, a bake sale, lunch, and a kid's game area. 

Karen brought up the idea at the end of September. It happened this past Saturday, November 2nd. So in just over a month we pulled this thing together. It was a busy month, to say the least. Lots of driving around and talking to businesses trying to drum up donations for the silent auction, then more driving around to deliver fliers to get the word out, then more driving around to put up signs around the area. My kids (especially Annie and Ryan) got a lot of practice at being in the car a lot and they actually got a lot better about driving. Where they couldn't last a half hour without complaining before, they're way better now and more patient about sitting in their car seats. :)

Three days before the event we got word that we had to change locations. That was a fun day. :/ Thankfully, our school district was very accommodating and super helpful and we were able to use one of their middle schools, which probably turned out a lot better than our other venue would have been. 

The day of the event started out a little windy, but got better as the day went on. We had about 80 people show up for the mile run/walk in honor of Mark.

 

Mark and his family walked the mile together, then finished strong, jogging it in to the the finish line.

 

Jacob has been a trooper this month as I've been overly occupied and our housekeeping (which generally isn't all that great anyway) has gone way down hill, dinners were often last minute, throw together the easiest thing, etc. He took care of the kids all day Saturday, and brought them for a while to have some fun, too. Naturally the jumping castle was their favorite part of the whole thing.

 

By the end of the day we were all pretty dead, but happy. There was a good turnout at the event and the silent auction and bake sale both did very well. One guy bought a pan of brownies for $1000. One thing I have really appreciated in being involved with this is seeing how many good people there are in the world. There are so many people that want to help, and when an opportunity to help presents itself they seize it. Many of the silent auction items went for more than they were worth. Particularly the gift cards. People came out of the woodwork to offer donations for the silent auction. 

In all the advertising ahead of time (most of which happened on Facebook) we also wanted to give the Tanner's friends who live far away a way to help, so we set up an online donation site on youcaring.com. Between the online donations and the event and other donations we raised over $17,000. I call that a success. I'm glad I got to be a part of it. Now I have some bathrooms to clean and a house to try to restore some order to.

Halloween 2013

On Monday we carved some pumpkins. Jake had a deadline this week, so he worked some long hours and missed out on our pumpkin carving. :(

 

Rachel did a pretty good job at carving her own pumpkin this year. Seeing Rachel using a knife, however, made both Annie and Ryan think it was a good idea for them to grab any knife within their reach.

This is how we were able to finish pumpkin carving:

We threw in a Baby Einstein movie and Ryan was glued to the TV for a little while. This is a relatively recent development, that he sits still to watch a show for any length of time. It is lovely because it means I can shower in peace on occasion. Or carve a pumpkin.

I decided to try drilling my pumpkin. You can’t see the face too well, but if we put a candle in there it worked pretty well.

Rachel had just lost a tooth the night before, so she looked like a jack-o-lantern herself with her missing tooth.

At Rachel's school they did a fundraiser for UNICEF on Halloween. If the kids brought in any amount of money they could wear their costumes. I asked Rachel how much she was going to give and she thought a moment, then replied, "I wish I had a hundred dollars!" I thought to myself, "what a generous little girl." She continued, "Then I could give them 10 dollars." Or not. Though thinking about it later I realized $10 and $100 are both very large amounts of money to Rachel, so she was having a generous thought. She probably thought $10 was like half of $100. After she her comment she went to her wallet and looked to see how much she had. She had one dollar bill and several coins. She ended up donating the dollar and two pennies "to the kids who don't have money for clothes." And she got to wear her Ariel costume to school.

We had spiderweb tostadas for dinner on Halloween. I cut up the olives to look like spiders. 

 

Grandma Knight and Aunt Marie and Peyton and McKenzie came out to join in the trick or treating fun. There were glow bracelets for everyone and even some glow glasses. 

 

The girls were all princesses: Belle, Belle, Rapunzel, and Ariel. Ryan was Clark Kent/Superman.

Annie had proclaimed a month or two ago that she was going to be the Grinch. She was very set on that idea and everytime any other idea was suggested she rejected it outright. “I’m going to be the Grinch for Halloween!.” On Halloween every time I suggested that she go get dressed in her green clothes to be the Grinch she said, “No, not yet.” She got her Rapunzel dress from her birthday on and off and on and off over and over, and finally I asked if she was just going to be Rapunzel for Halloween and she said yes. Maybe next year for the Grinch…

We went to about 10 houses in our neighborhood trick or treating before it was time to head down to our ward’s Trunk or Treat. Annie was tickled that she was getting free candy. After the second house I think she told me, “Mom! I have CANDY!” Ryan quickly caught on and would go straight up to the people who opened their door and say “teet!” (treat). Then he’d say “bye-bye” about 8-10 times to each person. He’s a cutie. 

Halloween is not my favorite holiday, but the kids had fun. And it’s over now. :) Hope everyone had a fun Halloween.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Annie!

On Tuesday Annie turned 3. We had a family party a couple days early on Sunday. Annie asked for a monster cake, so she got this no-armed, 5-eyed monster. She loved it. 

We got some party hats out and decorated a little with crepe paper and balloons.

 

 

At dinner Grandma and Grandpa crowded together with the kids to eat. It looked cramped to me, but everyone was happy and eating.

After dinner it was time for presents. Rachel wanted to help open presents and Annie was very accommodating. 

Annie got some play food, which she has asked for every time we've seen any play food at the store for the past 2 months. She is very happy about it. In the picture above she is holding a dog that spits balls across the room. Everyone gets a kick out of that one. They'll play fetch with the balls. It's nice--I sit on the recliner and shoot balls at them or around the room, they run and get them and bring them back to me. It keeps them entertained for a nice long stretch.

Annie was very excited about every single thing she got. Rachel was not.

Rachel was a little jealous of Annie’s loot and thought Annie would never share anything with her. She was happy to find that she was wrong and Annie was more than happy to share with Rachel.

Annie also got this Hello Kitty book that has little 1 or 1 1/2 inch figurines at the back of the book. Annie fills her hands with them and carries them all over the place. I'm very surprised that she hasn't lost any yet.

Annie was SOOOO excited about her cake. Do you see that look of pure joy?

 

She did a good job blowing out the candle.

Then Ryan had to try, so we re-lit it and gave him a go. He made the flame flicker, but Annie had to help him to get it all the way out.

Then everyone dug in. 

Annie got a Rapunzel tea set which she LOVED. She put on and took off that dress 5-10 times a day all week. 

And the new dishes have been a big hit. Meaning Ryan gets a big hit by one every time he tries to swipe one from Annie. Luckily we have some cups/dishes from another mostly lost tea set that placates Ryan and keeps Annie from getting mad at him for stealing one of her favorite toys ever.

Annie got to choose her meals for her birthday. She chose Chocolate Lucky Charms (which she had gotten for her birthday) for breakfast (and several snacks throughout the day), taquitos for lunch, and spaghetti for dinner. She had finished all her noodles and apparently couldn't wait for me to get her some. I looked over to see what she was doing and saw her chowing down on noodles straight from the colander.

We didn't have an actual friend birthday party for Annie, but we had a little playgroup the day after her birthday, so I decided to make some cupcakes for her little friends to enjoy. They're supposed to be little monsters, too. (The pretzels are arms and legs, if you can't tell.)

And now we have a little 3-year-old. We love our Annie girl. Whenever people ask her name she replies, "I'm Annie Campbell." She knows all her colors, more than half her letters and their sounds. She can count to 20 and higher. Kind of: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22...

She likes to help out with Ryan, trying to make him happy (especially if she just made him cry, she tries to cheer him up before I come in to get her in trouble), or getting him books in his crib when he first wakes up from his nap. She loves playing with Rachel, and they like to play pretend together. Rachel is Dora and Annie is Boots. Or they're both princesses, or a princess and a queen, or a mom and cat, etc. With Ryan the favorite game is monster. He'll chase the girls as they run screaming away.  

Annie loves riding her tricycle. She rides it every morning to drop off Rachel at the bus stop (3 houses down) and every day to pick up Rachel from that bus stop (down and around the corner). She inherited Rachel's 2 wheeler with training wheels when Rachel got a new garage sale bike a few months back, but her legs need to grow a tiny bit more to be able to reach the pedals well enough to ride it. 

One thing Annie does NOT like to do is pick up. The only way to get her to clean up is to hover over her pointing to each toy one at a time and remind her again and again of what she's doing. She has the attention span of a 3-year-old. But we love her anyway. Happy birthday, Annie!