Ben's Baby Shower

My sister and I and a fabulous time coming (and finding) ideas for the baby shower we threw for our sister Teresa and our new nephew Benjamin last weekend. We did a green umbrella theme and I think it turned out well.  Most importantly Teresa had a good time introducing Ben to everyone.

Teresa's friend Irene made this wonderful (and delicious cake).

Decorations.

We had a Wishes for Ben station and hopefully Ben will enjoy these comments when he is older.  

(Source: lil sugar)

The food, big thanks to everyone who helped out.

Ben was loved and cuddled all afternoon.

GG and Ben (Great Grandma)

Of course there were presents.

New mommy cut the cake.

Gama pulled all the kids around.

Packing

Turns out the kids think they are coming with us.  Hehehehe

Less than a week until we leave.

One size doesn't fit all!

Apparently, the size 4 diapers are too big.

Y wrap up and Z Preview

We are slowly making out way to the end of the alphabet and I am super excited.  Excited for many reason but I think its nice to finally reach full circle.  So before we have a look at the activities for Z, here is what we did for the letter Y:

We grew yellow animals out of small dollar store capsules, and even though I said it would take a couple days that sat and watched anyway.  Then finally they got to open their jars and play.

We made yellow Y collages.

Happily stamping yarn designs (or not to happily).

Hannah practiced counting.

Probably my favorite picture, here is Hannah teaching Ethan how to use the Jumbo push pin.

Letter Z:

Letter Z box: Zipper, zero, zucchini, zebra, letter z, and a z bean bag.

Matching the animal toy to their photo

Making a sticker zoo. (Source: Little Giraffes)

Zoo cage and lock game.  For this game I will hide the keys and when Hannah or Ethan find them they can unlock the matching cage to free the animals. (Source: Homeschool Share)

This is a terrible picture, it is a zoo animal shadow match. (Source: 2 Teaching Mommies)

Gluing Zebra stripes on the letter Z.

Ethan's Birthday

Almost two weeks ago we celebrated Ethan's birthday with a fish party.  After all he is o"fish"ally 2 now.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the party.

My mom and Andrew's mom hard at work.

The fishes that decorated the room.

Ethan and his friends.

Hannah and Daddy.

The cake!

I love this picture of Ethan blowing out the candles with has hands on his cheeks.

Inside the cake was wavy blue.

A basket photo for the birthday boy!

Problems, Parties, and Planes

I ran into some problems this week with blogger and not being able to pull up any of my photos.  So if you've wondered about my absence it was impart due to those problems that I think are now fixed.  The photo of Hannah reading was my attempt to check and all thing look good so far.  Thank you Andrew for pointing me in the right direction.

The second reason fort he slow down has been parties.  No no I haven't been out parting late a night but we did just celebrate Ethan's 2nd last weekend (photo's coming) birthday which included a visit from Andrew's mom.  Then there is a baby shower for my sister and her beautiful son this weekend (photo's also coming). 

Third and finally, and probably the most time consuming, is that Andrew and I are in the process of planning and preparing for a trip that we leave on in 2 weeks.  We are gone for two weeks and the grandparents (all 4 of them) have graciously offered their time and love to take care of our 2 noisy children.  We are overwhelmed to have such wonderful arms for Hannah and Ethan to cuddle with while we are away.

All of this funnels into needing 1 thing: time.

So bear with me and I promise to be back in full swing by the end of July but it will be pretty speckled until then.

Do I sound like that???

Children are like little mirrors.  They reflect back at you all the love and energy that as a loving parent you eagerly give to them.  They also reflect back your weaknesses.  Things they say or do that you just know they did because their eyes are always watching you.  I'm far from a perfect parent, but I am a parent who deeply desires to improve over time. So I could only laugh as I took the following video of Hannah and Ethan.  I'm not sure what they were doing that led to this conversation. but I'm glad I caught it.