Our baby turned 5

It’s so hard to believe that our baby has turned five.  Five!  As in one, two, three, four, FIVE!  Where has the time gone?

For his birthday dinner he requested salmon.  I also made him rice, since it’s one of his favorites, spinach, and salad.  He was very pleased with his birthday dinner.  I was pleased in his choice, considering it wasn’t macaroni and cheese or pizza.

Thomas is a great eater, and he enjoyed his salmon, rice, and even liked that spinach he’s eating.

James was very surprised at his birthday cake.  It was almost like he didn’t even expect one, which amazed me, because everyone gets a cake on their birthday, right?  He loved the pirate cake, and was really excited that I had made it.

Thomas loved it, too.  Who doesn’t love cake?

James got a TON of presents!  With four sets of grandparents and aunts and uncles, too, we have some pretty loved kids.

I made him a pirate blanket.  I did two different pirate patterns so it looks different on each side.  It’s so cuddly and warm, and I love that he’s slept with it every night since he got it.

I love my sweet baby James, and am so thankful that God gave him to me.  He’s an amazing kid.

Cake decorating 101

I have always enjoyed making cupcakes and fun desserts for the kids, and I even enjoy making a cake for anyone who has a birthday.  I haven’t ever dabbled in actually decorating a cake though.  I’ve wanted to, but never have.  Last week I was in JoAnn’s and saw that they had a pirate mold birthday cake.  I bought it, but wasn’t sure that I was actually going to attempt to make it.

I made pirate cupcakes for the kids at school and they turned out great.  I figured that since Iwas done with the cupcakes, I might as well try to do the cake.  So, low and behold, I tried.  And wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t that hard!

I had to ice the cake blue first because not all of it was going to be decorated.  I just did a thin layer.  Then I practiced piping a line.  It wasn’t too hard.

I was pretty nervous making the outline of the ship.  But I kept telling myself that it was just for us, and it was just practice, and James would love it no matter what, so really, it wasn’t a big deal.  (Notice the cupcake apron?  I LOVE to wear aprons when I bake, and my mom got me this one for my birthday!)

Once I started it I realized that it wasn’t so bad.  The only hard part is that you use little muscles in your forearm squeezing the icing out and after a while those muscles hurt.  I guess I don’t use them enough.

It might have been late at night, but I was super proud of my work.  I put it in the downstairs fridge so James wouldn’t find it.  I wanted it to be a surprise.

These were the cupcakes that I made for his class.  They were a huge hit.

This was the cake that I made for his birthday party.  I changed a few things. I made the sails white, because pirate ships don’t have yellow sails, and I omitted the portholes.  I didn’t intend to omit them, and honestly, I didn’t notice that I had until  I put this picture in this post.  Oh well!

I also made these cupcakes because I wasn’t sure if the cake would be big enough.  I was out of blue M&M’s so I had to use green.  I think they looked a bit like Christmas pirates, but that’s ok.  They were still a huge hit.

Arrrr…it’s a Pirate Party, Matey!

Ahoy there, Matey!  Today was James’s 5th birthday party.  He is really into pirates so we did a pirate theme.  It went over so well!  We intended to also have some backyard water fun, but we ran out of time, and the kids were having too much fun on the swing to notice.

When the kids arrived, I had a sword station set up on the lower deck.  Jim and I made pirate swords out of Home Depot paint sticks and spray paint.  I bought some stick on jewels and the kids go to decorate their own sword.  After they decorated their sword, they had to walk the plank (a balance beam, but for some reason I don’t have any pictures) to earn their pirate eye patch and bandannas.

Pirates Josh, Jaden, and James having a little duel.

The kids got to beat a pinata to death, but unfortunately, it never died.

Jim finally ripped it open from the bottom and the kids went to town!  I filled it with Twix, Rolos, and Hershey’s Nuggets, all candy wrapped in gold foil.

After some yummy nuggets and grapes, James got to blow out the candle on the pirate cake I made for him.  Everyone loved the cake.  It was a huge hit, and I’m so glad that I took the time to make it.

I wasn’t sure if the cake would be big enough, so I also made these pirate cupcakes.  Somehow, some sneaky little rascals ventured into the house and found them before it was time to eat them.  Oh well… there was still plenty!

All in all it was a great party.  There was a total of 22 kids throughout the party, plus the parents!  Whew… a backyard full, and a lot of fun!

Happy 5th Birthday, James!

I can’t believe that my baby, my sweet little angel, my pride and joy, one of the loves of my life, is now five.  Where have those five years gone?  It seems like just yesterday he was a baby in my arms.

Here is a quick review of the past five years.  Some pictures are smaller than others, and for that I’m sorry.

Holding James when he was born was one of my favorite moments in life.  Something about being a mom just made sense to me.  I think I was born just to do it.

He was such a sweet baby.  He had to stay in the hospital because he was jaundice, and that scared me.  The only benefit was that I got to stay there longer, and had help.  The idea of doing it on our own scared me to death!

I quickly learned that they don’t break very easily, and are quite a bit of fun.

Before I knew it, two years had passed and my little baby was now a full grown toddler.

By three he was running and riding circles around us.  He has always worn a smile, and it’s quite contagious.

Not long after that my little toddler turned into a little boy.  It’s amazing how fast they grow!

I swear, all I did was blink!  Who let you turn into a five year old little boy?

It’s been an amazing five years, James, Mr. Wiggle Monster, my cuddle lover.  I love you more than you’ll ever imagine.  Eighty thousand, nine hundred, fifty two million.  (Plus one.)

First day of school!

Well, another summer has passed.  It’s time for school!  James is back at St. Catherine’s Preschool in their young five’s program.  He is of age to go to kindergarten, but after much thought (five years to be exact) we made the decision to keep him in preschool for one more year.  We want for him to be the oldest in his class, and not the youngest.  He only made the cutoff by a mere seven days.

He’s a t-shirt and cargo pants type of kid, just like his daddy.  As hard as I tried, there was no way I was going to get a polo shirt on him.  For church, yes, but school, even the first day, nope.  I think he’s pretty handsome in this though, but I might be biased.

I think he was of the mindset of , “Mom…let’s get this picture over with so I can go to school!”

Today was Thomas’s first day of school.  He’s going on Tuesday and Thursday from 9-12, while James is in every day from 9-1.  He was chomping at the bit to get there.

Oh… I could just eat them up!

No tears from him.  I put him down and he was off like a bullet!  He played and played and never looked back.  I was so proud, yet so sad.

After I dropped them both off I walked out of the school all by myself.  I didn’t have a hand to hold, and no one to buckle into their car seat.  I didn’t cry at first, but when I saw a little girl crying in the parking lot, I choked up.  I took a few deep breaths, then buckled my own seatbelt.  I drove to the farmers market and was shocked at how fast I could walk through it without strapping a kid into a stroller, grabbing on to another kids hand, and walking at a kid pace, explaining about this and that and how this works.  It was nice, but I will admit, I was lonely.  I had a phone conversation without interruption, and I picked out what I wanted without arguments over “I don’t like that.”

Three hours isn’t really a long time.  Just long enough to drop them off, go to the market, come home and blog, and then go back to get them.  Right now I am thankful that it’s not that long, but give me a few months… I just might change my mind!

Grandpa’s little man

While over at Gammy and Grandpa’s house one day, James went swimming.  (Surprised?)  Gammy was outside with him and I was inside with Thomas and Grandpa.  We were playing and having a good time, and at one point I went outside to check on James.  Gammy was on the far side of the pool watching him, sitting next to the fountain.  I pulled up another chair and together we watched James play.

After about five minutes, Grandpa came out with Thomas.  Both were laughing hysterically, and he told us to watch his new game with Thomas.  He had this block that if you squeezed it, it would squeak.  He was squeaking it at Thomas, and Thomas was belly laughing.  Within seconds, James was out of the pool saying, “Do me, Grandpa!  Do me!”

It happened very fast, but I anticipated every second of it.  Pam was to my right in a chair, then Jim holding Thomas, and James was standing in front of him.  I saw that Jim was putting Thomas down to his right, and knew that I wouldn’t be able to get past Pam, Jim, and James in time, so instead I stood and just walked into the pool myself.  I met Thomas about three feet into the middle of it.  He smiled, I smiled, and he had no idea that he did anything wrong at all.  After all, he’d been swimming for the past week, and was getting quite good at jumping in. 

Pam now realized what had happened, but Jim was still squeaking at James.  A total of about three seconds had passed at this point.  I handed Thomas up to Pam, and reached for what I thought was my phone in my pocket.  Ends up it was my camera instead.  I was actually very thankful that it was my camera, because I have come quite attached to my new phone. 

When everyone realized what had just happened, there was a little bit of panic in the air.  I explained that I saw exactly what was going to happen, and rather than panic, I just went straight in myself and met him in the middle.  I knew he was going in, and together we made just one splash.  We ended up taking his clothes off and putting him in a swim diaper, and I just removed my shoes and swam in my clothes.  Jim worked feverishly trying to dry my camera out. 

It didn’t work for a long time.  This happened on the 19th, nine days ago today.  I tried for about three days to get the camera to turn on, but it wouldn’t.  Someone suggested putting it in a bag of rice, so I did.  After that I just forgot about it.  If it worked, great, if not, oh well.  This morning I pulled the bag of rice out of my purse and put the batter and memory card in it.  Wouldn’t you know, it worked!  Imagine that. 

This was the last picture that I took before I went swimming with it.  Kinda nice, right?

Three backyard pools to burn up all that energy

One of the neat things about going to Florida is that we have three of our four sets of grandparents living within a two mile radius of each other.  And all three of them have swimming pools in their backyard!  Woo Hoo!  We did a lot of swimming while we were visiting. 

Last summer my mom signed James up for private swimming lessons while we were in Florida.  He did great and was swimming pretty well for being on the tail end of three years old.  At the beginning of this summer I signed him up for three weeks worth of private lessons here.  He was very timid at first, but by the end of his lessons he was a fish.  Now I can’t keep him out of the water.  Thomas isn’t too far behind him, either.  That little one has NO FEAR, which has made me very careful. 

Ready, set, JUMP!

And all the way across the pool he goes!  What a great swimmer I have. 

Faith LOVES, LOVES, LOVES her cousins James and Thomas.  And when I say LOVES, I think it’s an understatement.  I might have to kidnap that little girl and bring her up here for a bit.  Here she is feeding Thomas some ice cream.  Looks like he likes it. 

Lake Panasoffkee fish camp

Last week Jim had to travel to Dubai.  I had planned on just staying here with the boys since he was only going to be gone a week, but my mom talked me into going to the lake with the Turner’s for the last part of their annual  lake vacation.  This vacation has been going on for decades.  I’m not kidding.  The Turner family has been going to this fish camp for over forty years.  I, personally, have never been, but my mom and Gerald have been going for years themselves.  She’s tried to get me to go, but I never have.  This year she was able to talk me into it.  It ended up that one of the girls that was going had to leave on Wednesday to go back to work, so when she moved out of her cabin, I moved in with James and Thomas. 

This place is nothing fancy, far from it, but it sure was fun.  The lake is definitely NOT swimming material, but that didn’t keep the boys from fishing in it.  It was alligator filled, snake filled, and more importantly, fish filled. 

James went fishing one morning with his Uncle Wayne and his Grandpa.  I was sure that he’d last about 15 minutes, but two hours later he came back with 13 fish, and more excitement than any four year old boy should be allowed to contain.  In fact, he couldn’t contain it.  I guess it was built up excitement, because getting excited on a fishing boat just might scare the fish away.

James and his Uncle Wayne showing off their fresh catch of the day.   

He really didn’t want to touch the fish, or the worms that went on the hook, either.  He told Uncle Wayne that he’d do it when he was eight, though. 

Grandpa was pretty proud of his fishin’ buddy, too.  That’s what they’ll forever be known as now… fishin’ buddies. 

I wanted to go on the boat, too, but I didn’t want to fish.  Wayne took me, James, and Jessica back out on the lake for a little ride.  It was beautiful on the lake, but we didn’t get to see any alligators like I wanted to.  Oh well, maybe next time. 

I loved this tree and it’s reflection.  This lake is spring fed, and very cool for Florida water.  It’s too bad that you can’t swim in it. 

What a mess!

I should be fired. 

One, I should be fired from being the owner of this blog.  Today has been one month since I last posted.  Blame it on being home with my boys and being a busy bee running around after them, teaching them right from wrong, keeping them out of trouble (which, as you will see in a minute, I’m not doing a good job of), helping them learn, and just being there for them, or blame it on that nastiness called Facebook.  Either one, I haven’t blogged in a long time.  I have updated a lot of things on Facebook though, so if you want to see what’s up with me and my boys, become my friend.  You’ll get a lot more information that way. 

And two, I should be fired as a mom, because I obviously can’t keep a good eye on my children. 

A few weeks ago I was down in the basement with James and Thomas.  James was playing short order cook and was bringing me bowls of alphabet soup and sandwiches.  Both were quite yummy, if I recall correctly, but the playing distracted me from Thomas.  He was rather quiet, and when I found him, this is why. 

My little tiger found one of Jim’s Sharpies.  Permanent marker comes of quite easily with Huggies baby wipes.  Makes you wonder what they put in those things. 

And since we have been home from Florida, Thomas has taken to a new play area.  Our sinks in our bathroom.  He was content with just Jim’s sink, but since he realized that I turned the water off he has migrated over to mine.  Little did he know, I was one step ahead of him and turned the water off on that side, too.  It was only a matter of time, and sheer dumb luck, that he hadn’t burned himself yet.  He had either just turned on the cold water, or both the hot and cold together, but not just the hot yet.  Like I said, it was only a matter of time.

Beach Baby

This might be the cutest. baby. ever.