Superhero Party

Parker turned 3!  To celebrate, his mom and dad hosted us all for a superhero swimming party.  (The sign that his mama made, above, totally took me back to my cheerleading/banner painting days.  I feel like a team of football players should've run through that sign after the party was over...)

The backyard was also full of superhero-themed balloons.

As the guests arrived, Parker greeted them dressed as Spiderman.

Things started getting a little risque after we'd only been there a few minutes.  We were crowded around the birthday boy giving him hugs and asking him how old he was, when he just turned and dropped his drawers!

I guess even Spiderman has to go sometimes.

Obviously, since it was a swimming party, the main activity for the party goers was...swimming.  I tried to snap a few pictures before hiding my camera from all the splashing.

Bren thought the water was coooold!  (And it was!  I only made it in to my knees before chickening out.)

She decided sitting on the edge was good enough for her.

Parker's not afraid of the cold water!  Kicking those legs keeps him warmed up, but it means side-sitters like me and Bren have to watch out for splashes of icy cold water!

And sometimes all that kickin' and splashin' made this little Spiderman have to go again.

It's his party and he'll go where he wants to, go where he wants to...

Jett sprung a leak, too!  Man, I'm going to have so much to blackmail these little boys with as they get older...

Erin, Parker's mom, ordered him a pretty cool superhero cake.  If I have all my characters right, the top is for Superman (or Super Parker in this case), the second layer is Batman, and the bottom is for Spiderman.

When it was time to sing, we brought the cake outside and Parker climbed up on the table to see everyone.

When the singing was over, he huffed and puffed and blew those candles out!

But then they lit back up!  Poor little guy got tricked with the relighting candles!

Bren was pretty excited when they finally went out and she could get a piece of cake some icing.

It wouldn't be a birthday party without some present opening.

Here's the perfect gift that my mom found to go with Parker's Pirate tent.  Arrghhh!

Quick pirate joke: What do dyslexic pirates say?

RAAAHHH!

Moving on...

My gift didn't go with the Pirate tent, but it did go with the superhero theme.  Sure, Mega Bloks are probably the generic legos, but these have Spiderman and his friends!

After the cake had been eaten and the gifts opened, Erin announced that it was time for all the kids to get tangled up in Spiderman web.  They all got to choose their own color of Silly String and have at it!  (You KNOW I wanted a can, but I let the kids have them.)

Jett got caught in someone's web.

But I think he got 'em back.

Parker did lots of watching the big boys.

Mimi tried to help Bren with her "web" but I'm not sure they ever even hit anyone.

Bren eventually gave up and decided she was better at doing the noise makers.

After the webs were cleaned up, Parker opened up some of his new toys.  He spent quite a while going fishing in the swimming pool with his new rod.

His big toy from his Mama and Daddy was a new bike.  Check out his cool helmet!

By the time we were all leaving, Parker was so worn out from the excitement that I'm sure he took a great nap!

These pictures have convinced me that I need some kind of polarized filter to put on my camera lens on super sunny days.  They make me want to squint just looking at them!  (You can tell I tried to "dim the lights" on some at the top, but then got tired of editing towards the bottom.)  Anyone have any suggestions on what to use to make pictures less bright?

Pirate Tent

I told you that you wouldn't have to wait long to see our second attempt at the card table tent, and so here I am keeping my word.  When we made Bren's for her 3rd birthday, we knew that her cousin Parker would also be turning 3 just eight days later, and we couldn't make a tent for her without making one for him.  So that trip to JoAnn's that turned into a 3 hour affair was spent picking out fabrics for two tents, not just one. Now, with Bren's, we pretty much followed the pattern that I bought and made very few alterations.  We couldn't do that with Parker's though.  What little boy wants a tent that looks like a playhouse, complete with flowers and curtains?  Not Parker, that's for sure.  After doing a little googling, I found this etsy store that had several different themed card table tents.  It was there that we found a Pirate tent and instantly knew that's what Parker's should be.

We were able to use the pattern we had for all the basic measurements.  But for all the details, I had to draw everything by hand.  Luckily his doesn't have as many teeny tiny details like Bren's, but it still turned out just as cute.

And of course, just like with Bren's, I waited until during the birthday party to take pictures of the finished product.  Shame on me.  These aren't great pics by any means, but you know I'm going to share them anyway.

Might as well start with the front.  The door to this one is a flap, just like on Bren's.

Zoomed in on the door, you can see we "hung" an old wooden sign warning trespassers to enter if they dare.

No front door is complete without a lantern.  My mom said the nice thing with working with the black fabric was that it hid any of her sewing mistakes.  The down side is that it showed every single piece of lent, and this fabric picks up everything!

And it wouldn't be a Pirate tent (fort? ship?) without a skull and crossbones.

The two sides of Parker's tent were much less detailed that the playhouse tent.  One side had three portholes.

And the other had a regular window with broken shutters.

For the back, we drew a flagpole and flag so that the skull and crossbones could fly high.

And that's it.  Much simpler than the playhouse version, but perfect for a little boy.  My mom got Parker the perfect gift to go with his Pirate tent.  Check back for his birthday party pictures to see what it was!

Beach House Update!

Our builder emailed us am updated picture of the progress being made on the house.  Check it out!

We've got porches and balconies!  Woo hoo!

I don't really know what else might be going on in that picture.  The builder said they passed the nail inspection.  Yay!  (I really have no idea what that means but it sounds like something worth celebrating, right?)  Next up, I think, is installing windows.

For those of you that might be interested, I've also got some floorplans ready to share!  I drew the downstairs layout about a month ago and then got busy.  I didn't get around to doing the upstairs until last night.  Just in case anyone is curious, no, I don't have fancy software to use to draw this up.  I did these in excel.  What can I say?  I'm an accountant; I've got mad excel skillz.  Oh, but I should note that nothing about these drawings is to scale.  I'm not that good.

Here's the floorplan for the downstairs.  (You can click the picture to view larger.)

Let me help you out here.  The bottom of the picture is the front of the house.  Those double-doors are the front doors.  There's a porch on most of the front of the house and it wraps around to the right, but the porch on the right is screened in. Everywhere the black perimeter line turns blue  indicates a window.  The doors are in green and my curvy lines show which way they open.

As you go through the front doors, the staircase is right in front of you.  The dining room is to your right and the living room is to the left.  The living room and kitchen are one big open room, separated by the kitchen bar.  There's a half bath under the stairs.  And finally, at the back of the house, there's a bedroom with a full bath.

The downstairs will all be hardwood floors, but we haven't officially picked that out yet.  The walls that I have in red (one in the dining room, the far left wall in living room and kitchen, and the back wall of the kitchen) are the ones that will have horizontal paneling.  And it's the side of the bar (peninsula) that faces the living room that we're considering putting the corrugated metal on.

Ok, let's mosey on upstairs.  (You can click the picture to view larger.)

Same story as the downstairs: the bottom of the picture is the front that will face the street.  The balconies are over the downstairs porches.  It looks like the edge of the balcony got cut off in the picture below, but you can probably figure it out.  It's the same size as the screened porch in the picture above it.

When you come up the stairs you're towards the back of the house.  The laundry room is right at the top and through the laundry room is the owner's closet.  This is where we'll be able to store our stuff that we don't left out when renters are there.  On the left side of the upstairs are two bedrooms that share a full bath.  The master bedroom and bath are on the right side of the house.  The door to the balcony is at the end of the hall.  The upstairs will all be carpeted, and we haven't picked that out yet either.

So that's our house!  Four bedrooms and three and a half baths.  A kitchen, dining room, living room, and lots of outdoor spaces.  I don't think I mentioned the tiny patio off the back of the house (through the kitchen).  The stairs off that patio will lead to where the pool will be.  If the pool were drawn in, it'd be in the top right corner of the pictures.

Whaddaya think?  Anyone else as ready for it to be done as I am??

Our Weekend

I feel bad that I haven't blogged in a couple days.  Time just keeps getting away from me and I don't know where it all goes!  I had every intention about writing about our weekend earlier but since I didn't do it then, I'll give a shortened version now. Actually, I'll go even further back than this past weekend.  I'll go back to last Wednesday.  That's the day that Doc quit his job.  He left for work bright and early so he could turn in his resignation right when his boss got there and hopefully avoid running into too many coworkers/friends.  He was on his way back home before I even got out of the bed.  (I had a mid-morning appointment so got to sleep in, and ended up taking the whole day off so we could hang out.)  His boss was blind-sided and wasted no time in getting together an offer to make him stay.  After 3 LONG days of negotiations between both his old company and the one he was going to go work for, he finally accepted the offer from his current company.  So Monday of this week he started a new job at the same company.  The whole ordeal was drawn-out and stressful and exhausting, but now that everything's done we're both very happy.  This is a great opportunity for Doc and I'm so glad he took it!

The kids were at our house this past weekend.  Wyatt had a football jamboree bright and early Saturday morning (he and Doc left the house before 6:30!) so Friday night was very low key.  Doc made beer can chicken for the first time ever and it was awesome!  Highly recommended!  You would think we hadn't eaten in days with the way we devoured it.

Saturday afternoon I ran errands with my mom.  We finally got around to picking out a color scheme and fabrics for my nephew on the way.  He should be here in early October so we've got to get busy on his nursery!  I will  post pics when we get it all done.

By dinnertime Saturday evening, Wyatt had started feeling sick.  He had a fever and was in bed sound asleep by 7:30.  Poor guy!  Doc checked on him around 9:30 and he'd completely sweated through his clothes so we figured his fever had broken.

Sunday after church the whole family ended up at my parents' house (with the exception of Erin, who was definitely missed).  I took Bren and Anna up in the attic for me to look for a certain box...the box of all my old barbies!  I was probably the most excited about it, although Bren did do a little jumping up and down.  Anna was a good sport even though she's probably past the barbie age.  (Wait, that probably means I should be too.  Whatever, I love my barbies.)  The girls ditched me after about 45 minutes.  I probably spent 2 hours on the floor of the playroom sorting and organizing all the clothes and accessories.  It was so fun to dig through them all again!  The clothes could all use a good washing and some ironing though...

By the time Doc took the kids home Sunday evening Wyatt was feeling fever-y again.  He ended up going to the doctor Monday morning and found out he had swollen glands and a viral infection.  Thankfully, it was short-lived.  He was back in school on Tuesday.

So that was our weekend.  Sorry for the boring post with no pictures.  I'll try to do better next time.

Mermaid Party

Bren's 3rd birthday party was last weekend, so I'm officially a week late in posting these.  Darn photoshop, it distracted me. The party was held at a local pool and was Mermaid themed.  Now, you're probably thinking that Bren must love The Little Mermaid.  At least, that was my first thought.  The truth is that Bren has never even seen The Little Mermaid.  What she has seen, though, is the Dora mermaid book and if there's one thing that Bren loves, it's Dora.  And that's how the mermaid theme came about.

The only problem?  All mermaid decorations have Ariel on them.  But they're all just mermaids to Bren, right?  So Ariel got invited to the party.

Ariel even showed up on some balloons.  At first, the arrangement of balloons was looking a little...let's see, how should I say this...a little mature for a three-year-old party.

They quickly got rearranged.  Phew!  Close call!

Bren was so excited for her birthday party that she didn't sleep at all the night before.  She also invited everyone she saw at church that morning to the party.  The highlight was probably when she told not just Mimi, but Mr. Tony also, to be sure they wore their bikinis.

Because she was so hippity, hoppity, bouncing-off-the-walls excited about the party, her dad had to take her for a little ride while her mom decorated the patio at the pool.  When her dad finally brought her back, a few guests had already arrived and wouldn't you know, little Miss Excited got a little shy.

At one point during the party prep, Bren told her mom that she hoped she had a crown at her party so she could be a princess.  Her mom came through for her.

Bren may need a lesson or two from Kate Middleton because when the crown was placed on her head, she could no longer move.  I suppose it's tricky keeping it balanced just right.

Parker arrived around this time and it was a relief to see that yes, the Royal Princess was indeed accepting hugs from her people.

Thank goodness, because I don't think this little guy would've taken no for an answer.

Parker convinced Brennie to ditch the crown so they could go swim.  This summer, Parker has turned into quite the swimming fool.  He refuses to wear floaties and loves it when his daddy throws him up in the air - the higher, the better.

My mom, bless her, has a teeny tiny heart attack every time she sees Parker go flying through the air, but then his little head pops up out of the water with a grin from ear to ear.  "Do it again!"

Hopefully she missed seeing him climb up on his daddy's shoulders and jump all the way down to his uncle.  It might've been enough to send her over the edge.

I wandered over to the kiddie pool to see how Miss Brennie was doing.  She was having fun playing with all of her buddies.

It didn't take her long to figure out how to work this water gun, making it no longer safe for me and my camera. I had to get out of there fast!

Bren did eventually join us out at the big pool to watch Parker jump off the diving board.  I asked if she wanted to do it too and, after thinking it over, she decided that was not really in her plans for the day.

The rest of the party played out like you expect - lots of swimming, splashing, and cannon balls.  We had a dinner of hot dogs and chicken strips and then finally, it was time to for dessert.

The birthday girl had her own special plate.

She chose a strawberry cupcake.

Like most kids at their birthday party, she never took her eyes off the candle.

She did, however, sing Happy Birthday to herself while watching that candle.

Hooray!  She blew out all the candles!  I hope whatever she wished for comes true!

I wonder if she wished she could eat all that pink icing, because if she did, that wish already came true.

Parker had a funfetti cupcake and by the time I turned around after taking this picture of him and his mommy, Bren had herself a funfetti cupcake too.  Birthday Princesses get all the cupcakes they want!

While most of the kids ran out and jumped back in the pool, Bren stayed inside to open her gifts.  Who can swim when there are so many presents?

In addition to the Card Table Tent, my family and I got Bren this mermaid barbie.

Yes, those are belly and arm tattoos you see on Mermaid Barbie.  As if they aren't awesome enough like that, when you take Mermaid Barbie for a swim in the bathtub, she looks like this.

Her tattoos grow and her pink highlights show up!  Every mom's dream gift for their sweet little three-year-old girl, right?  Beth, I'm sorry.  It was the only Mermaid Barbie.  Please forget all about this gift when/if I ever have a little girl...

Oh, and that's not all.  Mermaid Barbie's tail can also be converted into a mini-skirt / hoodie combo.  You know, for when she'd rather walk instead of swim.  Don't worry, you can still see her arm tat.

The good news is that Mermaid Barbie, skankalicious as she may be, is the birthday gift ranking near the top of Bren's list.  Beth texted me last night to say that Mermaid Barbie sleeps with Bren every night and has even made a trip to the zoo and out to eat with the family.  Here she is with Bren (in her new mermaid pajamas) ready for a good night of sleep.

I guess I put my camera away during the present opening because that's where my photos end.  Sadly, I don't have any of Uncle Doc painting her nails with her new purple and green polish, nor do I have any of all the dads that had somewhat of a contest jumping off the diving board at the end of the party.  Oh well, there's always next year.

Happy 3rd birthday, Bren!