Happy Birthday, Allen!

Saturday was Allen's fourth birthday! Wow, I can't believe the little man is that old already.

All about Allen:

Height: 41 inches
Weight: 43 pounds
Shoe size: 12
Favorite activities: playing outside for hours, going to church, watching movies (I have to tell him "no" to shows many, many times a day), riding his balance bike. He and Oscar have worn a little tunnel system in a great row of lilac bushes at the edge of our yard, and they love to play and hide in there. He loves to pretend to give other people shots with any remotely needle-shaped object he finds. He loves trucks and tractors, and can name just about any type. He has really taken a shine to the piano lately- he's a real natural! He sits there and picks out chords and octaves by himself, and is very proud to know where all the D's are.
Favorite shows: Peter Pan, My Neighbor Totoro, Cars. Still loves Thomas the Tank Engine.
Funny things he's saying these days: "Cat church" (in reference to the Catholic Church that's right next-door to our church). "SNEEEEEEE!" (pretending to be Captain Hook calling for Smee) One day, when he saw me sit down at the piano, he started hollering, "STOP TEACHING LESSON!" For a while, Adam was getting on his case for randomly shouting "Nemo!" all the time. So of course, now Allen has evolved into randomly shouting, "Don't shouting Nemo!" He still mostly talks in fragments of sentences and gibberish... this past week, he started asking a bunch of "wh" (who, what, where) questions, which is cool. Still loves to say random things in funny voices like "Cashewwwwwww!" and "Dee dee dots!"
Favorite foods: any kind of fruit or berry! Last week, right after grocery shopping, I went for a run; when I came back a half hour later, an entire pound of blueberries was gone, and Allen had a purple mouth. He has been asking for watermelon ever since it hit the store shelves about a month ago!
Favorite books: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Caps for Sale, Otis the Tractor books, Dr. Seuss's ABC's, Sally Sutton's Construction series, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
Least favorite stuff: getting hair cuts, that pesky little sister Cici, avocado
Struggles: I can not get this kid to fully potty train for the life of me. I never thought I'd still be potty-training a kid at four years old, but here we are. I'd love to send him to VBS this summer, so hopefully things click with him before then. With Allen, he just takes a LOT of time learning skills- he didn't walk till 18 months- and no amount of pushing, praise, threats, encouragement, bribes, or punishment will move him along. The only thing that has consistently worked is time.
When he grows up he will be: probably in show business. :-D

On Sunday, we had a little birthday party for him. We invited my cousin's family, a young music student of mine, and a friend of Allen's from church (and their families, of course!), and had an outdoor hot dog cookout dinner. I'm glad we had the party at dinnertime as opposed to my original idea of two or three in the afternoon, because it turned out to be a sweltering day that peaked in the mid-90's! It was a bug-themed party, so Adam and Oscar made cupcakes with crushed Oreos for "dirt" and gummy worms on top.

We actually had a couple bug-themed party activities planned, but the kids and adults were having so much fun just playing and talking (especially after Adam turned on a sprinkler to cool the kids off!) that we ended up not doing them. Now I have a giant unused pin-the-legs-on-the-caterpillar poster that I'm not quite sure what to do with. Save it for next year's Allen party?

Next year's birthday party theme: Mud

Cici's First Birthday!

Happy one year to my beautiful daughter, Cecilia!

Cici stats:

Weight: an informal weight check shows around 22 pounds.
Clothing size: we are well into the 18-month clothes.
Teeth: Just four total-- two top and two bottom. It gives her such a funny little smile :-D

Gross motor: loves cruising, is thinking about walking. She can stand by herself and stand from a squat, and actually pivoted a couple steps the other day!
Language: Can say "Dog" and "Dat" (cat). Says "Dad" (Granddad) when she sees my father. Lately, she has been HUGE on pointing at objects.
Social: Loves waving bye-bye. She has repertoire of several different waves, and she go through every one of them when saying goodbye. Gives lots of big, sloppy, open-mouthed kisses. Tries to share her food with everyone.
Favorite foods: Goldfish, apples, peppers, Cheerios, ham, fried eggs, stir fry, oatmeal, cranberries
Favorite activities: Climbing up (but not down) stairs, looking at books, meeting new people at my parents' restaurant, hanging out with Grandma and her dogs and cats, dumping things out of their containers, sneaking away to play in the toilet, listening to music, watching the washing machine do a load.
Favorite toys: Allen's Hot Wheels cars, our wooden dinosaur teether, the xylophone, measuring spoons, alphabet blocks (we stack 'em, she knocks 'em!), a little wooden doll from a set I painted for the kids a couple years ago.


Cici's birthday was on Saturday, but we had a lot of stuff going on that day, so we had a little party on Sunday evening. My parents came over, and we ate a sumptuous feast of abundant Totino's pizzas and salad. Oh yeah, we went all-out on this party, haha. Adam, our cake-baker-in-residence, made Cici a cute dog-shaped cake, as well as a small purple cake for the express purpose of getting smashed by the birthday girl.

Angry that she is not face-first in her cake already

Oscar and Allen were kind of confused about the cakes at their first birthdays, but not Cici! She dug around and squished frosting through her fingers and generally destroyed the cake in a highly entertaining fashion. Definitely worth the price of admission!

A hand-made birthday!

Oscar is turning one this Saturday! Oh my goodness, where has the time gone?? Somehow, he has gone from this...

...to this:

In lieu of buying Oscar plastic made-in-China junk for a birthday that he won't even remember, Adam and I decided to sponsor a child in India this year. I am thrilled to honor the life that has blessed us so much by blessing another little life! So we're not buying presents for Oscar this year, but this doesn't mean I can't make gifts for him with stuff already in the house....

The first thing I'm making for him are felt alphabet refrigerator magnets.

They are three inches tall and lightly stuffed with batting. I drew a template for the letters on printer paper, but I realized (after all the letters were drafted, of course) that freezer paper would be an even better pattern material.

They have magnetic tape stuck on the back because that's what I had handy, but next time I'll probably sew magnets inside the letters...

This has been a really fun opportunity to try out all sorts of embroidery techniques! This blog has some great stitch tutorials.

Fishbone stitch

Wheatear stitch

Plain ol' running stitch

Couching

Cross stitch

Lazy daisy. Aren't I SO clever for putting Flowers on F. :-P

Palestrina stitch

A midnight scene

Coral stitch

More cross stitch

The reason for the season

 You'd be surprised at how quickly these whip up, too-- it usually takes less than an hour to make a letter! I've only made eleven letters so far, so I imagine there will be another post in the future when (or more like if) I finish the alphabet. So that's one set of goodies I'm whipping up for Oscar's birthday. Be on the lookout for the second gift!