ethan's birthday party

last week i would sit down at the computer, and all i could do was compulsively compare orbitz to kayak to travelocity to bing travel to priceline.

you get the idea.

travel arrangements on a tight budget make my head spin.  i will be happy when fellowship interview season has ended.  blissed out.  and equally happy when i know where we have matched... because the "where-are-you-thinking-of-sending-ethan-for-kindergarten" talk is pretty much the let's-catch-up ice breaker... and i am sure will only intensify.  right now... well, i don't even know what state we'll be in.  much less the public vs. private debate.

sheesh.  no worries though.  and i better chill out because we have four more months before we will have any idea.

and a year and a half from now until we move.

but fellowship is only a year {we can really do anything for a year.  even snow.  even lots of snow.  i think.} and then we will move somewhere else and begin a "real" job.  and no, we don't know where the "real" job will be...

that pretty much sums it up!  i've gotten those questions quite a bit lately... as we hover closer to the end. 

so the whole travel blahs began my week... then the kids went back to school... then i lost my voice.  right in time for ethan's birthday party.  {his real birthday is smack dab in the middle of december... so we have the party at the beginning of january}

niiiiiiiiiiice.

my voice was sounding a bit pathetic on thursday afternoon.  but then, yours truly, had to take it to a whole new level by going to a bar on thursday night.  it was bunko night out... which means we just met up and of course didn't play... so i essentially sacrificed my voice.  but i desperately wanted to go.  and no amount of feeling crappy was going to keep me home... i had cabin fever...

so.  friday.  only a whisper.  nothing louder.  do you guys know what it is like to try and get your kids out the door in the morning when you can't yell, "c'mon!  move it!!  get your shoes on and line up at the door!!"  ethan proved that he will actually listen if i whisper.  a tip that i will remember...

one more thing... i got a flat tire 2 hours before the party.  really cool, huh?  and today, i found it that it's not the patch and get-going kind of flat.  it's more of the, we need to fix a, b, c, d, e, and you need new tires.  love. it.  {insert sarcasm.}  

but the party... 

thank god a billion times over that i decided to take the totally easy route and have his party at the little gym.  i mean.  best. decision. ever.

i managed to save my voice all day on friday.  and then saturday morning.  and with the help of visine and concealer, i managed to pull off less of a death-warmed-over look than i had been sporting earlier.

mercy.

i will say, the birthday party went so well.  the cake was super tasty.  and pretty cute.  and we had pizza... {so original}  ethan loved playing with his buddies.  savannah might have very well thought it was her own party... and it was delightful, organized chaos.  chaos that our two party helpers had the joy of organizing.

i highly recommend it.

the photos... not my finest.  bad lighting combined with apathy.  :)

and i was so distracted by the chaos, i think i only got teary-eyed one time... possibly a new record.  lately everything sends me into an emotional downward spiral as i see my little guy as a little boy.  no more toddler.  not even a little bit.  i could get really sappy here... but... i won't!

happy birthday, again, sweet ethan. 

xoxo, s

celebrating my sweet ethan

he's four.  oh. my. lord.  he is four.

what a blessing.  four years with the sweetest boy i could imagine.  but how is he four?  the years move too quickly.  sometimes i cry. 

birthday celebration at school.

he simply is such a wonderful son.  inquisitive and creative.  cute.  funny.  witty.

he delighted in "blowing out" the candles.  i held it together and didn't cry. 

it wasn't easy.

he also challenges me.  has already developed the male-selective-hearing thing.  and likes to pretend things are guns and shoots them at things  {i initially was appalled by the violence... but have learned, this is a boy thing}

the orange trash truck.  i've only heard him talk about wanting this everyday for the last 4 months.

you can't make him sit down for very long and craft.  or color.  but he can build a fantastic block house.  or use his little mighty world people for hours-on-end of pretend.

the airport.  

it was same thing as the trash truck.  

on the "wish list."  he wanted this so bad that the day before he was trying to replicate it with his race track, making his cars "take off" and "land"

he probably watches too much t.v {insert mom guilt here} ... but lately he's been really into caillou.  who i personally think is sweet but a tad too whiny.  although, caillou doesn't pick up every blessed stick and pretend it is a gun. and that's nice... and caillou is polite.  and likes being a good big brother.  good lessons from the t.v.   :)

the nano bugs... entertainment from our two bugs, Zank and Zarnarsh.  ethan named them.  with no prompting from us...

he wakes up at 7:15 or so {dry! and has been for a loooong time} and keeps me on my toes all day... we might get lucky and he has a easy time taking a couple hour nap around 2:30... or we might get not-so-lucky, and have a struggle for the nap.  or it might just not happen.  but that is okay... because it's bed time somewhere in the neighborhood of 7:30, although i have been known to push it up or back by a half hour.

he's a decent eater... he has a major sweet tooth.  he says his favorite foods are pizza, french fries and chicken nuggets.  he loves milk.  and thinks juice is a majorly wonderful treat.

my big boy is 37 lbs. and almost 44 inches tall.  that puts him at the 50th and 95th percentiles... so tall.  he is in 4t clothes and has a closet full thanks to generous friends and wears a size 11 shoe.  which just about kills me.  he has boy feet.  not little boy feet.  big boy feet.

my son is sensitive.  he wants to make me happy.  he has taught me about patience, forgiveness, grace, and a child's delight. 

major entertainment for sister.  and the rest of us watched them for quite awhile too. 

he has the most vivid memory.  he gets that from his father.  tonight, while looking through a book he saw a picture of a dragonfly and he said, "remember yesterday a long time ago {i.e. past tense} i saw a dragonfly at the farm and i named him Power??"  folks, yesterday a long time ago must have been back in september.  or perhaps even the summer.

cake.  unbelievably excited.

for his birthday there were additions to his bruder armada:  a crane and a trash truck.  and i do not lie, my mother and i built a shelf to house the aforementioned armada.  pretty much in the thick of all the christmas/birthday hubbub of the end of the week.

word to the wise... homegoods has these ridiculously overpriced trucks for a bargain.  

shop early... i bet they get picked over quickly. 

thanks, jenn, for saving us an arm and a leg.

for his little birthday celebration - just us and grandparents.  easy peasy.  and a store bought cake that ethan decorated.  with an iron man action figure stuck in the frosting.  he couldn't have been any happier.  i think it is just the adults that truly delight in the art of the fondant.  not four year olds.  it was cake.  ice cream.  and a iron man that he has slept with every night since.  we'll save the more elaborate cake for the bigger bash.

we'll have a "friends" birthday party in january.  after this holiday madness.

best moment of the evening.  ethan.  on a stool in the kitchen all alone.  looking at the cake and singing happy birthday to himself.  hardly able to contain his excitement.  

my sweet ethan, it is a privilege to be your mommy.  i am so blessed.

His First Real Birthday Party

kids around here have birthday parties.  major parties.  well, some are bigger than others, but they involve things like magicians, traveling zoos, ponies, trains... i kid you not.  they are productions.  even ones that are scaled down are still productions.  or they are parties at a fun location.  but a cake and ice cream party where people play a few games in the family room, open presents and then leave... they don't really happen.

and if we decided to have people over to our house?  well, i don't think the birthday party game they had in mind was sardines.

anyway, i knew that this was the year we would start birthday parties for ethan.  he's really into birthdays.  the cake.  the candles.  the excitement.  where he didn't get it at 2 years old, he gets it now.



but his birthday is on december 17.  we celebrated christmas with my family on december 18.  so did other people.  can we say, inconvenient timing?  i figured that we could celebrate after christmas...

and i sought out a fiscally responsible party... and i kept my wits about me.  because i could add a few touches here and there, but breaking the bank on things like favors, was not going to happen.  i tried to cheap out as much as i could, and all in all, i am quite pleased.

i had an etsy artist design the invites... and i printed them at costco.  5x7's are a steal!



and the cake i bought from a lady that lives south of town... it was tasty and another bargain.  thank you amy for the recomendation!



the favors?  they were crap.  but i was okay with it.  the table runners?  {not the cutest} sale fabric from joann's that i pinked {the pinking olfa rotary cutter is pure genius, fyi}





the food was from the cafe, and it was quite tasty {not to mention, i didn't have to cook}  the drinks were a rip off, as they only had the tiny juice boxes... whatever.

and i have a bunch of leftover crayons...  i don't want them.  any takers?  i feel bad just throwing them out...

sister was tired... but well behaved.



this is her, "i'm trying hard to be happy face." 



all in all, a great party.  i did think ethan was going to lose it in the planetarium, when he looked at faustino and said "i can't like this"  {damn, captain eo at disney world!}  but he quickly got over it.









when i asked ethan what his favorite part of the party was -- the cake!




and one of the sweetest gifts?  my sweet friend sabrina took all of these photos for us.  she blogs here and here... and was my sounding board for the party.  thank you, sabrina!

{mostly} Ethan's Birthday Recap

yikes.  i just re-read this, and it is long.  and rambling.  so i'm going to delete the bulk of the rambling... y'all don't really care about the rambling, right?

let me begin with the beginning of the last week of "school" -- i got my shopping done, did the school program thing, celebrated ethan's birthday, and had savannah's 6 month appointment {doesn't every baby have their 6 month appointment at 7.5 months?  by the way, she is 19 lbs, 9 oz, and 28 inches long, for my record keeping purposes}

the wrench that i threw in the mix?  i decided on monday that we should go to longview and celebrate christmas the weekend before christmas.

whirlwind.

but on to ethan's birthday...

we started with a little celebration at school...  we really started by going to get donuts for breakfast, then getting the cookies for school.  {i wanted to bring donut holes, but they were out! boo!}





and then we had a little family get together that evening.  {store bought cake, on sale!}











and he received the fire truck of his dreams which has dominated our living room.  and has no "place" on his single toy shelf in our 900 sq. ft. house.  and i think i am going to puke when i think about what santa is adding.  thankyouverymuch.



and sister thought it was all about her... she had so much fun with the paper!







and she's been doing this thing where she stands on one leg.  lord, help me.  we're so certain that she'll stand soon that we moved her crib mattress down tonight. 





then, on saturday, we had birthday, round 2 in longview.   



it was all very fun.  ethan played with an older cousin all night, and learned about pretending to play football and tackle.  i definitely felt like he was growing up.  what happened to my baby???

then, on sunday morning, we woke up, noshed on faustino's aunt bonnie's hash brown casserole that i brought.  {i need to give y'all the recipe for that one} and had christmas.  i was on cloud nine when i opened up my gift from my parents.  what has happened to me that i am that excited over household appliances?  but i am!

anyway, the house has that whole, toys out of place thing going on... and i've not been able to get it under control... as i have been christmas carding {with my shutterfly freebies - turned out pretty cute, btw, and then my etsy ones came in at the last minute.  people will get them monday after xmas.} and canning more cranapple butter.  along with disciplining children that must surely be acting out because of the full moon/eclipse/winter solstice.  right??

and then we did the gingerbread house thing... which was a blast... you can read about it here, on sabrina's blog.  if only someone could have taken pictures when it got really out of control... not enough hands...

but i gotta go... i just realized that i have christmas eve/christmas day food to wrap my brain around.  i've known all along that christmas is on the 25th...  oh well :)

Turning 2

Baby boy Ethan is not a baby anymore.  He is two.  I have been teary all day, because now he is a little boy... really.  Not a baby at all...

I think back to this

And this

This time last year, he wasn't even walking...that happened on 12.22.08... and now he is jumping... not to mention talking -- stringing 2 - 3 words together for cute little sentences...

But, back to turning two...  I didn't give him a party.  Why do I feel so guilty??  He had a blast tonight with my in-laws and pizza, cake, and ice cream.  But I still feel guilty.  I think it is because we have been invited to so many fun parties for Ethan's (and my friends' children) little friends.   And it is a time for the mother of the birthday child to show domestic goodness.  And really, my target cake (which was good, by the way) does not show any sort of domestic goodness.  I made no banner.  I baked no cake.  I came up with no witty themes... darling invitations, memorable goody bags. 

But I remind myself.  None of it really matters.  Because Ethan had a good time tonight... and this small family party was the right choice for us... and then we will go to Longview this weekend and have a small family celebration there.

And next year, when he can ask for a party, and name off individuals that he would like to invite to the party, we will have a party.  Is anybody else out there holding out on the mass birthday party for toddlers?  I feel like one of 3.  or maybe 4... 

oh well, right?  who cares?  this is the last time I am giving it any "air time"

So this was tonight...

And then we tried to take a family photo... this is ethan being forced to sit down... and standing up...  i am scared to say it but... "hello 2's".... the power of free will!

Happy Birthday, Ethan.  You are such a blessing to us.  We love you so much... I could go on and on... you will always be my little baby boy, even though you are growing up and turning into a little boy more and more each day.