Yippe! Yipee! Natalie is Finally Three!

Well, we not only survived but enjoyed Natalie's action-packed third birthday... Of course, I use the term action-packed rather loosely --- based on the age of the participants it was plenty of excitement for one day!

We started off the day by having my aunt, Jana, and our cousins, Melinda and Evie (3 yrs) and Lizzie (10months) over for breakfast. (Aunt Jana and Evie are two of Natalie's favorite people.) The tots snarfed down a pile of muffins and some toast and ran around a bit before we called them back in to unwrap presents. Evie just had her third birthday a couple weeks ago, so she was a little confused and rather disappointed that none of the presents were for her (and Natalie was reluctant to share at first). Poor Evie! Being a toddler is tough!

We sang, of course, and let Natalie blow out candles on her birthday cake, but we only let the kids have one little cupcake (flower) each, assuring them we'd dig in to the big cake that evening. We had some cupcakes set aside to send home with our guests, too, of course.

After the kids played with the toys a while, we packed up and headed off to play at Betty Brinn Children's Museum. Our guests came, too, and Melinda actually snapped more pictures than I did (since I had an armful of Esther a lot of the time). You can see some on her blog: http://1lil2lilgirls.blogspot.com/2009/02/happy-birthday-cousin-natalieat.html

Most of the photos I got were badly blurred - apparently the camera I'm using these days has almost no tolerance for motion; but here are a few that turned out:

We spent a couple hours at the museum before everyone went their separate ways. By the time I got the kids home, Natalie was pretty much asleep in the car and Emily (4 1/2) started crying and said she didn't want lunch, only a nap!!! Those poor kids dropped like rocks! (heh heh heh)

Well, they bounced back by evening and we went to McDonalds for a fun dinner. Natalie wanted to take her new (toy) doggie, but we convinced her that would be a bad idea... We suggested she take her ballons and some of the cupcakes, instead.

Anyway, quite a busy day for us! But, I think it was pretty successful: Nat loved her presents, got to eat food she actually likes, and got to "play" with some of her favorite people; And all of use enjoyed the activites --- and the abundance of cake!

Cake Time!

Ok, I confess, I am fairly pleased with myself about how Nat's Birthday Cake turned out... Or, at least I like the flowers! (The caterpillar is a bit pathetic.)

The flower cupcakes were really fun, and best of all, really easy to make. The centers are sweet-tarts (smarties or whatever would work) and the petals are mini marshmallows cut in half (and pinched a little). We made extra cupcakes to share with friends. The kids were even able to help --- I let them eat their own creations, though, on account of contamination issues....

I found the flower technique on: http://www.cupcake-creations.com/

Party - Party

Well, we had a lot of fun this weekend --- 2 birthday parties to attend!

First, Mike and Em were invited to a party for one of their friends from church, Nathan. His parents arranged for the kids to tour a local police department, and then everyone went back to their house for cake and presents and such...

The kids had a lot of fun - Thanks for inviting us, Nathan!

Later, in the afternoon, we went out to Aunt Jana's for our cousin Evie's 3rd birthday. The kids had fun sleddingand watching the Daddys fire off some model rockets (but I was inside with baby so photos are courtesy of Evie's mom, Melinda). When the kids were thouroughly soggy (on account of it being 50 degrees out!) everyone gathered inside for cake, ice cream, and presents.

Again, much fun was had by all! Thanks for inviting us, Evie! You make a lovely little Princess!

More Cute-ness & New (Book) Project

Esther is about 9 weeks old now, and is starting to be quite "vocal". She gurgles and coos at us when she's happy, and is pretty smiley, too. (Of course, at this age even her "pouts" are awefully cute!) Here's a little clip of her "talking" to us (the other voices are mostly me and Emily)...

On a completely unrelated note, today I have been "playing" with a really neat website - its called "Shelfari" and lets you make booklists (in the form of virtual bookshelves) and share them with friends, etc. You can see one of my "bookshelves" at the bottom of this blog. The bookshelf is a full-blown "widget", so it updates when I add things on the Shelfari site. It also links to my profile on their site where I'm happily adding more and more books and reviews and such....

I've tried making booklist webpages before with minimal success, so I'm extra glad to have found this site! I have Melinda to thank - she has a bookshelf "widget" on her blog, too... Anyway, I highly recommend the site if you are looking to share booklists (or lots of other book-related stuff). I also recommend a great number of books, of course....

Let me know if any of y'all like any of my picks or have others to suggest!

Singing to Baby

Having put up a couple of over-due posts, I can finally get to today's fun....

Over the last couple of weeks, the kids have really been into singing. This is something I've encouraged since I can sing with them while I'm rocking/soothing/nursing the baby. Now they like to sing to the baby... Anyway, I finally got my act together and filmed a bit:

Three-year-old Natalie singing "Edelweiss" (from the Sound of Music) to baby Esther... Hard to hear but awefully cute...!

...and the it was Em's turn, of course...

(A little easier to hear, I hope, and just as cute!)

Well, I really don't know what the kids' fascination is with "Edelweiss" - they've seen very little of the movie - but it is sweet to hear them (try to) sing it.... So there you go - a healthy dose of "cute" for your day...