The *REAL* Anna

Eden was invited to another birthday party this past weekend. It was at a playground and it was a lot of fun. The kids were invited to dress up in their favorite princess or super hero. Eden went to the party as Belle and Hunter went as Woody. The kids got a surprise while at the party when Princess Anna from Frozen showed up at the party!

 Once Anna took a few pictures with the kids, she started painting faces. The kids were able to keep running around and having fun while they waited their turns. Anna took a short break from painting faces in order to let the kids play with magic snow! She made snow and passed it out so the kids could all throw it together to make a snowfall.

 And then she went back to painting faces. As soon as Eden got her snowflake we headed out because we had another party to go to! We had a blast!!!

Motherhood Is...{8}

Check out these cuties! I can't tell you how much they fill my heart. Sometimes they make my brain swell until I think my head might explode. This is from when we went down to base and had lunch at the food trucks. My kids can never get enough when it comes to food trucks. They love them!

Eden has been such a great big sister recently. When she's a good big sister it helps to relieve the exploding head. At dinner she heard Hunter talking to Lane about getting another fry. Lane said there weren't more, so he would have to eat what was on his plate. At that point, Eden reached across the table and handed Hunter a fry from her plate. Not just any fry...it was her last one! I don't even do that with Lane sometimes! And if I do, most of the time I don't do it without a little bit of whining and complaining. She also acknowledges Hunter when he's running around saying, "Ee-an, I pi-yat!" {Eden, I'm a pirate} over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. She'll say {without looking up from what she's doing} "I see you Hunter, you look like a cool pirate."

I'm falling in love with my kids all over again when they're good to each other!

Party Time!

So this huge box of more stuff than I know what to do with {plus more in the office!} has taken over our kitchen. It's a box with party supplies for Hunter's party and for Eden's party. Both birthdays are coming up too soon for my liking {one of those bitter sweet moments of parenthood!} and I'm getting into the swing of things and getting things done!

Invitations have been made and sent out. Well, Hunter's have been sent out...Eden's are still a work in progress for now.

Their "party hats" have been picked out!

And in addition to Hunter's vest that I made him, I've got Eden's mermaid tu tu started.

I'm re-using Hunter's birthday banner from his first birthday. I'm glad I saved it {even after staring at it for a year and trying to talk myself into throwing it away!} I'm just adding fabric strips to it to tie it into this year's theme! 

The kids each have their birthday shirts!

But honestly...what I'm most excited about? Oh. My. Goodness! This is what I'm most excited about!

I painted that! I'm not usually one to toot my own horn, but check that out! I didn't know that I could draw something like that. I had Eden stand next to the board so I could figure out where to put the circles and then I just looked at a picture as I drew it. I had most of the paint on hand and I had the glitter that I used for the water and Ariel's fin in my collection of craft stuff. I am SO excited to see this being used at Eden's party. Knowing that I did it makes it that much better!

Here goes! We're in crunch time for party planning and party prep!!!!! I'm so excited!

Motherhood Is...{7}

This past weekend we were able to enjoy beach time together. Lane missed all of beach season last year because of his deployment. Just before he left we went to the beach once, but Hunter hated the moving water and it was a bit of a bust. Over the summer Hunter started to love the beach, and the kids dug holes and built sand castles. This weekend Hunter didn't want to get in the water, but it was because it was cold. I'm excited at the chance for Eden and Hunter to enjoy some of the same things at the beach this year and for Lane to be able to watch them, too.

What I'll Miss

We have been in our house for over 2 years now. This time next year we'll be getting ready to make a move. We don't know where, and we don't really know exactly when. I was walking around our back yard last week and thinking about how much I'll miss our back yard. All of the fruit! My plants that last year to year because we don't have winters in Southern California.

Check out my tomato plant! I planted it last year and it's got blooms for us already. Hopefully this year my dogs won't eat all of the tomatoes before we get to them.

Lane got me this cool water bottle that I can put fruit in. It has a strainer in the middle of the bottle so you don't have to deal with pulp when you're drinking. I've learned that I love mint with my water, so I started growing my own to add to water. 

And then there's our orange tree that is getting blooms on it. They're really hard to see in the picture, but they're the teeny tiny white parts on the tree. I've been spending my life savings on oranges for my kids, so I'm happy to be able to go to the yard and grab them as I want them!

The First 29th

This year is the first time I'm going to turn 29. Next year I'll be 30 - only because I want to have a dirty 30 party with dirty martinis and dirt pudding - and then it's only back down to 29 from there! This year was awesome. On Friday night Lane told me that he was going to give me a choice of what to do for my birthday, but it was a surprise and I had to wait until Sunday. And then left me hanging...

Sunday morning, Eden let it slip that our babysitter was coming over. Lane gave me an hour notice to get ready and then we headed out. That's when my surprise was no longer a surprise. When we got in the car, he told me to open the glove box. There was a picture of a handgun and of a chair. My choices were a gun or furniture. The choice was actually a hard choice for me to make. I could see myself enjoying both.

Because I couldn't decide what to do we went to the shooting range. I knew I didn't want to get a gun without being comfortable with a gun. I enjoyed shooting. I felt more and more comfortable as we kept shooting. Lane started so that he could tell me what kind of kick the gun had and generally how things felt with the gun.

I enjoyed shooting, but determined that I wanted to shoot more before being a gun owner. After shooting we went shopping for furniture. We looked at new kitchen tables and at patio furniture. Shopping without the kids was bliss. We didn't have to tell anyone to stop climbing, jumping, running, yelling, or screaming. After taking a look, we decided to shop around some more and headed to dinner. Sushi had our names all over it. Eden has tried sushi and didn't like it, so it isn't something we've done with the kids. It was delicious!

Today in celebration for my actual birthday Eden and Lane made biscuits and I got breakfast in bed. I got my first home made card from Eden while Hunter slept in. Great start to my birthday! Lane and I then took the kids to the playground and I went for a solo run while the kids and Lane played. The playground is right by the mall, so we stopped by and ran a few errands.

Then it was nap time and finally dinner and cake!

Motherhood Is...{6}

The kids and I had a great week together. We had a lot of great moments, with a few moments of crazy thrown in too. The kids helped me celebrate my birthday by blowing out candles and singing "Happy Birthday" for me. Hunter was funny because he sang along with Lane and Eden. He sounded a lot like a backup singer. The song went something like this:

L&E: Happy Birthday to you...

H: Happy

L&E: Happy Birthday to you...

H: Happy

L&E: Happy Birthday to Mommy...

H: Happy

L&E: Happy Birthday to you!

H: Yay {with enthusiastic clapping!}

The kids were able to enjoy a lot of outside time. There were a few days this week that we were able to do outside lunches. While we were inside to play, the kids enjoyed playing a lot of dress up. Hunter has fallen in love with his pirate costume and most days can be found saying, "argh" and running around with a sword.

Not every day was fun and enjoyable. The kids weren't always excited about sharing their toys. This made for some interesting running times. My run times suffer greatly when the kids fight over anything while I'm trying to run. I can't decide some days if it's harder to run with the stroller, or parent from behind the stroller when I'm running.

One morning Eden and Hunter woke up in exceptionally great moods. They pulled the chairs from the toy room and sat at the edge of the kitchen. When they sat down, Eden said to me, "Mommy, we're sitting together! Take our picture!" They're so great when they start the day in a good mood!

Fat Albert

The Navy's Blue Angels fly with a C-130 and his name is Fat Albert. This week Fat Albert was at Lane's squadron undergoing some maintenance before the air show season starts. The crew let us bring our play group and take a tour of the plane. We had a lot of fun seeing the "special plane" with our friends.

The *REAL* Ariel

Eden was invited to a birthday party of one of her dance friends this past weekend. We were excited to be going to the princess tea party! It was an all girl's party, so we left Hunter and Daddy at home to spend the morning together. When we got to the party we stated with decorating buckets that were later used in a treasure hunt.

After buckets were decorated, and as participants continued to arrive, {the REAL} Ariel and her helper began giving makeovers - fixing hair {that was sprinkled with glitter!}, placing tiaras, and donning princess dresses. The girls were so cute, and very patient while waiting their turn for different things.

Once everyone had their hair fixed, they sat in a row and Ariel gave them a glitter heart on their cheek and lipgloss.

Once all of the princesses were dressed, they paraded into the tea room for their coronation ceremony. Eden was excited about this because of the movie Frozen. There is a coronation in the movie, and a song that is about the coronation, so she was excited to hear the word in real life!

After coronation the princesses paraded out into the back yard for a group picture. As they paraded into the yard, the girls each waved their wave that they learned from Ariel in the coronation ceremony - Elbow, elbow. Wrist, wrist. Wink an eye and blow a kiss.

When it was time for tea, after the pictures, the princesses paraded back into the dining room. Ariel talked to the princesses about table manners {chew with your mouth closed, wait until everyone has been served, wait to be excused, and so on} and taught them how to sip tea with their pinkies up.

To conclude the party we did the treasure hunt and the princesses ate cake. We had a blast, and the time with just Eden and I was much needed {as was the solo Daddy/Hunter time}. We need to make a point more often to do things alone with the kids.