Celebrating Bean's Birthday

Tuesday was Bean's Birthday. Bean wanted to go visit her Nana for her birthday. This weekend, I am planning on having *little* party for her with a bigger cake. But on her actual birthday we visited Nana. Before we left, I gave Bean one of her presents, which was this:


Nana has a new Puppy named Bindi. She is such a little Sweetie and really good with the kids. The kids love her too.

Nana treated us to lunch at a little restaurant in her "city". Nana actually lives in a forest, so it would be better to call it a community. :)

Bean and Sweet split a Personal Pizza, then we had cupcakes. We sang Happy Birthday to Bean, and many in the restaurant joined us.

Everyone enjoyed their cupcakes. ;-)Bean's favorite Princess is Belle. I don't really let them play with B*rbies, but I guess I make an exception with the Princesses. I just tell them that they can't undress them. That they must stay modest. ;-) So far this has worked, as Sweetie has Cinderella.

At the restaurant they have this gumball machine which has a chicken that "lays" the gumballs. It is hilarious, and Tiny Boy didn't know what to think of it. Sometimes the chicken would move, as it had a motion detector in it. Tiny Boy would walk up to the chicken, and then it would "jump". Tiny Boy, would run away complaining in his baby language. LOL!
Bean got a green gum ball. Which means that if anyone gets a green gum ball they win an order of "Puffs". Puffs are fried dough with either powdered sugar or Cinnamon and sugar. We choose the Cinnamon, and boy was it good!
The girls didn't understand what the big deal about the colors were. Sweetie was proud of her yellow one as well, so she stuck hers in the picture. :)

We went back to Nana's and it was raining heavily by this time. So, the girls watched some children Cable television shows. (We don't have cable so this was exciting to them)

The next day Bean tried to ride her new bike, but the tires were flat. :( Nana let me use the tire pump, but we couldn't get it to work properly. I was having a hard time pumping the air. While I was trying to get it to work, I started to fear that I was an extreme wimp!

So Nana's strong neighbor man came over to help. (Paw Pa was out of town) Even he couldn't get it to work. He suggested that we use his electric air pump, which worked just fine. Except, once we blew up the tire, it fell flat straight away. Arrrrgh!

All of us loaded up in the van and headed to China World, um, I mean W*l-Ma*t. I had left the receipt at home, and I didn't have it with me. We were hoping that W*l-m*rt would just switch out the bikes.

The lady at the customer service desk said that we couldn't do that without a receipt. But thankfully, she said that she would get someone to put a new tube in the tire.

Now the bike is as good as new, and Bean finally was able to try out her new bike.

Tiny Boy tried to be a dare devil though. ;-)

I guess this is a taste of what I am going to be looking forward to, with having a boy. ;-)

My Grandma's 90th Birthday

On January 1st my Grandma turned 90 years old! We had a small family celebration at a near by hotel's banquet room.

It was a surprise to her, and there is something special that we did for her that I would like to you to see. But before I do that, here are a few pictures I would like to share. Since January's flower is Carnation, and the birthstone is garnet. My parents had a dark red carnation corsage made up for her. Here is her yummy cake.

I wanted to make some special keepsake place cards for the table. I borrowed this idea from MOPS and used the colors of my grandma's party color scheme.
Grandma opening one of her gifts. Sweetie "helping" her out.
And my husband, the one who always brings more life to a party, tries boiling his iced tea in a spoon over a candle! ;-)

But the climax of the party was my Grandma opening her gift from *everyone*. It was a special project that the whole family took part in. We put together a digital scrapbook from Creative Memories of my Grandma's life together.

My Aunt got the photos from my Grandma without my Grandma knowing what it was for. My Aunt told her it was for a class history project. She wanted to show the students old photographs from the past decades. :)

Then my husband spent almost 8, give or take, hours scanning them at work. My mom and our good friend came over to my house and spent the WHOLE day watching the kids while I put the pictures in the template that Creative Memories uses for the album.

Grandma's children, children in-laws, grandchildren, grandchildren in-laws, great grandchildren, and a friend all wrote my grandma a personal note to include within the albums pages.

The album turned out absolutely beautiful, but my Grandma's reaction to it, as they say on the commercial, "Priceless".

Our Rainbow

For a few years I have been wanting to get this type of play set for our children. I had been looking at sets from Wal-Mart.com and was really thinking about getting the ones that they sell.

My mom and dad offered to chip in for a play set for the kids as part of their Christmas gift to them. Mom mentioned that my sister's play set that she had bought from SAMS was literally falling apart.

The swing beam was unsafe for the kids to swing on, the wood was splintering and coming apart, etc.

After talking with my sister, I decided to start shopping around. I found one from Play Nation and posted about it on a Internet board I am part of.

One lady posted about her play set that was called a Rainbow, and that it lasted through all of her kids rough play. Her kids are now grown, so they took it down and gave it to someone else.

The next day, my mom called me and told me that they had done some shopping around and found a really nice one called a Rainbow.

The dealership near them had a great sale going on for Christmas, plus free delivery and installation included.

Mom gave me the catalog that they picked up from the dealership. Inside was a promotional DVD. The girls and I sat down and watched it. Of course after seeing that, they wanted one too. ;-) On our way to Michigan we stopped by the dealership to drop off papers to complete the transaction. The girls saw all of their models and were excited and thought we were buying one. I told them that Daddy was talking to the man, and we would see how much it would cost.

When Daddy got back in the van, he said it was too much money. Sweetie began to cry. :( While we were in Michigan we had it installed.

We arrived home late at night, and put the kids right to bed. The next morning, I went about my day like I always do. Opening blinds, straightening up the living room etc.

I was on the computer when Sweetie shouted, "THERE'S A PLAYGROUND IN OUR BACK YARD!!!!" Bean hopped up from what she was doing and ran over to look out our glass sliding door. She started jumping up and down, "THERE IS, THERE IS!!!!"

I pretended I didn't notice what they were doing. They came running over to me, shouting and jumping up and down. I turned and listened to them, and said in a skeptical tone, "No there is not, your telling me a story." Bean said, "There is a Rainbow in our back yard!" I said, "I don't believe you!"

"Come and See!!!" They both said. So I get up like I am somewhat annoyed, and go over to the door. I then said, "Now how did *that* get here?!" Sweetie says, "Maybe the Rainbow people brought it?" I then said, "But how would they know we wanted one?" Bean then pipes in, "Maybe Daddy told them?"

I then smiled and explained that Nana and Papa, help Mommy and Daddy buy it for them for Christmas. Also, Grandma and Grandpa gave mommy and daddy some money to help us buy it.

They got dressed real quick, and played on it until lunch and rest time. Then went out and played on it until it was too dark to see. :)

It comes with a rock wall too!
Tiny Boy trying out the slide
Tiny Boy on the Swing

Bean Checking out the binoculars, and Sweetie climbing up the ladder.

Thanks for visiting my show and tell. To see what others are showing and telling about today, click on the Show and Tell button above. :)

Christmas 2007

This year we traveled to Michigan to spend time and Christmas with my husband's parents. It was a long drive up, but I thought that the children did well for such a long trip. Once I put a diaper on Bean so we didn't have to stop every hour. ;-)

Sunday we went to Church. Usually I don't dress Tiny Boy up much for church. But here he is all dressed up for Church. :)

My In Laws Church has a deaf ministry. Sweetie and Bean saw the people up on the platform signing. After Church they both got up there and did some signs that they know. However, Bean got camera shy, and covered her face. For what reason I don't know, she usually loves her picture taken.
Christmas Eve we went to my husband's mother's side of the family and stuffed our faces on some great food. Then we all just sort of hung out. The kids running around, the grown kids ( um I mean men) playing XBOX. Some of us played Phase 10 and Apples to Apples.

Then we came back to my husband's parents home and I let the kids open one gift. It was their pajamas, which we call cozies, that I made them.

They begin to dig in. Tiny Boy watching in amazement.
"Sooo, that is what you do with this thing! I'll give a whack at it." thought Tiny Boy

"This is a lot tougher than I thought it would be!"

"I GOT PINK!!!" Then Sweetie plasters on her fake smile "Look at mine!"Success!

All ready for bed. Being Silly.

We finally put the kiddos to bed at 11:30! Guess what time I actually got to sleep in to? 9:30am! That is the latest I have slept without interruption since I don't know when.

Once the kids were to bed, I set up the tepee that I made for them. When the girls ran out of the bedroom and saw it, their Aunt told them that it was Grandpa's gift.

When gift opening began I sat the girls in front of the Tepee and we told them that the Tepee was really theirs. Here is a picture of their reaction.

Tiny Boy got some cowboy getupThe girls opening gifts together "Huh?"

All of this was just too overwhelming for Tiny Boy One of the quilts I made for the girls.

Sweetie received face painting Pencils from Grandma. Here is some of the fun I had with them:

A moustache for Tiny Boy. A Tiger for Bean I attempted to do a horse for Sweetie, which didn't quite turn out like I had wanted it to. It was kind of a disappointment to her too.

When I finished up, I told Sweetie to go and look in the mirror and see what she thought about it. She came out with this serious look on her face, which with the horse attempt makeup, made her look very funny. Trying not to laugh, she then says, "I look weird" in a very teenager kind of voice.

At this point I cracked up so much that everyone thought I was crying. I then told Sweetie to tell everyone what she told me. She then proceeded to climb in a chair like she was going to give a speech, and said, "Do I look weird or what!?" Everyone then understood why I was laughing, and at this point Sweetie ran and hid in the Tepee, and this is the shot I got of her horse face. She would look at the camera. :)

Snow Play

When we arrived in Michigan there had been a lot of snow. But the temperatures were warming up, and much of the snow had melted by the time we got there. However, there was enough snow for the girls and Tiny Boy to experience some of it.This is the morning after we arrived

Tiny Boy isn't sure what this stuff is. :) Enough snow to experience some fun.

Bean trying to make a snowman.
"No Sweetie, snow isn't like the beach sand!"

We were supposed to leave Friday Morning, but Thursday night we learned that several inches of snow was supposed to fall the next day. Because of *that* we decided that we would stay a few extra days to play in the snow. :)

The Snow begins to fall and gets heavier by the minute.

By night time there is enough to make a decent sized snow man. Compliments of Daddy of course. ;-) We even had a few fun snowball fights. After Daddy nailed a hard one on my back, I got him good right in the ear! :)
In the middle of the night it rained some, then froze again, making the snow nice and hard for sledding. Daddy's cousin brought his little boy over to play in the snow with the girls. He also brought his four wheeler and attached the sled to the back of it and took them for rides on it. They thought it was soooooo much fun! Here is a video of what they experienced.

At one point, the girls fell off, each landing face first in the snow. Once they did that Bean wanted to ride the four wheeler, and Sweetie was off to play on the Snow Mobile with Daddy's Uncle.
I got on with Tiny Boy! :)

Tiny Boy thought it was great fun, even though he didn't let his emotions get too involved. Every time we stopped, I would ask him if he wanted to get off, and he would grunt and shake his head no, even though he hardly uttered a sound while we were sledding.

Once or twice I screamed as we went down hills, and he would scream too. But he still wanted to ride it.

Daddy also took me for a ride on the Snow Mobile. I still will take riding horses over that any day, but I must admit it was a lot of fun nonetheless! :)