Happy 9th Precious Jewel!

My sweet sweet baby....

.....has just turned 9.

Nine is one year away from the tween years (which someone had to explain to me is that age between the single digits and the teens).

Not so sure I'm ready for that.

She has been begging for 3 years now for me to put a canopy on the bed Grandmama bought for her when she turned 6.
It apparently didn't come with a canopy.
I've priced them on-line and have refused to pay for what I've found.
Limited funds bring out the creativity but my creative juices have been a little on the low side as of late (that and our little town has no fabric store and I have to drive 45 minutes to buy what I'd need...with 5 little boys in tow. I'm just not ready for that insanity.)
This year I vowed to fulfill her wish of putting a canopy on her canopy bed.
Luke and I snuck into her room Thursday night late after she'd already been asleep a couple of hours.
A canopy-less canopy bed really is a sorry sight and I have no real excuse people for it taking me 3 years to put a canopy on that thing.
Yes, that's her all tucked in bed surrounded by her animals and dolls.

30 minutes later....
Tulle is AMAZING!!
Pink Parisian fluffiness waited for our fast-fading Princess to awake.
(I still have plans to rip down the flower boarder and black sharpie scroll-work instead.
It might happen before she turns 13).
I then want to get her a black and white zebra throw to complete her wish list.

She was up before dawn squealing and bouncing us awake "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" (we'd set the alarm for 5:30 to watch her reaction. Obviously you can't beat enthusiasm. It was bouncing us awake).

Since starting school, we have let each of the kids, on their birthdays, stay home.
They LOVE it.
My dad started a tradition of taking us out for breakfast on each of our birthdays.
Luke and I have carried that tradition on with our children.
While everyone else was eating their breakfast, she opened the gifts that we had bought her and the one my parents had mailed from Mexico.
For 4 months she has been eyeing a Disney World bag peeking over the side of my shelf way up high in my closet.
I've threatened her with "I will give it to your cousin if you climb up there and peek when I'm not looking" (I have memories of doing that as a child).
She has taken to asking when she gets her Disney World Present instead.
Hmmmm....."Do you think I should wait until next year?" sends her into near convulsions . ; )

Then she opened it Birthday morning and discovered her first charm necklace.
More shrieks followed. ; )
And, then it was off to breakfast with her daddy before he had to leave for work.

Later that night a sweet little friend from school came to spend the night.
I took the two of them on a Christmas Home Tour.
It's a highly anticipated time of year when 4 to 5 families in our community decorate their houses to the hilt for Christmas and then open them to the paying public.
People come from all over and last year I felt Precious Jewel was old enough to enjoy the 2 1/2 hour home tour without getting bored on me.
This year her previous school's Principle's home was on the tour.
Luke met us with the boys so Mr. Smiles could go and see her home as well.
We also ran into several of her classmates and they enjoyed "oooooohhhhing" and "aaaawwwwwwing" together and exclaiming over their Principle's home.

After coming home and tucking 5 tired and excited little kids into bed, I finished up her cake.

Last year's birthday was all about pink and girly things and while it was delightful and fun, I also wanted to cry at the same time.
She was growing up far too fast and right in front of our eyes.
This year, after seeing her 1-year-old cousin's birthday, she decided she to wanted owls!
Yes, I said 1-year-old cousin.
My daughter may have been turning nine and has begged for an i-phone, laptop, her own make-up (none of which she has received by the way) and she may have learned to roll her eyes and huff with the best of them, but she is still a little girl in many ways.
I was more than happy to come up with whatever owl things we could find.

The cupcakes and cake were from Pinterest.

Pinterest also provided the craft idea which I cut out and sewed together ahead of time.

They got to pick the owl and wing colors and we gave them them the eyes and beak.

This was something even the boys could be included in and with the help of my sister-in-law, Luke and Mother-in-law we helped the girls hot glue everything together.
(I'm all about the hot glue even though the on-line video said to sew it).
Pshshshs... who needs a sewing machine when you can just glue it all together?! ; )

Then we stuffed those babies!

The extra stuffing also became a giant nest on the table for all the completed owlets and the boys thought it also made great fake snow.

Look Whoooooooooo!!!!

Then it was off to presents and cake (of which I realized later I took NO pictures of her blowing out her candles or in front of her lit cake). : (
She is and always will be the daughter close to my heart.
We girls gotta stick together.

Birthday Week Galore

Two birthdays two years and two days apart with children of the same gender present it's own unique set of fun and challenges.
All 4 of my children were born on major small town celebration weekends.
Precious Jewel's birthday falls on the weekend that our little town holds it's annual Christmas Parade, Downtown lighting and Christmas Home Tours. It takes up pretty much the entire weekend and makes it difficult to plan for a birthday party.
Why not the week before?
Thanksgiving.
The week after?
The last week of school and then everyone heads out for Christmas Vacation.

Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin' were both born the weekend of our town's Spring Craft Festival.
Up until two years ago, Mr. Smiles thought the weekend-long celebration was in honor of him.
It sorta' burst their bubbles when they realized that even if they hadn't been born that weekend, there would still have been some sort of Festival.
It also presents challenges in the planning arena.

Labor Day weekend was the weekend our last little munchkin was born.
In fact, our Dr. graciously offered to up the C-section by 2 days so he could still go boating with his family.
Wasn't that nice?

Doing a Dual Birthday party with two boys of very different personalities and tastes presents a unique challenge and a bit of skillful manipulation on my part every year.

Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin' celebrated their first party together the day Good Lookin' came home from the hospital on Mr. Smiles 2nd birthday. Both were too little to care.
The next birthday we did a combined Thomas Party for the 2 boys. Once again, still young enough that they didn't care what I picked.
The year after they wanted very different themes and I scratched my head as to how to pull that one off.
Lightning McQueen and Rescue Heroes.
A divided table with a whole lot of colored streamers worked well.
For Mr Smiles 5th and Good Lookin's 3rd we tried 2 separate parties on back-to-back weekends.
People came to one and not the other.
That didn't fly to well.
Last year Good Lookin' (my introvert) just wanted 1 friend and to have his party at Grandmama's house.
Easy Peasy.
Mr Smiles (my ever-so-outgoing extrovert) wanted EVERY CHILD in our church to come.
(Fortunately we go to a small church).
20+ kids and parents in attendance left me with a sugar and noise induced headache but very happy that he was happy. He LOVED it.
That brings us to this year.
Both boys asked for STAR WARS
YES! The same theme!!

I had also just recently stumbled across another mom's blog where she had just done a STAR WARS party for her triplets.
She had this AWESOME idea for party favors that didn't break the bank. Pool Noodles turned Light Sabers.
I totally went for it!

The week snuck up on me a whole lot faster than I was ready for and I had no cake planned.
I like to decorate my kid's cakes. I'm not a decorator and have never taken a class, but it's a lot of fun.
Once again, I waded into the mom world of facebook and begged off more ideas. I can't link to the person's facebook page for you to see the original inspiration, but it was pretty cool.
The boy's first reaction: "I thought you said they'd be fighting each other."
Ummmm...no.

The light sabers: A HUGE SUCCESS
There was some pretty serious yelling, hollering, running around and dueling taking place in our front yard and in the paths Luke had mowed through our trees.

Luke and his dad waded out into the yard with all the boys and went crazy.
I had never seen his dad have quite so much with all the pool noodles and short little people running around.
The boys loved it.

I also forgot candles and they each ended up with one bright pink one to blow out.
They were so light-sabered-up that they didn't notice a bit. Whew!!!

The pandemonium of present time wasn't as bad as it has been in years past partly due to some of the little party goers escaping back out the front door to continue their duels.

Have you all seen these BAY BLADES?
I'm not sure I'm even spelling them right.
Both boys were given them by a little friend for their birthdays.
I guess there is a cartoon that goes with them that the boys will never see since we have all cable and satellite shut off to our house, but they LOVE the toys.
They are nothing more that glorified TOPS.
Every single boy eventually ended up back in the kitchen and for a full 30-40 minutes battled it out with their little metal tops dinging and clanging each other out of their plastic arena.
Needless to say, it was a successful birthday weekend.

Happy 5th Birthday Good Lookin'

I can't believe it's here already. Another child of mine is passing that ever-so-growing-up-birthday when they are no longer little anymore.
5 Years Old

Five is a big number in our house.
You are no longer one of the little little kids.
Even if you are not yet in school, 5 is the number of leaving the last of baby and toddler-hood behind.

5 is a Bigger Kids number

Good Lookin's was the most difficult of all my pregnancies.
(That should have given me a clue for what was to come).
I threw up the ENTIRE 9 months...living on nutritional shakes and PediaSure.
At 30 weeks, I went into labor and after doing all the shots to speed up his lungs, monitoring in the hospital and multiple visits to the doctor, I was officially put on complete bed rest for the next 6 weeks.
Did I mention I had a just-turned-3-year-old and 1 year old at home.
Bed Rest?!
I looked at the doctor and laughed and then burst into tears.
My mother flew up from Mexico and spent the next several weeks living with Luke and I and taking care of our little family.
Precious Jewel and Mr. Smiles equated her arrival with my being in bed and hated her.
For the first couple of weeks they did everything in their toddler power to make her go home.
My poor mother cried (a lot).
I felt horrible.
Luke felt horrible.
Precious Jewel and Mr. Smiles were less than precious and smiley.
After a couple of weeks they began to warm up to her and then grew to love her because she loved them in spite of their un-loveliness.
At 36 weeks, I was taken off of bed rest and told I'd have "that baby any day."
We waited and waited and then waited some more.
He didn't come.
Then our house that we had put on the market sold and we face a move the week before he was due.
My mother packed up our whole little apartment and moved us.
BLESS HER!!!
We moved into our new little house out in the country and it was crazy trying to unpack and prepare for baby when I could hardly walk.
The child has rested on my pelvic bone for nearly 10 weeks and at my next appointment I asked to be induced 2 days before Mr. Smiles birthday.
I was tired of the 29 weeks of contractions and the inability to sit down or hold my kids.
I was tired of throwing up.
I wanted this baby out!

April 26, 2006, he made a very fast appearance after only about 3 hours of labor.
I felt him moving down and yelled at Luke.
They had just checked me and I was a 6, but about 15 minutes later he made his appearance with one of my feet in the stirrup and the other on Luke's shoulder because they had only just dropped the foot of the bed and tossed it quickly against the wall.
Our doctor wasn't even in his scrubs yet.
I was totally smitten with the sweet new little bundle of love that had wreaked havoc on my body for 9 months.

He was all out there from the beginning.
He had (and still does) the most expressive faces.

We've never had to guess what he's thinking because whatever it is, it's all out there!

His 1st Birthday
(excuse the hilarious picture of Luke. usually it's me with the eyes closed).

His first bite of sugar...and boy did he like it!

His 2nd birthday we combined with Ben's 4th. Both were just recovered (with a few scabs left over) from the chicken pox.
I think we held their birthday's a week later than usual.

The day of his birthday he was still quite spotty.

By his 3rd birthday, he was totally and completely in love with Lightning McQueen.
And he requested the same cake the next year...

...for his 4th. (someone else had blown out his candles and he was NOT HAPPY).

He's grown up a lot in this past year (calmed down a lot too).
We have discovered he definitely has a connection with animals and is usually the one out in the pen helping to care for the animals.

This next year will be another wild adventure with him I am sure.
Life is never dull around this child.
The last 3 birthdays he's had, I've felt like doing a victory lap just for surviving (with my sanity and humor still intact) the year.
Happy 5th Birthday Good Lookin'!!!!