Littlest Pet Shop PARTAY!

For Amber's 4th birthday she wanted a Littlest Pet Shop themed party. So after looking in just about every store out there, I found tablecloths, cups, invitations, and napkins. The rest left me to be creative. I printed out signs saying "pet cafe", "pet lounge" and "pet playground",made a big sign for the door, and hung some crepe paper streamers. I cut out a number of pawprints for the walls using my trusty Cricut, set up some of Amber's pet shop toys and voila; I had the decorations!

Food
For food, we set up a number of "pet foods" in different labeled containers. I used sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds to make "bird seed" and a number of vegetables cut up to be rabbit snacks. Honey Puffs and Choco Pops made perfect kitty chow. Insect bites and Scooby snacks worker for frog and dog treats. Finally gummy worms were our fish food. For the adults we also had cracker and cheese platters as well as some deli spirals. I displayed cupcakes using my cupcake display rack, put a four candle on Amber's cupcake and some Littlest Pets on a few around the bottom ring. On the middle ring, I used peppermint patties and junior mints to make pawprints on the cupcakes.
Games
The kids enjoyed making animal beaded necklaces, pinning the tail on the cat and digging for silly bands in a sand box. They also each had goody bags with Pet Shop coloring books, stickers and a few Littlest Pets.
Presents
Of course, Amber made out like a bandit. She got some new Pet Shop play sets, a number of craft supplies, pjs, an Olivia play house, an Aqua Sand play set and lots more.

Then and Now

Amber is now FOUR years old. Those four years have been full of so many wonderful memories from her first steps to her first play dates. She's truly been a blessing to our lives. She's now our little dancer, preschooler, artist, storyteller, photographer and big sister. It can only continue to get better from here. :)

Back to School Season

I've always liked the end of summer and the "Back to School" season. Call me a nerd (I am trained to be a teacher after all!), but I've always liked seeing the selection of new binders, papers, pens and all the other school supplies. For me, this time of year has always marked a new beginning, a time to try new things.

This year, I won't be going back to school but I will be trying new things. Instead, Amber is starting school. We've decided to home-school, at least for the next couple of years so Amber is doing preschool this year with me and she will enter kindergarten next year probably with the help of PA Cyber. She is very excited about doing school work and wants to show everyone her accomplishments. I hope to maintain that excitement as time moves on. If only she could be this excited when she enters high school. (I KNOW, that's probably just wishful thinking.)

Welcome Micah David Kingsbury

Finally, here's some pictures of the new addition to the family. Micah was born June 15th, 2010. He weighed 6 lbs. 13.6 oz. We're all soo happy that he's finally here and Amber loves being a big sister.

We'd also like to thank everyone for their prayers and support, we've been so blessed throughout the end of pregnancy, labor and delivery and bringing baby home. We've had people bring gifts, food, and just offer to lend a hand. Thank you all!

Baby Shower and other baby preparations

I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks now. Some friends at our church organized a nice shower for us a few weeks ago. I wanted to post a few pictures even though I'm dumb and didn't take any at the actual shower, I did take some when we got back home. The shower was wonderful, Thanks to all who came, sent gifts, and organized everything. It was complete with a diaper cake, bibs on the wall, snacks, gifts, and a nursery rhyme game. The princess cup was for Amber since she's a big sister and the large blanket was handmade by Zola. THANK YOU!





In addition to the shower, I promised some pictures of the finished product in Amber and Micah's room. I did finally finish...check out the pictures to follow. I was quite proud of the my crafty job with the letters for Micah's wall. :)

Mrs. Fix-it, a confession by me

You know the term "Mr. Fix-it", well I've always thought that term applied very well to both my Dad and my husband. Not always in the same way but they both want to "fix" things. If there's a problem, they just want to come up with a solution. We'll I've always thought of myself as one who wanted to talk about things, not just fix them. (Or as probably my husband would say, I like to talk things to death!) I don't always come up with a solution but I want to vent my frustrations and have someone commiserate.

Recently though, I don't know whether we've switched roles or if I've just had to compensate too much but because hubby has been so busy finishing classes and working. I find myself wanting to "fix" everything for my daughter and soon to be son. Everything has to be done right and if someone does something wrong then it needs to be fixed. I get thoroughly frustrated when someone else doesn't seem to feel the need. For instance, yesterday at church I felt like no one else cared whether all the Children's' Ministry plans for summer were perfect but I did. I was close to biting a few people's heads off for things like disorganization and scheduling difficulties (I won't mention names).

Now that I've realized this about myself, do I think it will change soon? No, probably not. I'll probably always want to fix everything for my kids. I'll always want to fix other people too even though I've realized this is a next to impossible task. (I mean seriously, it's been about 7 years since being introduced to my in-laws, and I still haven't been able to fix the problems there!) Instead, I've realized that I just need to work on patience and to trust that everything will be fine as long as God is in control. Many of our church volunteers will never be totally organized but God did put them there to help so instead of fixing them, I suppose I need to learn to just work with them.

Who wouldn't want to fix everything for this?

I do NOT have a green thumb

Since it's near Mother's Day, it got me to thinking about how many people are getting plants or garden things for their mothers. I've inherited a lot of my traits and talents from the women in my family and many in particular from my Great Grandmother (Gram) but one thing that I did not inherit was her green thumb.

I wish I had pictures of how PERFECT her yard looked when I was growing up. She could make anything grow and even keep it alive. A weed in her yard was a menace. I, on the other hand, have gotten her persistence and stubbornness but very little ability to grow AND keep things plants alive. Last year, I made the decision to attempt to do a little landscaping, plant a garden, etc. I figured that anyone could manage to grow a few things if they put their mind to it. So, we planted turnips, radishes, and peppers in our make shift garden at the end of the driveway. I lined the edges with bricks and voila, thought I'd have myself some fresh vegetables. This was not the case. I planted some wildflowers in part of the backyard but I caught the birds and squirrels digging up the seeds and eating them. In the front yard along our steps, I planted three lilies that I purchased from Home Depot; some herbs in a small pot on my windowsill and finally finished with a hanging basket on our porch. Needless to say, I don't need to mention how many of these plants did well. It was pretty clear to all neighbors that I was indeed an amateur.

So you're wondering, do I have a empty yard? Of course not- in the spirit of perseverance, I decided to try again this year. I have now hung a beautiful hanging basket on our porch, the lilies amazingly did come back this year in the front, and I replanted part of our backyard with wildflowers. Herbs are now growing on my windowsill and so far they aren't dead! (Pictures to follow)



I'm now planning our porch furniture for the year. Because of course, we need to be able to sit out and enjoy my green attempts. :) I'm thinking two adirondack chairs from Home Depot in a nice lime or aqua as well as two folding tables from Joann. So even if the hanging basket is the only thing that survives, at least we'll have a nice view!

Painting Fun

Since now in retrospect, I can laugh about this, I'll tell you a little story about our painting experience over the Easter weekend. So, we decided that since Micah will have to share a room with Amber, that their room should really represent both of them. Previously the room had all lavender walls with white trim. And as the room was filled with baby dolls, doll accessories, and everything else that comes with a three year old girl; we decided that we needed some masculinity in the room. So, I broke out the scrapbook paper to find the perfect color to complement the purple and came up with a nice "lime-like" green color and decided we'd paint an accent wall right behind where the crib would be placed. Being the energetic person that I am, I decided that we'd put Amber to bed in her sleeping bag downstairs on Friday night and we'd go ahead and paint the wall. I sent hubby to the store to get a quart of green mixed and I got everything ready to paint.


Well, apparently the nice person who mixed the paint didn't bother to tell him that the lid was not on very tight. So, I carried the paint upstairs and sent him to get the rest of the brushes and rollers from downstairs. While he was doing this, I decided to finish moving everything around in the room and was getting ready to paint when all of the sudden, I apparently bumped the paint to find that indeed, the lid was NOT on very tight and we all of the sudden had green carpet, a radiator and closet doors. Now mind you, the closet doors were white, the radiator was whitish, and the carpet was shades of gray. So with the window wide open, I said a few choice words that I will not even post on here. (I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed my display of CHRISTIAN behavior! Needless to say, we won't be knocking on their door to witness any time soon.)

After saying a few words and realizing that this was NOT going to clean up the mess, I screamed for Josh to come up and help clean up. He then ran for like every old rag and roll of paper towels we had in the house and we spent the next two hours, at least, trying to soak up all the paint. Of course, since I being the brilliant one that I am had decided to paint in the evening, Home Depot was already closed and no one was open who provided carpet cleaning equipment rentals. So Josh called my parents and ran over to borrow their wet vac. This helped a bit and we basically scrubbed and soaked the carpet for another like two or three hours. Finally in disgust, we went to bed with the carpet still wet.

When awaking to find that the carpet was still of a greenish hue, we decided a carpet cleaner was in order. So Josh went to get one from Home Depot and I perused the adds online for new carpet. At this point we were pretty sure that we were not only losing part of our deposit but that we were doomed to enjoy greenish carpet for the remainder of our time in this house.

But, we persevered anyways and hubby was able to run the carpet cleaner about five times over after repeated scrubbing and amazingly, the paint kept coming out. By about 1 or 2 in the afternoon on Saturday, we had very wet but much cleaner carpet. I used some handy nail polish remover and some rubbing alcohol and was able to scrub most of the radiator and also to wipe off Amber's chair and some places on her bed since they were not porous in texture. This worked wonders and slowly we had the room almost back to normal.

So in the end, you are probably wondering, did I still decide to paint a wall or did I just let everything go? Well, I being the never -ending decorator, decided we would still paint the wall. I now also had to repaint he closet doors. SO, Josh got the privilege of running to Home Depot yet again to pick up another quart of green. We unearthed the leftover white paint we had in the basement and I repainted the doors. Then we moved everything over across the room, yet again, and painted the wall green. I must say that after all of this, the room isn't looking too bad.

After cleaning up the drop clothes and hammering on the lid to all paint, we slowly moved everything back to the original spots. So most of the green in the room is now on the wall, Amber is minus a few stuffed animals that got splashed, and we now (how ironic) have a PRINCESS blanket covering up the cover on Amber's chair.

I'll post a few pictures of the room, though I haven't hung the five pictures above the crib or the letters for Micah's name yet. You'll notice the colors of the room are probably a bit off in the pictures but the colors of the room are now pink, purple, lime, and aqua. All of the colors are picked up in Amber's comforter. Micah's crib sheets (though you won't see them in the pictures) are white, aqua and one with trees that looks very much like it goes with the Winnie the Pooh theme in the room right now. The stuffed animals for him have been moved to the net beside the crib and Amber's are in the net above her bed. You'll notice that there are A LOT of them in the pictures.



What did I learn from this? #1 Always make sure the paint has the lid hammered on, even if it just came from the store. #2 Paint is not really permanent until it dries.

Easter Week Festivities

So, I'm just a little behind here. MAYBE I'll even do two posts in one day just to get caught up on life's events and my rants on annoying people, etc. But, for now I thought I should start with Easter. After all, Easter really does have so much more importance to us than what so and so said to make me really angry. :)

So Easter... we started out the week dying eggs on Tuesday. My husband and I were used to the method of dipping an egg in a cup of water with some food coloring or a color tablet. This year, I decided to try something a little different. I bought a glitter kit and Dudley's Roll It kit. They both involved little packet of dye that you don't have to mix, you just squirt them into a a paint palet and voila, you're ready to go. My little artist loved this method because she could use a paint brush for the glitter paint and little paint rollers for the other. We got eggs that looked much more detailed than we would have otherwise. AND I'm pretty sure that the dye came off of our hands much earlier than last year.


Later in the week, I took Amber to my parents to decorate cookies with her friends Carter and Kayla. They thoroughly enjoyed dumping sugar and jimmies (yes, I do really say that) on each cookie as they were iced. And despite one sneeze by Carter onto his cookies, I think they might have turned out relatively germ free. ;)

Josh and I enjoyed his days off by getting a bunch of projects done around the house, including painting an accent wall in Amber's room. We now have a lavender and green room. I think that maybe Micah will appreciate looking back at pictures a bit more if they aren't all of a totally girly room with purple walls. Yeah, yeah, I do realize that he will could care less for at least a few months but, I do! I can't stand not doing something to individualize each room for my kids. It's in bred as my Mom is the same way.

Finally, on Sunday morning, we got up early enough to allow Amber to hunt for her Easter eggs and take a quick look at what the Easter bunny brought. This year the Easter bunny brought a tiny bit of candy and a doll rather than a bunch of little "doodads" that only get played with once or twice. I think this worked much better for us and she LOVES her doll. (Mommy might love it just as much as I got a really good deal on it by shopping Kohls clearance section with an extra 30% off coupon. :) )

Following the egg hunt, we enjoyed the Easter service at church. Well, we enjoyed what we were present for, as we were with the children for about half of the service. I had them singing what I thought was a cute little song about why we should appreciate the day that Jesus rose again, etc. (I wish I'd remembered to tape this.) Amber loved the song and belted it out pretty loud for a 3 1/2 year old in front of a whole congregation. I was very proud of her and I'm pretty sure she learned from the song as well. We heard all day about what Easter meant rather than just what the Easter bunny brought for her.

Dinner was spent at my parent's place, it was a small gathering but still a rather enjoyable one. Mostly I just appreciated only having to bring a few things and leave the ham to my Mom. I love to cook, but I was TIRED and very glad to relinquish most of the dinner preparations.

Potty Training

Many parents, doctors, etc. have such extreme views on potty training. Many doctors will tell you that 18 months is the key age to start. Some parents say, stick them in underwear, they will be trained in no time! Believe me, I've heard my fair share of rants on the importance of potty training early or about how to do it. I guess, my husband and I might have once gone along with these phrases but we've learned. Your kid is ready when they are ready, age really isn't the important factor.
Amber was ready to start talking about going potty at about 20ish months. She was even willing to humor us by sitting on the potty every now and then. By two years old, we were talking about another baby and thought wow, I guess we'd really better work on this. And we did...a bit. But honestly she just wasn't ready to do it all the time for us. So we got more laid back about it. In March of 09, we found out we were indeed expecting and thought again, now is the time to push the issue. So mommy got a bit more "mean" about potty training. But when I found out we were going to lose Alex, that changed a lot. I realized that every moment is precious in each kid's life and here we were pressing some not very important issues. I realized that all this time, I'd been rushing my daughter and myself. Don't get me wrong, I don't LOVE changing diapers but hey, that's part of being a mom and I LOVE being a a mom. So, we slowed down and I wasn't ready to push her, I didn't really mind the occasional diaper and I totally didn't mind keeping her as my little girl still.
So where am I going with this rant? I'm just saying that as parents, we should pay more attention to our children's needs instead of what everyone else says. It's easy to compare to so and so's kids down the road but every kid is different. Enjoy all the moments of your kid's lives and wait for the right time for these milestones.
I should add, that yes, Amber is ready and has been for a little while. We went and bought lots of cute underwear this past weekend and my eyes tear up when I see my little girl wearing them during the day now. I'm really proud of her and I know that she'll be prepared for anything else that comes her way in the future if I just give her some time. And honestly, I'm proud of myself for slowing down and enjoying the everyday moments and not just wishing the time away.

Long Time...

So, I've been blogging for all of what? a month and a half?! And how many posts are on my page?! Yeah, so I just proved that I'm not so great at keeping up with this, I'll try harder. ;) Anyways, I guess I should cut myself some slack, it HAS been the holiday season and my husband HAS just started a new job and I HAVE been busy preparing children's ministry stuff.

SO, where do I start? I suppose with the holidays. We were blessed with a lovely, though busy holiday season. The week of Christmas, we had my brother and law and his wife, as well as my sister in law staying with us. On Christmas Eve, we had our Christmas Eve Service and on Christmas day, visits to make.

Since Josh and I are leaders of the Children's Ministry, we were busy with the kids rendition of the Nativity story. They did a wonderful job with their "skit" and blessed the congregation with Away in a Manger and Joy to the World.



For Christmas Eve dinner, I baked a ham and had baked potatoes and vegetables. For Christmas day, I made raspberry pears, a peppermint cake, and a vegetable ring. We went to Amber's Nana's house and enjoyed these dishes as well as many others.

Josh and I made the decision this year to not give each other gifts and to stick to pictures of Amber for the rest of the family. This saved a lot of money for us and is something we're considering continuing in the years to come. It's the most fun to see the kid's reactions to their gifts anyways. Amber received a Strawberry Shortcake game, a cash register, her own camera, a princess bath set, some coloring books and a dance camera as well as other things. (No, these were not all gifts from us.) She absolutely loves taking pictures on her own camera.


A few days after Christmas, Amber went to decorate a gingerbread house at her Grandma's house. This is a holiday tradition started by Grandma which she intends to keep doing each year. Amber loved decorating her house along with all of her friends Carly, Carter, Allison, Anthony, Bejamin, Kayla, and Christopher.


Finally to sort of end the holiday season, we took Amber to Hartwood Acres to see the light display. We've never done this before with her and actually Josh has never seen it either. Grandpa and Aunt Bethany went with us since we could all fit in our van. :)




Well that's about it for now. I'll be posting about our potty training experiences later this weekend. Happy Friday everyone!