Micah's Ducky Birthday Party

This may be a bit late but then those of you who know me, shouldn't be totally surprised about this. Micah LOVES rubber ducks apparently and I thought it would be an adorably cute theme for a one year old. We had duck sugar cookies (courtesy of Grandma), lemon cupcakes with lemon creme cheese frosting, lots of finger foods, some lemonade and blueberry lemonade for our food and drink items.

For entertainment, we had a ball pit with a few rubber ducks thrown in, a duck pond and a design a duck table. We also had a surplus of bubbles available.
I suppose pictures speak a thousand words so I'll post a number of pictures of our ducky bash. It's all just in time for me to post about Amber's birthday party which will be happening in only about 2 weeks! Enjoy!

Christmas 2010

So I'm a little late with the Christmas post and yeah, maybe A LOT late for any kind of update but whatever. I'm just going to post the Christmas pictures...










On another note, it WAS Micah's first Christmas so I guess I owe him at least a few words... Really, it was a joy to have him open his first presents and to dress him in new pjs on Christmas Eve. Micah recently has been perfecting the art of sitting up and actually interacting with toys so it was a blast to see his eyes light up when a new toy came out of a box. Even if it wasn't a "toy" then he was still excited because everything was so new to him.




This was Amber's fifth Christmas though just as exciting as any other. She was completely ready to dive into the presents under the tree but she also reminded us that it was Jesus' birthday. :) It is so amazing to see her grow in her understanding each year.





On Christmas Eve, while holding Micah( and simultaneously directing the kids' music at church), I started thinking about how Mary must have felt while holding Jesus for the first time. I remembered the joy that I felt when I finally got to hold Micah (and Amber) for the first time and really wondered what it must have been like for Mary. Then how proud she must have felt of him when all those people came to see him and present their gifts. I also wonder, "did Jesus notice the gifts he was given?" If only, the whole world could realize the gift that HE gave to us.

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.