What's Cookin'?

Today we had Sadie's birthday party with her friends. It was a cooking theme.

This was her invitation.


We invited 7 girls thinking probably 4 or 5 of them would come.
Well, they all came. It was lots of fun but would have been easier with fewer girls with all the activities we had planned.

They each got an apron when they came in the door.


When I was at the fabric store last week, the cherry fabrics were screaming to be made into aprons. I've joined the many around the world obsessed with aprons. I love to look at them more than make them but these were fun to do.

They got busy making their chef hats before they made their own pizzas.




While the pizzas cooked, they made "people" with wooden spoons, googly eyes, yarn, etc.

Pizza eating time!


Opening presents came next. It seems Sadie got the word out about her desire for a new Webkin.


After decorating their own cakes, the girls pigged out on ice-cream sundaes and then went crazy running around the house (I was inspired to limit it to a 2 hour party).

They went home loaded down with leftover pizza, cake, their apron, chef hat and a mini recipe book with Sadie's favorite recipes inside.
They seemed to have fun so we might have to do the cooking theme again in a few years.


When I was pregnant with Sadie we knew she was a boy. I got out all of Jackson's baby boy clothes. I even washed them and hung them in the closet.
When she was born Steve and the doctor (who knew we knew she was a boy) said, "It's a girl!? The shock and excitement of it all became a very emotional moment for us and we were overwhelmed with happiness to have a perfectly pink baby girl. Sadie loves that story.
Arriving 2 weeks early (our only child who wasn't late), Sadie couldn't wait to get going in life. She has been a firecracker from the beginning and quickly became known for her mischievousness. She's famous for her Vaseline crimes, tasting everything from Preparation H to super glue and nearly choking to death on a penny. Her Grandaddy saved her life and 5 years later I paid the debt by saving his life when he choked on a piece of chicken (actually I think I still owe him one since he saved my life as a child when I choked on a quarter).

Sadie loves to entertain! She will plan a party any day for any occasion. We've had many movie nights, complete with admission tickets and a concession stand. "Famous Sadie's" opens up on Sunday afternoons occasionally where we are treated to a magic show while we eat her delicious breakfast burritos.
She's a fun girl to be around. I always say she'll be the roommate in college that everyone will want to have because she's the life of the party.
Sadie is a great student at school. There was hardly a week that went by this year that she wasn't the spelling champ, to which she credited her "Smart Coat" (a ratty old pink shirt) until she forgot to wear it once and realized she could spell without it.
I have stacks of stories Sadie has written that I hope to someday publish for her. Her imagination is so vivid, you can see it working when you look in her eyes sometimes.
She's a beautiful, smart fun-loving girl and I love her so much!
Happy Birthday Sadie!

One Is Fun! (Right?)

I can hear that song from Fiddler On The Roof in my head as I type this. "Where is the little boy I carried?"
Except I'm still carrying him. Especially lately, since he's become such a Momma's Boy.
We celebrated his birthday last weekend by taking him to Disney on Saturday. We're only season pass holders, not annual, so the summer is off limits to us, so we try to cram in as many visits as we can before June 8th. Then we let the tourists sweat to death while standing in 2 hour lines all summer.

Anyway, Justin's favorites were the It's A Small World ride
(I know, he's bordering on a mullet, but I want enough hair to have a good chunk to save when we cut it)

and getting stuck on the People Mover with Audrey and me for 25 minutes.

Not the Buzz Lightyear ride.

We had cake and ice-cream and presents on Sunday. My normally happy baby boy was very fussy all day (isn't that how it always goes?) so it was a little tricky getting him to smile. He didn't touch the cake after he licked the frosting off the clown heads.

He just cried and cried.

The video we took of him is even better.

He couldn't have cared less about his presents the kids so carefully wrapped.

Except when he opened his new Goodnight Moon (4 kids and 3 copies later).

He gets so excited on the first page. When we get to a black and white page, he flips past them and then leans in real close to see the color pages.

Justin gave me a present shortly after his 11 month update when he said "ma ma" for the first time. It was music to my ears! Since then, he's been babbling more and just last week said "da da da da". I'm less worried now about his progression but not totally secure yet.

It turns out he's been cranky because he caught a stomach thing (probably from licking the handbar on Small World). He was down to nursing just at night before bed but now he will only nurse and not eat a thing so we're back to square one on the weaning.
The quilt I was working on for him was done but I am now taking it apart because I want to change it a little. I know, I'm crazy.

2 parties down, 2 more to go...

Hangover

It's always so nice to get home and sleep all night in your own bed after being gone for a few days. That was the plan for last night anyway.

After the security alarm had gone off at 2 different times (the first time had Steve living a Miami Vice moment, whipping around every corner with guns, I mean gun, blazing), by 3:30am I made the comment to Steve that this night was one for the record books.
You know. That "Top 10 Worst Night's Sleep Ever" list.

Turns out the backup battery needed to be replaced, but that did not solve the bad dreams for the girls (at 2 different times) and Justin's nightly reminder that he's still available for a snack if I don't mind.

Sleep is so overrated anyway.

We did have a fun weekend off visiting family and partying all weekend for my mom's birthday.
On Friday we went out to dinner with my parents and all of my 7 siblings and their spouses. It was quite remarkable and I hope we can make it a tradition every year.

Steve and I took Jackson and Sadie to the church cannery on Saturday and canned for a couple of hours with some other people from our church. It was very productive. Jackson and Sadie seemed to really get into it and did a great job.


I always enjoy the hairnet look.


Sadie was so tickled that she looked like a cafeteria lady.


On Sunday, we had a special program with the whole family to celebrate my mom's birthday...again. This time with all the grandkids too. We had a Talent (or Un-Talent Show) that a couple of people managed to buy their way out of.
Steve and the kids and I played "Happy Birthday" on the handbells. :)


Amy did a "This Is Your Life" video for my mom that turned out great. It was full of old pictures that are always fun to look at. And then, of course, there was singing (that would be the un-talent portion of the program for some of us).

I already gushed about my mom on her birthday so I'll reserve this Mother's Day to gush about my mother-in-law. I am very fortunate that I have no mother-in-law horror stories about her to share. She is thoughtful and smart and a fun person to be around. Our kids are lucky to have 2 fantastic grandma's.
Happy Mother's Day Sue! Steve says he's sorry for being an ungrateful kubiak growing up. :) We love you!

Phew!

This morning was Muffins With Mom at Audrey's preschool. If you remember Donuts With Dad you understand my anxiety about what secrets Audrey might have revealed to the world at this event. Well, she's officially my favorite child (today) because the girl did not divulge anything embarrassing about me.
Not that I really have anything to hide...





Here's what Audrey said about me:

*My mom likes rice milk.
*My mom looks pretty all the time.
*My mom likes to eat chicken and shrimp.

They seem to ask more leading questions for the dads...thank goodness!

While I'm blogging a tribute to myself, I'll add in what Jackson and Sadie gave me yesterday for early Mother's Day presents.

Here's Sadie's letter.


And here's Jackson's poem.

It's kind of blurry but here's what it says:

My mom helps me
All the time
When she's around
I know she's always mine.
She's beautiful
I love her so
And she loves me
That's what I know.
She cares for me
All night and day
I'll love her and she'll love me
That is the way.

Love, Jackson

Awww, I could cry. Every night I always hope they forget that I lost my patience with them or gave them a lot of chores or punished them for something. It's nice to know they still love me despite my imperfections and inexperience.
I feel really blessed to be their mom. They're great kids and I wouldn't trade this job for anything.

*I'll wait a few years before I tell Jackson his poetry will melt the girls' hearts. :)

My Mom Rocks!

Happy Birthday to my mom! She hit the big 70 today! I hope she has a great day!

Here are some pictures of my beautiful mom. Some people say I look like her. :)













My mom has accomplished so much in her 70 years. She's super talented, for one. She has been musical all her life, even singing on the local radio station with her 3 sisters, while her mom played the piano. She was always involved in every roadshow, dance festival or major choir production at church.
She taught me to sing alto when I was very young. Unfortunately, I don't have the confidence (or near the talent) she has to be able to sing in front of people. (A secret dream of mine is to take voice lessons someday...I'm getting a little old for that one.)

My mom raised 8 children and all of them turned out decent enough....well, there's Keith, but we still accept him for who he is. :)

She's Mother-In-Law to 8, all considered her children in her eyes.

She is Grandma to 29 grandchildren, with #30 on the way, and she will be a Great-Grandma this July.

Between being up at night with babies and waiting up for teenagers, it would be interesting to find out how many hours of sleep she's gotten over the years compared to some. She still likes to stay up late and hang out with all of us when we get together. :)

Happy Birthday Mom! Thanks for all you have done for me over the years!
I love you!

May-hem

So, there are a million things going on this month. I like to stay busy but this is a little much for me.

Last month was eventful too but with some sadness. We lost a man, who was also a friend (especially to Steve who worked with him with the Scouts and spoke to him on a near daily basis), from our church who died from wounds sustained in a bicycle accident. He was such a great person and it really stunned our congregation. We will sure miss Brother D.

On a more positive note, I was able to participate in the Relay For Life here in our city with some friends of mine. Last year was the first year we participated and actually I didn't do it last year because I was 9 months pregnant. (You have to walk all night.) So, this year was my first year and I really enjoyed it. We do it in memory of a crazy fun lady who died of cancer about a year and a half ago. I only had the privilege of knowing her for a short time after we moved here but she was an awesome person and so much fun! When I think of Tammi, I think of her laugh and the time a few of us Christmas Treed her house one year. We never fessed up to it but I think she knew. :)
I didn't walk all night due to my non-sleeping baby. This was the one night I was happy for him to wake up...LOL...just kidding. Surprisingly, I wasn't even tired when I had to leave to go home and take care of him at about 1am.

Okay, back to May. Here's what I want/need to accomplish this month:

My mom turns the big Seven Oh! this week so we're planning a multitude of surprises for her that should be fun.

Justin turns the big One! in two weeks so I have to plan that and you know I have to do a fun cake that will take me hours to do.

Sadie turns the big Nine! this month and we're planning a fun little par-tay for her too. She's the ultimate party girl so it will for sure be a blast.

I have to plan Audrey's End Of The Year party for her preschool class along with another mom. She also has graduation (yep, complete with cap and gown) coming up. She had Kindergarten orientation this past week and was really excited about the cookies and juice they passed around. She wasn't that thrilled about anything else.

I also have to plan our Enrichment meeting at church for this month.

The thing about all this is I will wait until the last possible second to do it all. That's how I've always been. I'll never change and I work best under pressure anyway. I want to finish Justin's baby quilt by his birthday too and I can guarantee I'll start it about 3 or 4 days before and work all day and half the night until it's done.

I want to start working on Homemade Christmas. We're giving it a go this year for the first time and the kids are coming to me with ideas so we need to get started on it all. I'm really excited about it. The kids were a little worried at first about getting all "boring" stuff but they're okay now that I reassured them Santa will probably bring a few manufactured items.

The other thing I wanted to do was start some kind of weight training so I can try out for American Gladiators...LOL
Really though, I'm pretty good about getting in some rollerblading or running throughout the week but you know you're soft when your kids like to squeeze your arms and jiggle them.

Okay I just noticed I used LOL a couple of times in this post. There must be too much texting going on around here...

TTFN!