Happy Halloween!

Ro-bot, Dan-ger

Bumblebee William

 Optimus Prime Owen striking a pose

 Wha??  We have to wait for another half hour???!! But we want CANDY!!

So two transformers, a robot and a couple of pumpkins walk into a bar....

Happy Fifth Birthday Owen & Will!

I'm not too sure what happened.  I'm still in shock really.  I warned you I'd be tearful today, but I think I'm so bowled over by the fact that five years have gone by in the blink of an eye that I can only stand here and gape at you.  

 A minute ago you were looking at me like this

And now all of a sudden you're looking at me like this

I just don't really get it, guys.  I mean, where are my babies?  Who are these string beans kissing me goodbye as they head into senior kindergarten?  Who are these handsome devils who grin at me mischievously as I pick them up for lunch?  All of a sudden I've got boys who swim, who skate, who bike, who run like the wind.  I've got boys who crack jokes, who speak french, who load the dishwasher and clean up their rooms (under pain of death, of course).  

I...I...I'm at a loss for words.  I think I'm just going to have to hug you and kiss you and squeeze you both all day until I find the words to tell you how much I love you and how proud I am of you every day.  Love you. 

Superheroes To The Birthday Party Rescuuuuuuue!

Owen and William will be five on Monday.  Five.  Don't get me started, I'm likely to become an incoherent ball of soggy, sobbing mush.  I've already warned the boys that they should anticipate much kissing of cheeks and hugging of bodies and rambling tales that begin with "Five years ago today...." over the next 24-48 hours.

But before I really work myself up into a overly emotional state, I thought you might like to see some photos from this Saturday's SuperHero Party.  Yes, it deserves capital letters. The party theme was one that had changed multiple times over the past year.  Last year, as soon as their Pirate Party (also capitals worthy, if I do say so myself) was over, they were requesting a robot themed party. And by Christmas it was a Transformers party.  Then it was back to robots, then it was firefighters, then it was....well you get the drift.  With every new theme that was requested, I would go through my cupcake books for inspiration, or look on Mr Google to see what other parents had done (imitation is the most sincere form of flattery).  I would think of colours and games and loot bag options.  Then it would all be tossed aside with the next theme that was announced at the breakfast table.  I was pretty sure we'd settled on robots as the final theme until we went to our friend Wyatt's party in August.  Wyatt had a Batman party.  It was awesome.  And suddenly the boys were adamant they wanted a SuperHero Party.  Oh, and they didn't want cupcakes.  In fact, they sneered when I suggested cupcakes (my cupcake-making/decorating heart broke a little right there and then).  They wanted a proper cake.  "Poop", I thought.  Cakes are waaaay harder to decorate.  But I decided to give it some thought, look through my books and of course, ask Mr Google what he thought.

In the end my sanity mostly won and I decided not to attempt to make the amazing cake I saw online, not to pay $200 to have someone make that particular cake, not to make costumes for every child to wear, not to make little gourmet superhero sandwiches, veggies cut out to look like batman and spiderman and not to have a candy table (I'm sorry, but who has a candy table at a kids' party?  Are you trying to make mortal enemies of the other parents around you?  Are you trying to line the pockets of the local dentists with gold?).  I went with two store-bought cakes, veggie and fruit trays, popcorn, potato chips and pizza delivery.  However, I did spend many an after bedtime hour making invitations, personalized loot bags and the coolest, most environmentally unfriendly birthday wreath for our front door.  In the end, I was pretty pleased with how it all went, but more importantly, Will & Owen were thrilled and that was all that mattered.  Well, that and the fact that my party wreath looked bleepity-bleeping amazing.

The loot bags.  They came with a Marvel Superhero colouring and activity book, stickers, a tattoo, a toy and a superhero gingerbread man.  Another smart decision on my part.  I bought the gingerbread man from a bakery rather than slave over cookies myself.  I think if Elly was the kind of kid who napped longer than 45 minutes I might have made the cookies myself, but let's be honest, trying to bake or decorate baked goods with a wriggly 19 month old is no one's idea of a good time.

Okay, this was a little crazy, but it ended up being somewhat easier than the Very Hungry Caterpillar scenes I painted in March for Elliot's 1st birthday.  I taped the window with painter's tape and then sponged paint (with a drop of dishwashing liquid in it for easy removal) to make a superhero city scene.  The boys' reaction when they came home from school to see it was worth the mad rush to get it done on Thursday morning and having to bribe Elly with popcorn and videos of herself on the  laptop so she would stay in her highchair and NOT TOUCH whilst I worked.  This isn't a fabulous photo either, the colours are much brighter in person.

On Friday after the kids went to bed, I hung the streamers and balloons.  So worth it when the came downstairs on Birthday Party Day.  I was still upstairs but I could hear the "WHOA!" and "AWESOME!" as they walked into the living room. 

 Ah, my balloon wreath.  You took days and days and days to make.  You punctured my thumb painfully with your pins, you cost more money and several more trips to the store to pick up extra balloons and pins than I had anticipated, but man!  You were worth it!  I heart you, balloon wreath.  And from now on, all parties will have a red, blue and yellow colour scheme so you can be reused over and over again.  You shall be loaned out to other people who will have parties of this colour scheme.  And thanks to our pizza delivery guy asking if we were Columbian, you shall also be hung on our door every time there is a holiday in said country. 

Party Time is in 15 minutes.  Cue MEGA EXCITMENT!

Waiting for the guests to arrive.  Now, although this was a superhero party, the boys insisted that they wanted their costumes to be the Transformers costumes we saw in Costco.  Apparently they are the superheroes of the future.  Don't question it, no one else did.  AND we had two other Optimus Primes and Bumblebees, so it must be true.

 Spiderman Abigail arrives to save the party!  She was so excited, it was adorable.

First arrivals - Iron Man (Andrew) Optimus Prim (Owen), Bumblebee (Will), Iderman (Aiden, who really did call his costume Iderman, or possibly Eiderman, the hero of duckdown, Dita and I still aren't sure), and Spidergirl (Abby).

Our first game was based on the original Spiderman song lyrics "Spiderman, Spiderman, does what ever a spider can/ Spins a web, any size/ Catches thieves just like flies".  So we decorated bean bag games with halloween spider webbing and told the kids the bean bags were thieves that needed to be caught in Spiderman's web.  It was a bit chaotic and no one wanted to respect the firing line, but hey, it was fun anyway.  Please note the three Spidermen and two Bumblebees.  There was something quite cute about seeing multiples of the same costume and the kids being thrilled to see someone else wearing the same thing rather than upset that they weren't one of a kind.

The next game was a huge success.  Basically a version of hot potato, we gave the kids a ball that represented Kryptonite.  They had to pass it along whilst the music was playing and whoever was stuck holding it when the music stopped had to run to the front door to replenish their superpowers.  I love the two little sisters, Eve and Elly standing watching in the background.

But back to costumes for a moment.  I know I said I was pleased kids didn't mind wearing the same things, but I have to give a special mention to Anika who, of course, was her own unique self.  She was Super Kitty (which wasn't too much of a surprise to her mum and I since she was a Pirate Kitty last year).  her costume was awesome and I know she and Meg had a lot of fun making it together.  She was so proud of it and we were both glad she didn't feel the need to conform to the others around her and have a store-bought costume.  Oh, and her superpowers?  She had drawn and cut out balls of wool that she tied up her enemies with.  Love it.

Hey, even superheroes need to eat.

Store-bought cake number one with its edible image.  Way better than anything I could have produced and it tasted good too.  Maybe next year I'll make them their own cake.  Or maybe, sniff, they'll say I can do cupcakes again?

Store-bought cake number two.  Pretty cool huh?  We decided to do two cakes because, well, they deserve to have their own cake right?  I mean, they share a birthday, but...well, I dunno, I just felt like it was the right thing to do.  So we sang happy birthday to Will first (he was born first) and then to Owen, who seemed to think that was fair.  We'll see if next year he says, 'But Will got his cake first last year!"

Oh the anticipation!

I love the look on his face.

And Owen was so excited too.

Meanwhile over in Elly-land....

By the way, her brothers chose that dress from her closet two weeks ago.  They saw it and said, 'Mummy, can Elly wear this to our party? Its so pretty!"  She wasn't overly thrilled when I put it on her, but she got so many compliments at the grocery store when we went to pick up the cakes that I think she ended up liking it.  But there is definitely something of the tomboy about this one.

And then it was time for presents.  I always feel anxious about this part of a birthday party.  There's just so much grabbing and ripping and tossing aside to reach for the next thing...I try to stay calm, but its always chaos and I just want the kids to recognize how lucky they are and to say thank you properly.  I feel the same way at Christmas, to be honest.  There needs to be heartfelt thanks and hugs or else it just ends up looking rude and greedy to me.  But then again, they're only five, so maybe I should just chill out?

This is what a SuperHero present unwrapping session looks like.  A whole load of heads crammed together to see what awesome things can be found.

They do look happy though don't they?

Identical smiles...

Meanwhile, back in Elly-land, the princess-tomboy saw an opportunity...

Daddy and mummy were distracted by the presents and the camera so and if she just stood here looking innocent.....

....no one would notice a little scavenger....

...eating all the veggies and dip (but who are we kidding, her parents are pretty thrilled she likes the taste of purloined vegetables)

Caught in the act.  "Didn't do it.  Wasn't me."

So all in all a super SuperHero Party.  The boys have such great friends, we're very lucky to have them and their parents in our lives.  I wonder what next year's theme will be....

She's Getting Bigger

Its frightening how quickly these kids of mine are growing up.  One minute they're newborns and the next thing you know they're sitting on the stairs trying to put their socks on all by themselves.

And they sit in big girl chairs and eat out of big girl bowls!  Wha???  How did this happen? 

Next thing you know someone's going to say "Your twins are almost five!"  Hahahahahuh...er....

Giving Thanks

It was Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend.  We braved the Friday afternoon traffic and headed to the cottage.  Its a 6 hour drive in decent traffic and anyone's guess in bad traffic.  We hit not-so-great traffic and got there after 9pm.  But when we woke up to brilliant sunshine, gorgeous fall colours and a sparkling lake, we were thankful indeed.  Its worth the drive every time. 

I spent a lot of the weekend being thankful.  I looked around me and saw nothing but a charmed life.  My beautiful boys (who will be five in less than a week!  FIVE!) played pretty nicely, all things considered.  I don't think I gave anyone a time out this weekend.  I'm definitely thankful for them and their cheeky smiles.

Throw a cute, noisy little sister into the mix and you get a whole lot more laughs and smiles and reasons to be thankful.  I'm definitely thankful for Elly and the fact that she slept through the night on Friday.  Not on Saturday or Sunday or Monday, but hey, she did on Friday and for that I am thankful.

Seeing the kids spending time with Gran & Grandpa was wonderful.  They all take such pleasure in each others' company.  Its just a great big love fest, basically.  I'm definitely thankful for patient grandparents who listen and laugh and read stories and make delicious dinners, who offer a glass of wine (or limoncello? A little port? Cherry brandy? No? Are you sure?) at just the right moment, who puzzle over their puzzles and offer a hand to hold when its time to go exploring. 

Thankful for amazing weather that allowed us to run around outside and let the wind blow in our hair.

So very, very definitely thankful for a husband who took an extra day off work to spend time with the children who adore him.  He works far too hard, but when he stops to play, well, its joy all around.

And definitely thankful for a best friend who ended up as my sister-in-law and a brother-in-law who ended up being a best friend too.  Its always so wonderful to spend time with Karen and Dwayne.  Especially when Uncle Dwayne is in a silly sort of mood.  But then, isn't he always?