Kindergarten

Last night was kindergarten orientation, Yuliya enjoyed it! She was whisked away by kindergarten teachers to read, color, and watch a visual book while we watched the school power point. She already has friends at school from her preschool which is comforting, and I am sure once school starts she will know even more of her classmates from her new preschool.

Cash had a blast running all over around the school for about a half hour and then quickly met his limit. After that he was endlessly leaning over to tell me "I'm ready, I'm ready to go"

 I however did not do quite so well. 

Multiple times as we were sitting in the gym hearing about kindergarten and what to expect I had to fight back tears. At one point they introduced the teachers and had the kids line up next to them...well then I really almost lost it.
Fight it back, Fight it.
You can't be the only one to cry, even the shyest of the 5 year olds is fine. So I might be that mom that cries at every major milestone of my children's lives....we will see. 

And sorry in advance.

We are on our way to Charleston to see Sam and Jack for a few days. Will also get to stop in and visit friends. I am excited for the trip, to take pictures and be silly. Tomorrow we celebrate my birthday, Sunday will be Jack's and Monday Sam's. Our weekend will be full of happy birthdays and sweets.

Floating Lanterns Part 2

Here is the final video from the Tangled party. Here we let off a few floating lanterns once the sun went down. This time we didn't hit any trees.

Unrelated:

Yuliya can never seem to remember the name SUV, so for a while now she has been calling my car an SOB.  It's always fun when they unknowingly drop little head turners like that in public.

No pictures on the kitchen right now, I believe the paint was mixed incorrectly and right now it looks like fatigues...really.... waiting on the correct color, more updates shortly.

Funny moments

Above is the video of tug of war my favorite part is Morgan telling her opponents not to mess up her manicure. 

Here are just a few funny pictures from the party.

I am not sure she's doing it right..

Cash getting caught eating from the food table. I told him he couldn't eat grapes until everyone arrived. So as each person arrived he came up to me and said..."I can eat grapes now? People are here!"

Have I ever mentioned Cash's favorite hang out spot? 

Well this is it, where you can find him most of the time...it made it a little difficult to ice the tower cake 

Taylor's shocked looking face maybe because of the lower picture

Where it seems like Heather and Judy are checking out Chris' hind!

Noah looking bored to tears during present opening. All those girl gifts!

Labors of tangles

We took weeks and hours upon hours preparing for the party. Most hours went to this super long braid, it took us forever to get this thing untangled see Judy out there holding them straight? So many thanks to all the neighbors that helped with this impossible braid!

Remember how I told you we spent all night wrapping hair around the club house? Well how we accomplished this was to tie my car keys to the end of a string that was attached to the yellow table cloth I used as hair.We would then throw the keys over the beam and let gravity do its job....only....sometimes gravity didn't do it's job and my keys were left suspended in the air. This might not have been our best idea had my keys been stuck 20ft in the air, or worse in the beams themselves!

 An example of when gravity was not working for us and my keys were just dangling sweetly in the air.


Yuliya all ready for her Tangled party, Rapunzel in hand.

After the party was over and everyone had left we remembered the floating lanterns, Oops! Sorry to all of you who missed it, but I did get two video's of us doing them. So hopefully you can feel like you were there. 

This was our first attempt at one. After hitting a few trees and not having great visibility while it was still bright out we tried again at night. (to be posted later)

Tangled

Last week my little Miss turned 5 years old, this weekend we had her birthday bash, Tangled style! Here are the highlights.

It was quite a labor creating a 50ft braid, it was worth it though We will be keeping this along with the paintings, my favorite part of their birthday parties is having something to remember them with, our cranes, butterflies, fish and planets all still around floating from the ceiling somewhere in the house. :)

If you haven't seen the movie, the pub they visit is called The Snuggly Duckling, in retrospect I wish I would have painted the letters as well. Homemade sign, cardboard pencil and and paint!

Keith and I spent all night wrapping this "hair" around the place to resemble when she runs through her castle with her hair trailing behind her getting tangled in rafters and what not. On the walls you can see the Pin the Pan on Flynn game we made(but forgot to play!) and the purple banner flags we cut out and painted.

Peeps for the Snuggly Duckling and Mandarin Oranges as boats floating in water, Rapunzel is keeping watch :)

 The official tangled tower birthday cake with flower cupcakes surrounding it. I did not foresee every kid wanting a cupcake with a purple flower on it. 

We also attempted duplicating the painting Rapunzel paints on her wall in the movie of the floating lanterns, Yuliya was excited by it. 

I also braided yellow rope wrapped in purple duct tape to create a tug of war.

The kids are excited waiting for guests to arrive. I thought they kind of looked like the picture of Rapunzel and  Flynn above them.

Tug of war was to be had, it was short lived and pretty much a bust, I did catch a video of it though that I will be posting shortly :)

Sounds about right!

Official 3 week marker today

Let's play I spy!

See the sink in the middle of the kitchen?

How about the piece of furniture in the pantry? (this is where the microwave will hide)

Or the gallon guy I drew in elementary school? (and still use)

See the level on top of the top shelf in the pantry?

How about all but one drawer installed in the range top keeping all the loose cabinet doors company?

Can you find the new outlet that will control the bar lights?

I won't show you the other side of the kitchen just yet...it's pretty much a disaster, we really could play I spy and it might end up more difficult than the books.

Unrelated:

Here are some pictures from the rodeo.

Cash watching the cow shows, he took to the gate like a cowboy.

Yuliya and Cash petting the Borden cow

I thought this chickie napping on the food was pretty cute. Almost like planking.

Even though everywhere we walked you could see me pointing to patties and saying Watch out for the poop! And I would see both children carefully step around the landmines some how cash was able to step in enough to make the whole car smell like it all the way home. He's magical I tell you.

5 balloons

Happy Birthday to my dear darling daughter who came out of her room this morning to be surprised by 5 bright beautiful balloons and yours truly saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! 

crickets.....

Your five!!

 and in an oh so nonchalant tone

"I know............... oh balloons"

After she was able to wake up a little more she was pretty excited by them :) And they were both very excited to eat a cupcake before school. Let the celebrations begin!

Can you believe she's grown this much? 5 years ago today around noon she started making her way into this world.  It's hard to believe time has gone by so quickly. And boy has she changed a lot over the years.

At her first birthday she was just cutting her first two teeth and on the verge of walking without holding on she was also afraid of fire(the candle on the cake)

On her second birthday she was waiting for her baby brother to make an appearance, and had established that yellow and pink were her favorite colors...and the girl had a thing for shoes"shoebahs" as she called them.

By her third birthday, here, she was a veteran at being an older sister , had dropped the love for yellow to go full on pink, and was much more adventurous and absolutely loved baby dolls.

Excited to eat cake? She loved her rainbow party, here, but couldn't wait to turn 5 and go to school with all of the bigger kids.


Over the past year she has: 
Completely ditched pink for purple 
She developed a love for dolls instead of babies
She still loves her Princesses,Games, and Puzzles
She has learned to tie her shoes like a pro 
Earned many commissions 
 Is always a helper, stand in mommy and teacher for her brother 
Has decided that she is always right 
She still puts her shoes on the opposite feet half of the time 
She has developed a love for Ice Cream, Broccoli and Green Goodness 
Gone to the beach for the first time 
Had her first major haircut
And Learned new ways express her artistic side




I am very proud and excited to see her grow, learn and develop tastes and talents. I am honored to be her Momma and so happy to celebrate again tonight with Sundaes, and again on Saturday with family and friends.

100% chance of rain.

Check out the rain band over Texas, it's pretty neat.

Kitchen progress day 19:

(yes 19 days)

Cabinet frames with newly painted cabinet doors drying inside

Here we are 19 days in...19 days of no cooking, sandwiches, cereal, raw foods, a lot of eating out and one veggie lasagna.

All of the drawers were painted last night, as well as all of the cabinets fronts. We were lucky enough to have a nice day outside so they could paint outdoors. Saturday they painted all of the upper cabinets(indoors).  Today there is massive storm hovering over most of Texas will require them to paint the rest of the cabinets indoors. 

The plan for this week is, finish painting cabinets, measure out and start setting the counter tops, refinish my avocado green sink and stove.(that's right I am keeping them!) Build the shelves in the pantry, paint them and pick out a back splash.

With Yuliya's Birthday coming up this Saturday it has made me antsy to have the kitchen back in order,  preparing for a party will be interesting.Sunday Lisa, Keith and I were actually able to make an entire meal with one sink, a grill and less than a sq ft of counter top space. Preparing for the party could be like the Amazing Race Kitchen series.

Have you received your invite yet?

St Patricks

I am Irish okay..I am not sure what happens but I know if you're Irish and hobby blog you have to post it, similar to saying Happy New year.

 I read it somewhere....

So....

 Happy St Patty's day. I hope you're wearing green today. Green eyes do NOT count! 

What are your plans today? 

This is still my favorite St Patty's day picture of the kids

Sick day

Yesterday I had to pick up Child one from school. The school called and said she was throwing up, so I took off and rescued her with the intent to nurse her back to wellness. Only when I picked her up she was jolly as could be....I started to wonder if she had devised a plan to get out of school. On our drive home however(about a mile) I had to pull over for her to be sick in the grass. Okay this is legit.

So as I sat at home with Yuliya because she really was sick. I set her up on the couch with a movie while I worked from home. She napped on and off and after a while got up and started this routine of pausing the movie to get up and ask. I can't have juice right? I can't have candy or I'll be sick? What about cake? Milk? Crackers? Vitamins? ect.

Every time I would reply "No you can't eat anything yet, you need to wait or you will be sick again" Yet the questions kept pouring. Sandwich? I can't have a sandwich or I'll be sick? What about blueberries? Ice cream?

She ended up eating crackers a little later on and did just fine, by the end of the night she was 100% back to normal. Thank goodness for very very short illnesses.

In other news I woke up to a pitter patter of feet last night right outside my door. But it stopped and turned around, so I figured who ever it was had decided to go back to bed. This morning however....I woke up to find.

Strawberries in the living room,

 an open bag of walnuts,

open bag of banana chips,

unwrapped dark chocolate,

an empty cup of yogurt eaten with a serving spoon,

an entire block of hot, now bad cheese

and a missing bag of bagels.

When I woke the children up and pulled Cash's blankets back...this is what I found.

 

Bagels in bed! Yogurt all over his face. Turns out this was a solo operation,Yuliya had not been invited to the midnight madness. She was just as baffled to find bagels in bed with Cash as I was.

Oh how I can't wait to have a pantry again, and snack food up high.

Rainy Friday meets the Lorax

Remember how rainy it was last week?

One of the things we did to pass the time was go to the movies. For Cash it was his first movie in the theatre, and The Lorax was a perfect fit for his love of Seuss. They both loved it.  They sat through the entire movie happy as could be, occasionally arguing over who would hold the water. I really thought Cash would fall asleep during the movie but he kept to attention even when the credits ran. It's great to know that the kids are now old enough to go to the movies occasionally.

My favorite part about the movies now a days is the arm rests raise, so I was able to make two chairs into a love seat sized chair for all three of us to sit in cuddled together.

P.S. No photo progress on the kitchen, they are building the cabinets off site and will be bringing them home today or tomorrow. I will be sure to post as soon as more changes are visible.

Clumsy me

Kitchen Update:

These are the only two photos you get of progress as of last Friday. My reasons are simple, the colors we originally picked were awful and you don't get to see them until the final post! They finished out the opening for the bar, have sanded all of the cabinets and primed part of them. Today they start building the cabinets that needed to be replaced.

Highlights from our weekend(without a stove, sink, counter top, and most of our food in boxes):

Friday:

We ate out, then saw The Lorax(Cash's first movie)

Saturday:

We woke up and ate cereal, then made our way to the Livestock show and Rodeo. We saw so many animals. Baby pigs, cows, goats, sheep, chickies, turkeys, bees ect. We visited with the Borden milk cow and a calf accompanying her, sat in cars and pretended to drive them, and sampled plenty of food products.

Yuliya's favorite part? 

"The horse" (we saw one horse, it was fiberglass)

Cash's favorite part? 

"The choochoo train" (We rode a tram from the reliant center back to our parking lot, which Cash affectionately renamed a choochoo train. )

There was a playground vendor with a fully built playground indoors, they both also thoroughly enjoyed that.  I took advantage of the nicely situated swing vendor right next door for grown ups to relax! Although as swinging the vendor told me I "should tell my mom and dad to buy one." Gee thanks Mr. I don't think I look that young! Cash also enthusiastically shouted "PLAYGROUND!" every time we saw one for the entire rest of the weekend...so that was fun.

Keith's favorite part? 

The lambs with black fur born that day. They were very cute and slight trouble makers.

My Favorite part? While we were there there was a lot of pig weighing and washing going on so they had to walk from place to place. I loved watching them wonder around walking so awkwardly, they naturally lumber around like toddlers and NFL players. I also enjoyed the cows mooing at each other and at Cash as they waited in the cow car wash line.

When we left we.... Went out to eat, where I had the kids "Santa-tize" (Yuliya) their hands before eating, then rewarded with "rice Christmas treats" (Yuliya) when they finished their sandwiches.

We came home to a lovely table my thrifty sister Amy found for me(It's great Amy!Love the color!)

We then played, and cleaned(Cash, and Keith are great cleaners, Yuliya is fantastic!) too soon though it was time to eat out again...

So I was sitting on the floor, Cash in lap ready to put his shoes on.

Something Cash does when his playing around is basically head-butt me but while sitting in my lap...most of the time it doesn't bother me,(it's all out of excitement) sometimes he misses and hits me in the jaw which sends an instant migraine searing through my head.

 Saturday he missed and hit me in the windpipe..hard! Have you ever been hit in the windpipe? It doesn't cause a migraine, but it does send a shooting pain through your chest and make your throat hurt for days. That was enough for me to rule the official end of head-butting.
The contractor came over later and we dreamed big dreams as we always do. He's a great guy, great contractor and skilled at bringing new ideas to the table from angles I never considered. This is dangerous for dreamers!
Sunday:
being tired of cereal daily and no table to eat at, we went out to eat....for the last time...I am now tired of that too.
We gathered supplies for Yuliya's party (on the 24th expect invites in the mail this week!),
we were very productive all day Sunday, preparing for her party, playing, figuring out where we want the shelves in the pantry, and Yuliya even helped me weed out all of the clothes she has now grown out of by trying everything on. We are ready to pass them on to cousins!
The best part of Sunday was breakfast and how happy the kids were all day.
The worst part was when I turned on the sink and grabbed dishes as the water warmed only to realize the drain was not hooked up and the kitchen was soaked. Resulting in probably a few not so nice words and me desperately trying to dry everything, which was quickly followed by me forgetting I was underneath the top cabinets and cracking my head pretty hard on them as I quickly stood up in frustration. With an end result of me sitting with my head between my knees as the throbbing pain faded and left a nice knotted signature.

Over all it was a long, productive, painful(for me), fun weekend. We are all tired of eating out and ready for a kitchen again(just a week and a half without one...wimps!) More pictures from our weekend later!

Happy Birthday Tara

You had to know it was coming....

Tara,
 this day, your day of all days

Happy Birthday to oldest my sister who has now earned the right for me not to announce her age to everyone.
Let me tell you something about her though
She has lived a long, long, long, loooong time...
Kidding!

Something real about her:

Did you know she's a fantastic dancer? I personally think she hijacked all the rhythm in the womb that was meant to be divided between the three of us, because I definitely have zero dancing abilities. But she is great, lucky her they came out with dance games for wii's and now she gets to dance even when she's not out.
But tonight she's putting the wii controllers away and having her husband, friends and family come out to dance with her. Although we wish we could join in, we can't. I wish you the best time, don't let this rainy weekend slow you down!

I hope you have a wonderful day and the kids think up creative ways to show you their love. We wish you lots of love from here.

Rodeo

A full week in the kitchen I now have zero countertops, the cabinets have been sanded, pantry closed out, walls textured. They decided to work on the beams today instead. I still am not set on colors....I thought I was, but I nixed them yesterday and might go with an entirely different family of color(the last thing my contractor wants to hear)

Yuliya told me " Momma, we need to go to the rodeo okay? Are we going to the rodeo?" To which I replied yes, and she said " Okay good, because my teacher says we need to go"

This is an urgent matter, we need to go

So we are going tomorrow

Do they look like rough tough cowboys to you? Soldier in the background almost looks like a cow.