Kid Vs Kid--21 Months

It's been a while since I've done a Kid Vs Kid, and what better time than 21 months old?  Because darn it if I don't love this age so much.  And it's a good thing, too, because if you know Harper, you know she loves me back just as much.  Lots of chores go undone at our house so that Harper can get her desired amount of cuddle time. 

And while age five is mostly a hit around here (except for the constant backtalking, which can just go away as of, like, yesterday) it's always fun to reminisce on this magical time of Holden's life as well...Although, to be honest, I feel like I could have taken this picture during his bath tonight.  Is it just me or does Holden look just.the.same?

Portrait of Five

Holden's biggest birthday wish was to be "The Boss" on his birthday.  Possibly because we have frequent and lengthy conversations about who is in charge at our house, and he always seems genuinely surprised that it isn't him. But I'm nothing if not a sucker for the birthday boy so we did our best to accommodate.  

After setting a few ground rules (no illegal activity, we can't go to Lagoon when it's not open, etc.) here is how my 5 year old chose to spend his big day.

He wanted to make sure we spent the whole day celebrating, so we decorated his door for a little first thing in the morning surprise.

Of course, presents were next on the agenda.

Then he chose "one of those sandwiches made out of pancakes" (gag) at McDonald's for breakfast, along with a lengthy stay at the PlayPlace.

Our attempt at a homemade pinata was a big fat fail, so we improvised with a last minute birthday treasure hunt for the intended pinata candy.

After that, he spent some time playing with his new birthday loot.

Then it was off to preschool, complete with the world's most ghetto birthday treat to share with his class.

He seemed to celebrate hard at preschool also, judging by his hat, sticker and treat bag.

That's the best photo I could get.  His mind was clearly on other things.  Because after preschool we headed to Boondocks Fun Center.

He threw around all sorts of activity ideas, but when it came down to it, all he really wanted was to spend all his time and money at the arcade, which surprised no one.  That kid loves arcades.

And the prizes that come with it.

All that arcad-ing made the birthday boy hungry, so we headed off to Noodles and Company for some spaghetti and meatballs...What's that you say?  That's not meatballs?  That's because when his food came he didn't know they were going to use "that kind of spaghetti" (you know, the spaghetti noodle kind) and asked for Mac and Cheese instead.  I had been trying to tell him he wanted Mac and Cheese the whole time, so I was about to tell him tough luck, but lucky for him, Dad had pity on the birthday boy and traded him meals.

Finally, it was back home for cake.

And a Holden's choice Redbox. (Monster House if you were wondering).

His last decision of the day was to stay up late, so he got an 8:30 bedtime.  We live dangerously around here.
We'd go broke quickly if Holden was the boss every day, but it was nice to have this day to document what goes on in his little 5 year old brain.

Revenge Of The Fifth

Can I count my kid's birthdays as my favorite holiday?  Because if so, I am totally doing it.  Holden asked for a Star Wars party this year, which was easy peasy other than the fact that I haven't ever actually SEEN a Star Wars movie, nor did I intend to, even for birthday party research purposes. But with the help of my BFF Pinterest, and my assistant party planner Holden, I feel like we got the job done.

We decorated:

We only remembered to take photos of about half our guests, as usual.  Also, don't mind Harper's grumpy face.  She wasn't feeling great that day.  Or she had a bitter case of birthday envy:

We ate our Star Wars themed dinner:

And played my new favorite go to party game.  Seriously, I want to have more parties just so I can play this game. Who'd come?

I baked my little heart out for our Wookie Cookie party favors:

All that baking wore me out and  inspired me to take a year off from my annual cake fail.  We ordered a plain cake from Costco instead and Holden and I "decorated" it together.  That ended up being one of my favorite parts of his birthday festivities, so maybe I'll stick with that plan from here on out:

Holden's favorite part was probably opening the presents.  He is five, after all.

All in all it was probably one of my favorite parties to date. Crazy October schedules caused us to have the party a week early, so we got to spread the birthday fun out even longer than normal.  A breakdown of the actual big day is on it's way.

Harper Sings

Harper is not much of a talker.  Well, that's not entirely true.  She pretty much spends most of her time talking, but I would say 97 percent of the time it's still not understandable English.  But her lack of vocabulary doesn't keep her from having the music in her, that's for sure.  And because the adorableness of Harper does not grace the presence of this blog frequently enough, a small video displaying the cute is long overdue.

(Sidenote:  Harper is a born singer, I am not.  Please try to ignore my part as much as possible.  Thanks in advance!)

"Blogust"

 So, August happened.  And it happened fast.  And I have already forgotten most of it.  But as usual, August was awesome and deserves to be documented.  So, to the best of my recollection.....

I try not to repost instagram pictures, but come on with the adorableness.  How could I not?

 Trips to Pineview are definitely an August must at our house.

Harper spent a lot of time practicing her happy and sad faces.

We had visitors! Reo's sister and her family came to visit so of course we showed them a fantastic time, complete with an airplane museum, a surly faced Harper and blazing hot mini golf.  What can I say?  Nothing but the best for our guests.

Holden learned to skate, so "I'll probably just be a hockey player now, instead of when I grow up, mom."  Dream big, little one.  Good to see that self esteem is still not a problem at our house.  

He also mastered scaling our own personal "Matterhorn,"  assembled by Reo with many hours of work and zero swears.

And when we were done with that, we moved on to mastering the slides at the park.

We hit up the splash pad with family.

And the local pool for the last time this year.

We squeezed in a date night.

And just in case we were making you too jealous with all our fun, we also had plenty of TV zombie moments. More than I will ever admit.

I thought August was busy, but September usually proves to be one of our busiest and most fun filled months (State Fair, anyone?) so stay tuned y'all, the best is yet to come!

An Evening Swim

As a general rule of thumb, I don't like to swim unless it's at least 90 degrees outside.  There is nothing fun about trucking to my towel soaking wet and shivering.  Sadly, that means our swimming days are becoming more and more numbered  So, more and more often I find myself packing up a makeshift (and pretty pathetic) dinner and text Reo to meet us at the pool after work. 

The kids don't mind the PB and J dinner one bit.

And seriously, do you think this little girl looks up to her brother much?  Tries to be just like him.   And then I disappear into the huge puddle of adorableness..

Ice Cream Tuesdays

My kids go to bed early.  Really early.  And while this has obvious perks, we pretty much shut down for the night at 7:00.  Because of this, I have a tendency to live for the weekends.  To get a little more joy out of the other 70 percent of my life I instituted one of my new favorite traditions...Ice Cream Tuesday.  It's a big hit all around.  

This is Harper's ice cream face.

Same day, different place each week, another day to look forward to (almost) as much as Saturday.

Ice cream Tuesday may just become a permanent fixture around here.

Anatomy of Harper's Summer

A long, long time ago, I wrote a post about how people shouldn't be sixteen months old in the winter.  For the record, July?  An ideal time to be sixteen months old.  Just ask Harper.

Rite of Passage

First Popsicle.  Pants optional. 

And the white Popsicle?  Brilliant.  Well played, Airheads Popsicle.  Well played.

And it's not a photo op without the cheeser face.