sweet pea

Sometimes, on birthdays, you realize all at once that you're little babies are growing into big boys. And sometimes, on Tuesday afternoons, it happens right before your eyes. This afternoon after a morning trip to the library, William and I curled up next to each other on the couch and read some of his library stack. When we got to "S" in The Rainforest Alphabet, there was a picture of a spider. I read to him the type of spider and stated the spider facts, and then when he said, "spider", it came out just right. No more f-  instead of the sp - sound. He says spider now. It made me tear up a little bit, because even though I'm cheering for him and always grateful for growing children, I realize that today was one of those lasts. Or yesterday was I guess. The last time our little boy will say 'fider' and 'Fiderman'.

{This is what happened this morning when William discovered seeds in his apple. Or babies as he calls them.}

halloween was Super!

We spent Halloween trick-or-treating with Captain America and the Green Lantern.



We went trick-or-treating around our new neighborhood.




Oma spent the night after William's birthday party and came trick-or-treating with us.

We also ran into Griffin, Henry's favorite school friend. They trick-or-treated for an entire block together. It was really sweet to see their excitement at first finding each other in the dark and then filling their candy bags together. {I don't have pictures because I sent my camera home with Patrick who took a cold and tired Green Lantern back home early.}

It was a beautiful night; chilly but not raining or freezing!
After we picked Henry up from school, we did some speed pumpkin carving so we could have jack-o-lanterns before the trick-or-treaters came.












Also, for breakfast we made chocolate chip pancakes in spooky colors.

Blue, green and orange pancakes - pretty scary, right? These look disgusting I think, especially in pictures. But they were gobbled right up.
My very favorite part of Halloween this year has been my favorite since I was a little girl; the coming back home part. The part where you come inside your cozy, warm, brightly lit house, thaw out fingers and toes and dump your bucket full of sugared earnings on the carpet. I like the counting and sorting that ensues. I like the piles and the sorting from most favorite {king size Kit Kats} to least favorite {butterscotch candy disks}. It's an unofficial tally of the success of Halloween. And this Halloween delivered. One house gave only king size bars {and offered cold beers to the parents} and in only about an hour buckets were full and warm memories made. The nightcap on the festivities was waiting for trick-or-treaters to come to our house. Each time the door bell would ring, the boys would drop whatever they were doing and dash to the door. At first, we came with making sure the boys offered the candy and were polite. But they caught on fast and after a few times, we let them take over door duty. We'd sit in the living room and smile as they'd make the mad dash to the door and then laugh out loud when we'd hear Henry say things like, "Hi Cowboy", or "Nice lightsaber". And as the night wore on the the traffic continued, we panicked about running out of candy and being that house on the street that has to close down early. We brainstormed what kinds of things we could start throwing into the bucket if we ran out completely. I think spare toothbrushes, pencils and Kleenex made the list. Luckily for the trick-or-treaters that night, we didn't run out!
I found myself so grateful once again for these two boys and for their contagious joy.

Party Animals

It was between superheroes and animals. Since we'd thrown Henry a superhero birthday bash when he turned 5,  we (which really means I) decided on animals for William's fourth. I just couldn't get my creative juices flowing for another superhero party. But I remembered this from a post back in August and felt inspired.

{A gold leaf spray painted plastic animal found here. } 

Isn't it super cute? It was my only inspiration for the party and ironically, I didn't end up even doing this cute little DIY. I did ask Patrick for a drill a few days before the party, but in the name of keeping things low-key, I opted against it. Plus can you put a spray painted animal on a cupcake and deem it edible? I didn't know.

{A huge thank you to Sara for taking all of these party pictures. You are super talented and I'm so happy to have these lasting memories from the day!}

I ended up drawing inspiration from the invitations and settled on a bright color scheme of tangerine, lime green and aqua blue.









































At the last minute, we had the change the date of the party due to illness. William came down with strep throat on Friday and started an antibiotic that morning. We bumped the party to Sunday and even though the day wasn't as sunny or warm as Saturday would have been we were all blessed with good health.

Along with the color scheme, I also chose to keep this party low-key. For me keeping it low-key is about not getting swept up in all of the pre-party stress and fuss of over doing and over spending. I accepted gracious offers to help and delegated most of the food duties to generous family members who offered to bring dishes to pass.

Sandi brought home baked breadsticks {there were three kinds : poppy seed, parmesan and sesame seed and for those of you locals, they tasted just like the Monicals ones do}, Mary brought the ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen {the birthday boy's special request and she decorated it with cute animals and trees she brought from home}, my Mom brought the delicious salad and created the pretty veggie tray and Sara brought the darling frosted cupcakes and Costco's famous {in our household at least} artichoke jalapeno dip and chips. I'm thankful for my sweet and generous family!

It left me to do the things I really love the most - making a couple of treats and desserts, favor bags for the kiddies and simple decor. I got to focus on the reason we were celebrating - another year of life for our birthday boy and being surrounded by our family and friends who pour so much love into his life - and not just the celebration.

Happy 4th Birthday William!