Oliver turns 3!

I always love doing birthday parties for Oliver (well I've only done 3 now), but it's always fun trying to figure out what colors, decorations, theme, type of cake, and party favors to pick, all within a budget, and trying to make it fun for Oliver. This year it was extra fun since I could actually talk to him about stuff for his party this year, and he was no only very VERY excited, but he also had a few ideas himself!

This year I chose "music" as the theme since Oliver's been all about Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" aka "Big Dance" for nearly a year now.  I'm assuming anyone still reading this post knows him and knows how much he requests it, plays it, sings it, dances it, corrects people on the correct lyrics, even the correct pronunciation of said lyrics... So, I didn't want a cheesy Elvis party, or even a '50's party, just a music party that was more rock and roll than anything else. So, because Oliver is all about his guitar, and Daddy's guitar, and his bat that came with his T-ball kit is now his "bat guitar," I was going to make a guitar shaped cake using 2 bundt cakes, cut so they were in the shape of a "3" and also the shape of a guitar. Well, upon asking Oliver what color guitar cake he wanted he, a little astounded and appalled, said, "I don't want a guitar cake, I want a red, chocolate saxophone cake!" Ok! Change of plans...I went out and bought chocolate cake mix, icing, and all different kinds of red icing to figure out how to do this. I was scared. Then I went to one of his friend's birthday parties, and they had a really cute "Hungry Caterpillar" cake. She gave me the business card of the woman who made it, and I called her up (for $45 she makes BEAUTIFUL cakes!) I gave her the details, she sent me some ideas, I showed them to Oliver...who for at least 3 weeks had been talking about a red saxophone cake...and upon looking at the pictures, he wanted the saxophone YELLOW. Ack! We chose a cake (and proving he is definitely his mother's son, he chose the most expensive one for $80...I chose a similar one for the $45 pricetag). A week later he was still insistent on yellow, so I called her up a few days before the party, and she made it yellow. phew!

Here is the spread for the party:

Notice the blue tablecloth...the day I went to go buy decorations, my son informed me his favorite color was no longer red, it was blue. Another disaster averted! Good grief! And notice the piano? It's edible :) I searched the internet for music-themed food and came up with LAME-O stuff, or way too complicated stuff. I seriously wracked my brains for DAYS and came up with the brilliant idea of a piano made out of white kit kats and dark chocolate. I knew I was absolutely amazing! I did a Google search to make sure I was seriously the most awesomest, coolest, brilliantest person I knew, and well, there it was x6. Patooey. I'm still cool though, dangit!! So kit kat piano, watermelon balls on toothpicks (sort of like a drumstick) and bell-shaped PB&J sandwiches, and note-shaped and star-shaped ham & cheese sandwiches (star for rock star?) And of course deviled eggs because I love them but they're a pain to make (thank you Aunt Amy for making them, and the were DElicous!!)

I didn't take pictures of everything else, but there were blow-up guitars, blow-up saxophones, drums, play guitars, a keyboard, kazoo trumpets, kazoo saxes, xylophones, balloons everywhere, CD's hanging from the ceiling, records on the walls, and all kinds of things, but the best coolest toy there was a giant piano you jump on to play that Omama got Oliver for a pre-birthday party gift! Wow, kids were on that thing the whole time! Now he likes to stand on it while playing our regular keyboard :)

 My happy boy!

Cake time!

Wonder what the wish was

It was cute how a bunch of the kids lined up under the bar to eat their cake

Even Ian enjoyed his piece!

We played a musical game that I came up with...a lame game, but well, I'm lame. So, I had a giant staff on the wall and a bunch of notes. I went into "teacher mode" here and was explaining what a staff and notes were, and how to put the two together.

And they did a beautiful job!

And here is there masterpiece!

For some reason, Blogger doesn't let me upload videos anymore - the last several I've tried disappear. It's really really annoying because I have video of Omama playing this on the keyboard. It sounds kind of cool!

We waited 'til after the party to open gifts because the little kids tend to find it boring...but here's Oliver on his "sliders" with a bunch of his presents all over the floor :)

And Nich enjoyed the gifts too :)

Cooper, kind of like Oliver's big brother, stayed for a while after

And some Omama-Oliver time checking out the hiding place the balloons managed to find!

Happy birthday to my special, perfect, miracle baby! We love you!!

Pictures

I know some family members who don't get to see us often are wanting "daily life" pictures, so here are a few I've gotten. They're not particularly good, and they were all taken on my phone so...that means I can't flip them properly. I've tried many different ways, so if anyone knows how to fix that problem please let me know! I'll upload a few while trying to get Ian to sleep. Pardon my lack of commentary, there is a baby in need of cuddling! :)

Father's Day, can you tell Nich just got off the night shift? Yep, story of our lives! ;)

Cute little Ian in Big Bear (This was a long time ago, but I love this picture so much!)

"Duck Feet" I'm not sure where he coined that term, but this is his answer to "playing hockey like Damon"...he watched cousin Damon play ice hockey a few days earlier.

Playing with band aids :)

Do Rag baby

Look who can get up on the step now! Reminds me of another little son I have...

Aha! Got Oliver's "bat guitar" while he's away at school!

Visit to Gammy and Papabear's - Peek-a-boo with Aunt Heather and cousins!

Loving on Aunt Heather, and loving the introduction to his giant family!

Can you tell it's nap time?

Watching Damon play ice hockey! (They're out of order, but this is where duck feet came from. For over a month now, Oliver wants to where anything "slippery" on his feet. We've gone roller skating a few times now, and he's now got a variety of toys and things to wear on his feet or balance on that are indeed "slippery"

My boy of many obsessions...music here! This was the photo on his 3rd birthday invitation. His birthday party pictures should be up next. Whenever that happens :)

Such a great big brother! And Ian's eating it up. ha ha ha. I'm so punny, I know.

My favorite way to grocery shop :)

Ok, so I've noticed all the pictures are their correct orientation! The answer? Don't try to flip them! Just download them from the phone, don't try to fix them, and do a lazy upload, and voila! It worked out. Hmmmm! Who knew! And all because I didn't have time to mess with it. Definitely a sign I should take the lazy way more often!

Fubber!!

Actually, in our house we say (in our loudest, monster-voice, FLUBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!) For this summer, and now that I have a handle on things what with Ian being mobile and more independent, I'm back to doing cool stuff with Oliver. At least he thinks it's cool :)  So, while hanging out on Pinterest one night, I found an interesting "project" to do with kids where they drop food coloring into a pan of corn starch. We did that, and it wasn't nearly as cool as Pinterest claimed it was...but Oliver had a good time for about 45 minutes. I decided to search online for other things to do with these two materials, I came across a recipe for "Flubber," a rubbery, oozy, solid-y, weird substance that looks and acts just like the movie of this same name. Except not alive. Thankfully.

MIXTURE 1
2 bottles of 8 oz Elmer's school glue
1 1/2 cups water
any food coloring

MIXTURE 2 (in separate bowl)
1/2 cup warm water
3 tsp Borax

Mix 1 with 2

It's cool! It's cheap! It stores well in the fridge in an airtight container! It's also toxic so no eating and wash hands after using it...

We made red flubber a few weeks ago (actually more pink) and this time we made blue. A weird property about flubber...you can break it into a million pieces, stick it back in the container, and like the bad metallic Terminator from the movie, it all congeals back together, like a liquid, yet it's like a solid. It's fun and Oliver got to learn words like "liquid," "solid," "congeal," "viscosity," and "weird."

Apparently pictures taken on my phone won't turn around. I don't get it and I don't like it. But it is what it is.

I guess just turn your computer on its side :)

Once Upon a Time...

I recently read a funny post of a woman who created her family as a cast of actors who she felt most resembled them. In homage to that post, I thought I'd do something similar.

Have you ever been asked which Disney princess you think is the hottest/looks the most like you/you'd want to be? Yeah, those are kind of annoying questions, so I took it upon myself to cast my family as Disney characters. They no longer have to wonder who they are anymore. Because, if I know my family, and I think I do, that is a question that has been tormenting them all for decades now.

Now before I get started, the wonderful (and obnoxious), thing about these characters is how very one-dimensional they are. While it makes for ease of story-telling to children, it makes it more difficult to typecast actual people into. Well, unless you're me and kind of one-dimensional naturally. Yep, I'm a one-trick pony.

Anyhoo, I tried to only pick one character that fits best in MY eyes.

My Parents:

My Dad. King Triton!
Not only is the giant beard a "gimme," but this king is pretty powerful and appears scary to a lot of people. He is very respected but once you get to know him, you find what a softie he really is and how much he treasures his family. Plus, I'm pretty sure both their favorite movie is "Sleepless in Seattle."

My Mom: Belle!
Lover of books and in love with a hairy man (ha ha ha!) A quiet introvert who'd rather have her nose in the modern version of a book (computer...) but with some fun, loyal, and sometimes flamboyant friends.











Big Brother: Tarzan!
 Do you know how hard it is to find non-boring-Disney-prince-male characters? While he now has a short, business-y cut, my big bro once sported the long jungle hair back in his rock star days. And see the big gap between Tarzan's big toe and the others? Yep, he's got a similar one with the added talent of being able to pick up all kinds of things with them. Oh yeah, and they're both clever and intelligent...one to survive the jungle, the other to survive the software jungle.

Aussie Sister: Cinderella!
She's thinking, HUH?? But hear me out. I was originally going to go with Belle, but she's taken. While Belle loves books and my sweet sister reads a book a week, Cinderella has a "thing" with animals and can communicate with them, not unsimilar to her, but is stuck living with filthy slobs who she acts maid to. In one of her awesome houses, my sister got stuck cleaning dishes, showers, and even toilets after her awesome housemates. Not to worry, she's no longer the maid with her new awesome job and better house, and now she's planning the perfect place to leave her glass slipper.

Za: Jasmine!
This one was so obvious after I had a second to think about it...These two are peas in a pod - they like to show off their rockin' mid-sections, both have feline-favorite-companions (I'm pretty sure Q has the ferociousness of a tiger, and Bubo the cuddliness Disney would have you believe tigers possess), and both end up falling for the "riff-raff." Ha ha!

 Me: Ariel!
I know I know, no one saw that coming with the red hair and all. In my teaching days my students often told me I looked like the little mermaid. Anyway, I thought this picture said it all - she's shocked she's got legs...I have this moment several times a day. The huh? Why did I walk in this room? Is it 6AM or 6PM? I've got legs??*

 Nich: Peter Pan was my attempt at obvious humor...so ha ha! (Peter Pan Syndrome?) Ok, I was deciding between Prince Charming (yeah yeah) and Aladdin's Genie. Well, it's definitely Genie! Here's a guy who is the ultimate optimist, goofball, comic relief, and has the giant arms I love to fall into every night, or, day, or whenever it is I see him between shifts. He seriously makes all my dreams come true, but is thankfully a little easier on the eyes than this genie and definitely my Prince Charming!

*So Nich read this and said I should be Snow White...maid and caretaker to a house full of boys. Yep, maybe so. Or Jasmine...I ended up marrying the riff-raff, ha!

Time Out, Peaches

Lesson Learned...No Hitting
This morning Oliver put his drum time out for "hitting him" while he was swinging it around his body by the string. I guess it hit him one time too hard. He even asked for the timer, and had his drum in time-out for 2 minutes...

Chester making sure the drum behaves in time-out...with the timer set for 2 minutes on the dresser.

Lesson Learning...Waste Not, Want Not
For snack today, we all had some delicious peaches we just got at the Farmer's Market (TASTY!) After asking if he could have more and me answering him with yes after he finished his initial peach, I had to leave the room for a minute. I came back to find Oliver had taken a good 3-4 bites out of the remaining 3 peaches, with his still unfinished original 1/2 peach... And so now he sits until he finishes all the peach...or until he has agreed it really IS a good idea to finish one piece of fruit before deciding to bite into another.

Now that's a big pile of peaches! I'm betting the peaches will win.