Happy belated birthday to me

So my birthday was last Tuesday.....kind of a quiet day. At my age, you kind of hope your birthday just slips by without anyone noticing. For the record, I'd like to freeze my age right here. I kind of like being in my 30's. A lot more confident than I was in my 20's and I feel like I've kind of come into my own over the past few years. Kind of a nice place to be if you ask me. Plus, I'd like to freeze time now because I don't want my kiddos to get any older. It scares me how fast time is flying. In the blink of an eye, they aren't babies anymore and I'm almost in my mid-30's. How did that happen?!

Field of flowers

So a friend tipped me off to this patch of sun flowers last summer. By the time I got my act together to get the kids out there, the sunflowers were well past their peak. I totally forgot about them this year until I happened to need to go to my friends house to pick something up. On the way home from her house, I drove past the patch for the first time in months. Low and behold, the sunflowers were back! They were *almost* past their peak again, but I managed to get my stuff together and convince C to get out there and pose for me. When I got home that evening, I was a little bummed because most of the shots were slightly out of focus. See, I guess I was a little nervous about trespassing and being on the side of a busy road, that I quickly took some shots and didn't really watch what I was doing. I loved the way they turned out, but it wasn't exactly what I had in mind (ps-that's another 30 year old dress).

A week later, I decided to take C back out and try again. She was a little resistant at first (i.e. she was holding out until I promised lollipops and various other candies) but finally agreed. When we went back, the sunflowers were not looking as good, but I got what I wanted. Mental note for next year, think about this towards the end of July when the flowers are at their best. These pictures were taken two nights ago and I'm sure if I drove by the patch today, the sunflowers would be wilted over and not worth photographing.

This makes me smile

I just love this little kid :)

Call it mommy goggles, but he's just so stinkin' cute and he makes me smile.

Look who

can tie their shoe! Miss C finally figured out how to tie her shoe this week! We were getting hung up on how to make it work after doing the "bunny ears". For some reason, her little fingers just couldn't get those bunny ears to work right. We'll after trying and trying and trying this past week, she finally figured it out (I told her to cross the bunny ears and make a mickey mouse face--so the hole would be big enough to put the ears though. Sounds hokey, but it worked). She even tied her own shoes this morning as she was getting ready for camp (I of course had to double knot them). Who is this big girl?! I mean, first no training wheels, then swimming on her own, and now tying her own shoes. Next thing I know she'll be off to college :)

Lot's of stuff going on around here between swimming lessons, daily dance recitals, camps, etc. I'll try to get it all blogged soon. For now, the shoe tying pics. She wouldn't let me take video of it, so this is all I got.

Today

So, I'm letting them watch a movie right now because I have to get some work done (or blog). When the movie started, this is how the conversation went:

Miss C: Mom, we need some popcorn, peaches and adult drink (which is what we call any beverage besides water)

Me: Oh?

Miss C: Well, of course not soda or anything like that.

Uh, ok. It's obviously more likely that I'll agree to it since you clarified that you didn't mean soda! Funny how her mind works. They don't ever drink soda, so where that came from, I have no idea. And how random is peaches?!

On another note, we redecorated Miss C's room over the weekend. I had bought this vanity at a garage sale 2 years ago with the intention of painting it and putting it in her room. Well, it sat out in the garage for about a year, then it got moved to the upstairs hallway for another year and we finally put it in her room yesterday. I never did paint it. Anyway, since I won't let her have makeup alone in her room (that's just a recipe for disaster), I decided she could use it as a desk and I gave her a pen (which now thinking about it, could be another disaster) and paper. She's been drawing up a storm in there during her quiet time. I'm kind of enjoying the little drawings and notes she is creating. Here are two of my favorites so far.

This one is a movie theater. The things on the right and left side of the people are drinks. She did tell me the adults had sodas. The person on the bottom right has a remote control in their hand. Tinkerbell is on the movie screen in the front. Who knows what the random smiley face is in the back (I asked and she said she didn't know).

This one is from today. It's a picture of her and her friend (Miss K). They have ropes in their hands and are catching easter eggs with them (???). On the bottom it says, "I love yo (J's name) Hpe Esdr" Which translates to "I love you (J's name). Happy Easter". She sounded it out all by herself.

Look ma, no training wheels!

About two weeks ago, we took the training wheels off Miss C's bike. She's been telling me her bike is too small and she needs a new one. Before she gets a bigger bike, I told her she needed to learn how to ride it without the training wheels (I figured it would be easier on the little bike). After we took them off, I kind of thought maybe we made a mistake. She's a little cautious when riding her bike and generally doesn't like to go too fast. Well, going fast is kind of important when learning to ride the bike without the training wheels. But I figured we might as well try it. The first day, she did pretty well. I think I counted maybe 3 seconds of her riding it all by herself. After that, we kind of dropped it for the past two weeks. Today I decided we should take her to the basketball court at our neighborhood park and try again. I wasn't expecting too much, and honestly, I was planning on putting them back on after this afternoon. But low and behold, she did it! And she did it the first time she got on the bike too. I couldn't believe that she did it and that she did it so quickly today. She was able to pretty much ride around the entire basketball court without assistance. We ran next to her just in case, but she did it all by herself. She even started up *almost* all by herself, but that still needs a little practice. She's also a little afraid to stop. So we'll have to work on that. But I really couldn't believe it. In fact, I didn't even bring the video camera because I wasn't expecting much (but of course I always have my camera). So here are a few pics of Miss C riding her bike by herself without training wheels!

Little buddy

I'm sitting here on a rockin' Friday night cleaning up the hard drive. How exciting is that?! I came across a few of my little buddy that I don't think I've shared (who knows, maybe I have--so stop me if you've seen them before).

My little buddy and his beloved baskenball (what he calls it)

This one pretty much can be lumped into the blackmail category. He did this little get-up all on his own. I love the little smirk. That's pretty much his signature look (like his dad).

These are from his birthday invitation (speaking of which, I still need to share the pictures). We did a star wars theme and it turned out pretty cute. I don't think I ever shared the invitation on here.....so I'll do that now.

Of course names and other info were blocked out to protect the innocent :)