Birthday Boy

Oh how behind I am on my posts....

 Oh wow, how did my baby turn 4? Happy Birthday Corbin Dean! You continue to amaze me every day. There are days when I honestly cannot believe how smart you are. There are other days when you drive me crazy! I predict that we are very similar and therefore might but heads at times, especially when it comes to patience :-) There are so many things you are interested in and want to know more about.  You love to dress up and play pretend. We just increased your dress up box and there is nothing you don't love to pretend; from Batman to fairy to cowboy, you love all of it. You are also a veracious reader. You love the library, books, and reading. You can sit with either me or daddy for hours and read. You have stacks of books next to your bed and reading corner. You also love art and to create. You love to ride your 2 wheeler bike (and just go a new one!).  You are interested in dinosaurs, space, fairies, monsters, magic, super-heroes, and Legos. We are really working with you to try to be more independent with some of your self-care like getting up in the morning without yelling, getting your shoes on without help, using your words when you need something or are feeling frustrated. You are working hard at all of them, some more than others. You and Eliza are really starting to enjoy playing with each other. She looks up to you so much. When you both laugh and play it's the best thing in the world. There are lots of times when you still get very frustrated with her or do something to her for attention but that is very normal. You are still taking 1-2 naps a week, usually after school days. Blu Blu is still your safety and best friend but we are working on letting Blu Blu give you the bravery and skills he knows you have so you won't need him at school so much next year. Next year you will be in the Pre-K and Lady Bug Adventure program at Little Darlings 2 days a week. It should be a great fit for you. We are both excited for you to move on to the pre-k program. This summer we will work on trying to get rid of your night-time diaper. We are excited for lots of camping, swimming lessons, bike riding, and lots of adventures. We both love you Corbin!!!

We had our annual combined birthday party with Alden at their house this year. Aimee made us some pinatas which each of you decorated. 

Corbin decided on a rocket ship. He painted the whole thing and we worked on the streamers together.

Thank goodness for their basement. It poured rain all that morning!

Miles really enjoyed the smoothies.

Alden's Cat and the Hat.

Our invites had pictures of Corbin and Alden in Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes!

They were jumping up and down saying "We are 4. We are 4!"

Look who wanted in on the action....

Buds Brody, Alden, Ollie, and Corbin.

Mmmm....Chocolate cake!

Looks like Eliza liked her cupcake too.

Line up for the Pinatas.

Eliza takes a swing.

Go Corbin. This was definitely the hit of the party!

Friends! I think we had 17 kids between 6-5 months at one point!

 

Corbin's actual birthday was on Father's day.  Here they are working on some of the new Legos he got. 

Eliza jumping on her favorite thing ever..."bouncy" she calls it.

And the best dad!

Grandpa Mark came up for the day too. He came with gifts which were immediately enjoyed!

Checking out the new stomp rocket from Uncle Kevin and Aunt Meghan.

Grandpa and Ellie.

Corbin chose this outfit for his birthday outfit. It cracked me up!

Even though we had tons of cake the day before, we had to have at least one cupcake and sing on his actual birthday!

For Fathers Day Adam wanted to check out the Bellingham United Football Club (new soccer team here in Bham).

We left Eliza with Grandpa and came. Corbin lasted the 1st half in the stands. Then we wandered around and watched from the other side for the second half.

It was a GREAT fun filled weekend. Happy Birthday Corbin!

Weekend fun!

We had a fun filled weekend. I really think we need 3 day weekends every weekend. Two days to work and play and one day to get all those other things done or rest. The inside of our house is suffering but the outside is making progress. 

This was the first weekend in 15 years that we did not either participate in Ski to Sea or host a family who was participating. It was somewhat freeing. So we hosted a little BBQ with friends, checked out the finish line of the race and just hung out, not rushing out of the house to go anywhere. 

Eliza is eying Luca again...

We came to the conclusion that going to the end of the Ski to Sea race when you are not cheering on a team is not really worth it. Crowds, bad booths selling cheap things, beer gardens that don't allow children, and just not really worth it. But now we know. We did manage to have some fun though. Jump Around Fun Zone booths was worth the $5 and we continue to see how CRAZY Eliza is. 

Our garden is slowly making a transformation. We added the wood chips over the area we took out the grass, continued the path around the strawberries, got part of the hoop house up, weeded, and then mulched the hill. It looks good now and hopefully will for at least a couple of days!

I added some succulents to the bottom near the path and you can see the ugly dirt on the hill...which I mulched later. It makes it look so much better!

Mulch!

A camping adventure...

We had some gorgeous weather a couple of weekends ago. My principal mentioned to me that he and his family were going to go camping over the weekend. I called up Adam on my way home from work at 3pm and said, "I wish we had thought to go camping or do something fun this weekend." He said, "we still could..." We have never gotten ready so fast! He stopped at the store on his way home for oatmeal and marshmallows. I just started pulling out all our camping things. Not checking anything. Just piling it in the living room. I put on "Dinosaur Train" for the kids. We loaded up the car, the kids, and dog and headed to Larabee State Park by 5:30pm! It was a little crazy. We are crazy. Yep. 

It was the first time using our super HUGE family car camping tent. This thing is AWESOME!

Corbin did not ride his bike. But he did wear his helmet. They went in and out of the tent.

Water fountains are fun.

Because we did not plan, we figured we could just cook hot dogs over the fire; problem #1. We bought potato salad and buns. I have always cooked pretty good camping meals over the camp stove. Never over the fire. Now I know why. You cannot rely on a fire starting. Wood being dry. Having enough newspaper. Or being timely. We ended up boiling the kids hot dogs. We finally ate our own fire cooked hot dogs around 7:30 pm. 

My biggest kid!

Hmmm...I wonder if this fire will ever start or only be smoke? What do you think Ellie?

Maybe if we stick our tongues out at it, it will start?

Bad planning #2. Friday is a long day for everyone. Bedtime for Corbin and Eliza is usually around 7pm. Luckily we had lots of distractions which helped with melt downs... but Eliza was going into the tent and trying to climb in her pack and play and saying "night night" around 7:30 pm. So we got her layered up for sleep. #3 problem... too many layers. Then Corbin realized she was going to bed and he said he was ready. Hmm...how will this work? Will they both go down together? Will Corbin being in the tent help Eliza feel better? #4 problem... No it did not.  We have all slept in the same room before but we stagger bed times. They just wanted to roll around the tent together. Eliza would not stay in her pack and play and wanted to lay down next to Corbin. So we snuggled them in and left the tent. "Eliza, close your eyes, it's time for sleeping. Close your eyes Eliza. CLOSE YOUR EYES! MOMMY, Eliza is NOT going to sleep." On and on...Now around 8:30-8:45 pm. "Ok, mommy will come in and lay down with you for a while." Still did not work. Ok. Daddy's turn. He just decided to get ready for bed and stay in. I read by the now working fire. 10pm rolls around... still no one is asleep. Time for me to go in. Try to lay down and get everyone settled. Take off some of Eliza's layers. She won't stop moving around, crawling on everyone. We put her into the pack and play. She screams. I mean screams. We have neighbors on both sides of our site. 10:15pm seems a little late for a screaming child. I am sure they think I am torturing my child. I am sure she can sense my nerves. By this time she won't stop crying even when I pull her out. She is SO over tired. I try to rock her. I try to give her her bottle. I try to walk around with her. Screaming. Screaming. And More screaming. She is just too over tired to sleep. I try to just hold her really tightly and let her body relax. Sometimes this works. All she does is resist. So finally around 11pm, we stick her back into the pack and play and just pray that she will go to sleep after crying for a little while. We try to get Corbin to lie still (HARD). She just screams standing up in the pack and play. For more than 10 min. I finally pull her out and try to cuddle her next to me. A train goes by. Oh did I mention that almost every 40 minutes a VERY LOUD train goes by on the tracks right next to the campground? No. Yep. She looks at me and says "choo-choo train" then lays down and goes to sleep! Seriously?

But then an hour later. She wakes up again. Screaming. It's now almost 12:30 am. We try to get her to calm down. She won't. Her voice is hoarse from all the screaming. Corbin stays asleep, amazingly. I don't know what to do, so we get into the car and decide to go home. We will come back in the morning for Corbin, Adam and the stuff. She is asleep as soon as we get on the road. We get home close to 1am and sleep in our own beds till 7:15am. We head back to camp with coffee (the only thing I forgot!) and donuts. Eliza thinks it's great to be back...

I love camping. We can always go home in the middle of the night, right mom? And oatmeal in funny cups!

Breakfast of champions; instant oatmeal, hot chocolate, and donuts!

We headed down to the beach after breakfast. Pretty cool sandstone.

Rock climbing.

Brindzi was in heaven!

Perfect little seat!

All in all we had fun, minus in the moment of the screaming. But it was a good thing we were only 20 minutes from home. I have a few thoughts on how to make next time go better. We go camping with my parents in Ellensburg in two weekends...

Here is my crafty project! Garden markers.

Mother's Day dinner outside.

Bikes and books.

Some swim time!

Swimming lessons started too. Corbin is doing much better this year!

And are we surprised that she is a dare devil in the water too....?