I have a 2 year old!

So, Penn's birthday was on Friday last week and as luck would have it, he woke up with fever. He pretty much slept through his birthday and he seemed to be feeling be feeling better by nighttime, so we took him to Chuck E. Cheese's for his birthday supper. He ate nothing, but he and Jac had a blast running around and playing games. I was so glad he was feeling better!

On to Saturday...we got to church early to set up and decorate and finished just before six. Everything looked great and mom was still clueless that the party was for her too. I felt bad that she worked so hard, but she wouldn't have it any other way. Karen said that she could write a book, How to Throw Your Own Surprise Party! Anyway, the party began and everything went super-smooth. Karen made a great slideshow of Mom and Mrs. Barbara and the food was delish! I can say that because I didn't make any of it, besides the cake. The kids had a blast playing basketball and running around the gym and except for the noise factor, I think they stayed out of the adults' hair.

Penn got so many great gifts and adorable clothes (I especially liked the MagnaDoodle, as it came in handy today at Penn's check-up). From looking at the gift table, you would probably think how present hungry our family must be, but in my defense, we have a super-big family and they buy great stuff. I'm going to have to think how to do things differently in the future, though. I feel so bad that he gets so much and other kids have nothing. Maybe we need to start a pre-birthday tradition of giving away good-condition toys and throwing away broken or missing pieces. Maybe we can even come up with some theme parties. Does anybody have any ideas (Book parties are out because we are already overflowing with more books that he'll ever care to read.)?

So, Penn's second birthday has come and gone and next year, I'll be having to plan for two spring birthday parties....sheesh! I guess I better start buckling down and getting ready for the craziness to come. As difficult has having a newborn and toddler is, it's probably only going to get harder and busier. Below are some pictures from Penn's party...enjoy!

Gift and cake tables are all decorated!

The Elmo/Basketball Birthday Cake I made...no easy task!

Opening presents...Samantha and Jac helped him get through this long 15 minutes of being held down by Mommy.

The Famous "Elmo Pimp Hat"

Mommy and Daddy with the Big Birthday Boy!!!

I leave you with one picture of sweet Jude (with Aunt Karen)...unfortunately, we don't have a lot of pictures of him from the party because, well...he wasn't doing a whole lot. Fortunately, he's precious and adorable all the time, so this should do:)

Birthday Countdown

I'm soooo excited about Penn's birthday this weekend. I know he's going to have a blast. I'm so glad that I've been able to lighten up this year by choosing to have the party at my church instead of home. It makes some things a lot more complicated, but overall, much less stress in the housekeeping department. Also, since it's a surprise party for some relatives that shall remain nameless, a lot of my family is chipping in on the food. Okay, so they're just buying all of it and I'm just getting paper products, decorations, and Penn's cake (which I would have done anyway). Have I mentioned how much I love my family???

As you may know, I am NOT a domestic goddess or anything, but I do like trying my hand at doing some things myself. For example, since this party is an Elmo/Basketball themed party, I'm making the cake without a mold, which is kind of scary. I also saw a cute Elmo "pimp" hat at Sesame Street Live, but I could bring myself to pay twelve dollars for a party hat that he would probably destroy, so I bought a red, fuzzy hat at the dollar store and I'm making Elmo's face on it. I hope Penn likes it...I tend to go a little overboard on cutesy sometimes, but whatever! Here's how I hope, it's going to turn out (and I do not know this child, but this is the result I got when I typed in "Elmo Pimp Hat"):
More exciting news...Penn has not thrown up since we've upped his medicine. I also got him to eat a soft taco and apple pie the other day. This may not seem like much to some of you, but trying something new and not throwing up are two very excting things for our little Penn. I'm a happy Mama!

Oh well, enough for now. I'm not planning on posting anything for the next few days as I get ready for the party, but you never know...if something comes up, I may need to.

Smarty Pants!

I almost forgot! Here is a video that I've been trying to get for months! Penn has been saying his ABC's since he was about 18 months old or so. My mom keep asking me to try and get it on film because no one believed that a child so young had learned his ABC's yet. Well, Penn refused to cooperate any time there was a camera around. I even tried to record just his voice on my phone, but he was wise to that too. I finally got him to start saying it in the car and I pulled out our flip video camera and started recording blindly. That's why you see my headrest a lot. I was trying not to turn around so he wouldn't think it was a big deal. Finally I saw that I could use the side-view mirror to see the view screen on the camera and I was able to line it up a little better. It's probably not that impressive now that he's officially two years old, but I still think my children are geniuses and cute as all get out!!

CampinTrip

What a fun weekend! On Friday, I thought my excitement about the camping trip was going to be in vain because of the mass amounts of rain I saw soak my front yard. Alas, the rain stopped (as it always does) and the sun came out and pretty much dried it all out. Am I starting to sound like a children's song...haha? Anyway, we figured that we'd go out to Lynches River and see if everyone was coming anyway since we already had the vehicle packed and ready. The night saw one more little bit of rain, but the rest of the weather was perfect. The kids played and had a blast even though we had absolutely NO toys for them (oops). Penn ate a reliable meal of hot dogs and Cheetos (a meal we've named "Old Faithful" because we won't see it come back up) so we were happy campers...hehe. I'm pretty sure Jude only made a couple of peeps the whole time and never worked up a full-lunged cry the whole time. I'm a believer that you should take your children on the fun things you do too. It's not always easy and they don't always cooperate, but they learn to have fun with mom and dad and other adults and kids. I don't like to miss out on fun stuff just because I've got babies.

We were having so much fun that we didn't check the time and ended up putting the kids to bed at about 10:30 or so and it took a little longer for them to settle down. Pack actually brought an emergency TV with flashlight, siren, radio, and strobe (Thanks in-laws!) and Penn watched "snow" until he fell asleep. We woke up pretty early the next morning and got up and had breakfast. It was yummy, but we started seeing signs that they boys hadn't gotten enough sleep. We took down our tent and packed up the vehicles and headed over to the park for the boys to play. Once again, Jude was a super-sport. Not a whimper! After some wrestling, we visited the Discovery Center for Penn and Jac to look at the animal furs, bugs, bird nests, and anything else they had there. After that, we decided to head home and Penn was asleep in the car before we got out of Effingham.

So that was the camping trip in a semi-nutshell and here are a few pictures from the trip.

Here we are setting up. Penn's in orange because I was afraid he might wander off and I wanted him to wear something bright. Karen dressed Jac in camo...haha.

My sweet angel Jude on the new camping table that Pack bought us. I think he's got dimples!!!
There were tons of wonderful church people who helped me do some baby-holdin. This is Jan.
As you can see...Penn was not in the best of moods on Saturday morning. The Park helped to get his mind off he tired-ness.
Finally, a family picture. These are few and far between these days! I love my boys!

Penn update

At our one-and-a-half hour doctor visit yesterday, we had a geat revelation...I am the worst scheduler in the world...really. As we sat in the exam room and stormed through several temper tantrums from all of us except Jude, I realized that week after next...I'll be back...ON TWO SEPARATE DAYS!!! As if we weren't already wasting one afternoon on a visit where we decided simply to up the dosage on his Zantac, dummy me scheduled Penn and Jude's check-ups on two seaparate days in the same week! I hope my babysitter (aka...MIL) will be available. Oh well, I'll get through it.
Next up...Elim campout tonight. I'm so excited (obviously, right?) and can't wait until I can update with pictures. Let's hope all goes well!

Penn getting cozy

This is just a quick post to show a cute picture (if I can figure it out...). Here's the story...I basically do all our laundry on two days during each week because I'm lazy and that's the way I work. Anyway, Pack took all the folded laundry to our bed earlier in the day and stacked it up so we could put it up before bed. I haven't really thought much about it, as I've been up doing other things. So I just went to my bedroom and lo and behold, Penn had somehow managed to crawl over the mounds of laundry to find a cozy spot in our bed. There's just something comforting about sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed, I guess. So sweet.

Yum!

On 89.7 WMHK (the Christian radio station) yesterday, one of their hosts mentioned a yummy after school snack she was going to make for her kids. I thought the concept for home-made granola bars sounded easy (and cheap, and yummy) so I looked up her blog to get the recipe. I am now a follower after I realized that she kept a blog of awesome mom-tips. I'm hooked! This recipe was so easy and even though Penn wouldn't try it (shocker!), I couldn't stop eating them and I'm worried that they may not make it to the church-wide camp-out at Lynches River County Park tomorrow night, as was originally my intention. So if the granola bar thing interests you, check it out the recipe here. Also, check out this awesome blog at Mandyofftheradio.blogspot.com. She posts pretty regularly so keep checking to see new stuff.

Anyway, on today's agenda is taking Penn to see our family doctor to re-evaluate the medicine he's on for what we think is reflux. He's never had any sort of test to confirm that's what it is, so the thought that we may be medicating him for something he doesn't have really worries me. I really trust our family doctor though, and since he sees all of us, he has an idea of what our family already deals with medically and that gives me some peace of mind.

Also, we're going camping shopping! Our church is having a campout tomorrow night at Lynches River County Park and we're going, babies and all! We already have a tent that can be set up in about one minute (which is awesome) and it works great for just the two of us, however...our family consists of more than two now. I'm a little worried that our little tent may get a bit stuffy with two bed-hog babies so we're looking for something we can stretch out in a little more. We also need to buy sleeping bags. I have no idea what happened to the bags we both had growing up, but they are nowhere to be found and I imagine they may be a little less than clean after being lost for so long. So, those are on the list to buy too now! This should be fun! If it goes well, we may do a camping family vacation this year so save some moo-lah! We'll definitely have to go up to the mountains though...or risk suffocating. Hey...if anyone knows of any cool (and cheap) things to do with the little ones this summer, let me know! It is of the upmost importance for me to stay occupied and not sit around at home all day.

Oh well, that's all I can think of for now. I'll hopefully be posting the outcome of the doctor's visit at some point (maybe tomorrow...). Pray for a solution!!!