Birthday Party!

Well, yesterday morning did not start off well. I was doing great at having everything all prepared for the birthday party...but both of the boys woke up extra early, and whiny. Y ended up having to take a morning nap. I toyed with the idea of having C take a morning nap because he was having a LOT of tantrums, but I knew that if he went to sleep and then I had to wake him up when the party started at 10:00 a.m. he would be a bear (he does not do well being woken up from naps!). So I just let him stay up.

I won't bore you with all of the crazy details, but suffice to say that I learned that our home is not really fit for hosting 30+ people. It never seemed so small as it did yesterday! There were 3 baby guests, all born within about 2 months of each other so that was neat, and there were a couple of one year old's and a 3 year old. It was fun passing the babies around and I finally got to see my little niece again, whom I do not get to see nearly often enough!

When it came time to open presents, the first thing C opened was a fire truck. BIG MISTAKE! That was all he wanted to play with! I had a terrible time convincing the kid to sit still and open the rest of his presents! I was just giving them to him in rapid fire succession, trying to avoid a tantrum but also trying to get him to get them all opened! He will enjoy ALL of the presents he got but I think he was a little overwhelmed with all of the people and all of the presents. I wasn't expecting so many people to bring presents, so that was really nice of everybody!

He didn't want to stop playing and do his birthday cake/candle blowing out, so to avoid a tantrum I just told everyone to eat cake without the candle/song thing. Then of course he wanted to eat cake (because, really, what kid doesn't like cake!). Oh and speaking of cake, the lid of the cake I made touched the frosting and...it got all mashed up and so you couldn't even read what it said! I was kinda bummed. But at least I got a nice picture of it before the party. And C can't read anyway so it probably doesn't matter too much. :)

He had a good time playing with our friend's daughter, Karley, who is 3 1/2. She is pretty much leaps and bounds ahead of him in terms of her language and social skills, and it was really fun to see them interact. I wish C had more friends close to his age. Almost all the kids we play with are Y's age, and even though it's only a year and a few month's difference in age it is a BIG difference in terms of the things they are capable of. Of course he has fun with his little friends but I wish he could have more big friends to play with! I'm glad he gets to play with kids his own age at church at least.

I ordered four 16-inch pizzas, and made 2 cake mixes (one cake and the rest cupcakes). At the end of the party there was exactly one piece of pizza (which I ate) and one piece of cake (which I also ate). Clean up only took a few minutes because I used disposable plates and things (yaaaaay for disposable table service!) and it was really nice.

And my house is still relatively clean, so I am thankful for that.

Our friend Kim let us borrow her a schedule tool that she made for her daughter, with activities and things on it that they can do. I am excited to make some new activities for the things that go along with some of the things C got for his birthday and so we can use the schedule and play with all his fun things! Woot woot!

I need to do better at creating some amount of structure and spending more time with the boys. They play so well by themselves that I sometimes tend to just get lazy and let them play. I think it's good that they can do that and it helps them use their imagination and all that good stuff, but I also think that I need to interact with them more.

Can I just say that it is 9:00 a.m. (this is the day after the "spring ahead") and the boys JUST woke up! I hope they can continue sleeping in until...say...at least 7. That would be awesome. I think the time change will help because it will stay darker in the morning. No crying this morning when they woke up, for the first time in a long time. Yay! :)